Terms like “self” and “subjectivity” and the question of their historical or transhistorical meaning remain at the heart of literary study in the pre-modern period. With those issues in mind, this seminar focuses on the Renaissance “I.” We begin with some classical and medieval precursors and with the subject of literal self-portraiture. Then we turn to the real business of the class: readings in Petrarch, Montaigne, and Shakespeare-the first two being the great European masters of the first person, the last said to have buried the first person in the voices of his characters.
