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Course description

The eighteenth century is often regarded as the moment at which modern literary culture begins. The novel, travel fiction, courtesan memoirs, the newspaper essay, the ballad opera, the mock epic, the revolutionary novel and the novel of sensibility are among the new modes of writing to surface in the period. This course studies their emergence, as well as the revival of traditional forms, in the context of Britain's increasing global power and prestige. Authors include Pope, Gay, Defoe, Richardson, Sterne, Godwin, Inchbald, Captain Cook and other key writers of the period.