ENGL 3320

The World Turned Upside Down: Literature and Revolution

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2020-2021.

In Hamilton, Lin Manuel Miranda marks the victory of the American Revolution with a ballad originally sung in Britain and associated with parliament's beheading of the king in 1649. In this course, we will examine the literary representation of revolution as both a liberatory and ghastly "overturning" of hierarchical order from the Puritan revolution to British responses to the American and French revolutions. Reading poetry, drama, fiction, and political essays, we will especially focus on the way sexual and familial tyranny and terror in sentimental and Gothic literature figure socio-political violence in upside-down worlds. We will also discuss revolutions in literature and their overturning and remaking of genres and forms. Authors include Milton, Behn, Defoe, Burke, Paine, Brockden Brown, Wollstonecraft and Godwin.

When Offered Fall.

Breadth Requirement (HB)
Distribution Category (CA-AS, ALC-AS)

Comments This course may be used as one of the three pre-1800 courses required of English majors.

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