An introduction to the literature and culture of the second half of the eighteenth century, often known as the Age of Johnson. We will try to place the readings in their historical and intellectual contexts, and will chart the great shifts in sensibility between the so-called Augustanism of Swift and Pope in the 1720s to the Romanticism of the 1800s. We'll stop along the way to explore sentimental novels, Gothic and Oriental tales, comedies of manners, feminist tracts, and prophetic poetry. Readings will include works by Thomas Gray, Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Tobias Smollett, Horace Walpole, Mary Wollstonecraft, and William Blake.