This course aims to not only inform students of major works in British literature from the Restoration period to the early twentieth century but also trace the historical development of liberal subject along with scientific discoveries, political and social revolutions, and imperial and colonial expansion. We will discuss the conflict between liberty and subjection in works by Mary Astell, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Blake, John Keats, Mary Shelley, J. S. Mill, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Alfred Tennyson, John Ruskin, Charles Darwin, George Bernard Shaw, Virginia Woolf, Rebecca West, Mary Borden, Wilfred Owen, and T. S. Eliot. Students are expected to produce weekly reading journals, three short close-reading pieces, and one multimodal adaptation. Through close reading and critical analysis, students will learn how to interpret literary works within specific contexts and how to associate literature studies with larger social concerns.