Discuss one significant social change (rise of the middle class, introduction of the printing press, the Reformation, global travel and influences, rise of wealth) and how this change was reflected in the literature. For example, perhaps what passed for the “average” English citizen in Chaucer’s time illustrated feudalism, while in Shakespeare’s day, commoners were rising higher in social classes by acquiring wealth and status. How is each reflected in the works of the writers who spoke for their time? Or the whole idea of the divine right of kings: how did this perception change over our semester (think of Hrothgar and Beowulf vs. Arthur vs. King Lear).
