This course offers a brief tour of six hundred years of British literature. We'll limit ourselves to select things—poems and novels, a play and some essays—which readers over the centuries have regarded as literary touchstones. They are, mostly, brief works selected to introduce topics in literary, social, and political history and the evolving literary forms writers used to develop them. The class format will be lecture-with-discussion, so regular attendence will be required. Course requirements include: 3 short commentaries (50%) a 6-8 pp critical paper building on the commentaries (25%) and a final examination (25%). Students needing accomodations should see me at the beginning of term. All work should be your own (vide honor system). Students are always welcome to stop by during office hours to discuss the readings and writing assignments.
Texts: At the request of students, instead of ordering the Norton Anthology of English Literature: Major Authors as our textbook—it is expensive and we don't use much of it—I have linked to etexts for material in the public domain. However, I suggest that you order a second-hand copy of the Norton Anthology since it includes helpful things like headnotes and footnotes, line numbers, and other bells and whistles. Any edition will do, and since it has been around for more than half a century older editions may be had for almost nothing. I recommend the two-volume complete (not major authors) edition in hardback. Link to Norton
Keep abreast of the reading assignments; lectures will be dull, not to say incomprehensible, to those who haven't done the reading. Since there is minimal time to spend on author biographies, I also recommend reading the author introductions in Norton or Wikipedia articles. Most of these writers led remarkable lives and knowing a little of their histories will help with comprehension and remembering names, titles, and dates.
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Week 1 (August 28) Introduction
Week 1 (August 30) Gawain and the Green Knight.
Week 1 (September 1) Gawain and the Green Knight.
Week 2 (4 September—no class, Labor Day)
Week 2 (6 September) Chaucer, Gawain and the Green Knight; Chaucer, Canterbury Tales: "Wife of Bath's Prologue"
Week 2 (8 September) Chaucer, Canterbury Tales: "Wife of Bath's Tale."
Week 3 (11 September) Wyatt, "Whoso Lists to Hunt", Shakespeare, "Sonnet 18," Marlowe, "The Passionate Shepherd," Raleigh, "The Nymph's Reply"
Week 3 (13 September) Donne, "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"
Week 3 (15 September) Marvell, "To his Coy Mistress"
Week 4 (18 September) 2-3 pp. commentary due
Week 4 (18 September) Jonson, "Inviting a Friend to Supper," "Still to be Neat," Herrick, "Delight in Disorder," "To the Virgins," Lovelace, "To Lucasta, going to the Wars," "The Grasshopper"
Week 4 (20 September) Paradise Lost: Book I
Week 4 (22 September) Paradise Lost: Book I
Week 5 (25 September) Paradise Lost: Book IX
Week 5 (27 September) Paradise Lost: Book IX; Congreve, The Way of the World Act I.
Week 5 (29 September) Congreve, The Way of the World II-III.
Week 6 (2 October) Congreve, The Way of the World IV-V.
Week 6 (4 October) Addison and Steele: "The Spectator, Nos 1-3, 7-11."
Week 6 (6 October) Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea: "A Nocturnal Reverie," Gray: "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,"
Week 7 (9 October) "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
Week 7 (11 October) Collins: "Ode to Evening," Blake: "The Ecchoing Green."
Week 7 13 OCTOBER FALL BREAK
Week 8 (16 October) Burns: "To a Mouse" Austen: Pride and Prejudice.
Week 8 (18 October) Austen: Pride and Prejudice.
Week 8 (20 October) Austen: Pride and Prejudice.
Week 9 (23 October) 2-3 pp. commentary due
Week 9 (23 October) Austen: Pride and Prejudice.
Week 9 (25 October) Austen: Pride and Prejudice.
Week 9 (27 October) Austen: Pride and Prejudice.
Week 10 (30 October) Wordsworth: We Are Seven," "The Solitary Reaper," "Tintern Abbey"
Week 10 (1 November) "Tintern Abbey," Shelley: "Ozymandias."
Week 10 (3 November) Keats: "Ode on a Grecian Urn."
Week 11 (6 November) Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol.
Week 11 (8 November) Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol.
Week 11 (10 November) Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol.
Week 12 (13 November) 2-3 pp. commentary due
Week 12 (13 November) Conrad: Heart of Darkness.
Week 12 (15 November) Conrad: Heart of Darkness.
Week 12 (17 November) Conrad: Heart of Darkness.
(Thanksgiving break 18-26 November)
Week 13 (27 November) Tennyson: "The Lotos-eaters," Browning: "My Last Duchess."
Week 13 (29 November) T. S. Eliot: "Tradition and the Individual Talent," "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
Week 13 (1 December) Sayers: Gaudy Night
Week 14 (4 December) 8-10 pp. Essay due
Week 14 (4 December) Sayers: Gaudy Night
Week 14 (6 December) Sayers: Gaudy Night
Week 14 (8 December) Sayers: Gaudy Night
Week 15 (11 December) Sayers: Gaudy Night
Week 15 (13 December) Sayers: Gaudy Night
Final Examination: December 15, 1:05 PM