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 an essay—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
Week 1 (January 17) Introduction
Week 1 (January 19) Gawain and the Green Knight
Week 2 (January 24) Gawain and the Green Knight
Week 2 (January 26) Chaucer, Canterbury Tales: "Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale"
Week 3 (January 31) Wyatt, "Whoso Lists to Hunt", Shakespeare, "Sonnet 18," Marlowe, "The Passionate Shepherd," Raleigh, "The Nymph's Reply"
Week 3 (February 2) Donne, "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," Marvell, "To his Coy Mistress"
Week 4 (February 7) 2-3 pp. commentary due
Week 4 (February 7) 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 (February 9) Paradise Lost: Book I
Week 5 (February 14) Paradise Lost: Book IX
Week 5 (February 16) Congreve, The Way of the World I-II
Week 6 (February 21) Congreve, The Way of the World III-V
Week 6 (February 23) Gray: "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College," "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
Week 7 (February 28) Collins: "Ode to Evening," Blake: "The Ecchoing Green," Burns: "To a Mouse"
Week 7 (March 2) 2-3 pp. commentary due
Week 7 (March 2) Austen: Pride and Prejudice
(Spring break March 4-12)
Week 8 (March 14-16) Austen: Pride and Prejudice
Week 9 (March 21) Austen: Pride and Prejudice
Week 9 (March 23) Wordsworth: We Are Seven," "The Solitary Reaper," "Tintern Abbey"
Week 10 (March 28) Shelley: "Ozymandias," Keats: "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
Week 10 (March 30) Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol
Week 11 (April 4) 2-3 pp. commentary due
Week 11 (April 4) Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol
Week 11 (April 6) Tennyson: "The Lotos-eaters," Browning: "My Last Duchess"
Week 12 (April 11) Yeats: "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," "Easter, 1916," "The Second Coming"
Week 12 (April 13) Conrad: Heart of Darkness
Week 13 (April 18) Conrad: Heart of Darkness
Week 13 (April 20) T. S. Eliot: "Tradition and the Individual Talent," "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
Week 13 (April 25) 8-10 pp. Essay due
Week 14 (April 25-27) Sayers: Gaudy Night
Week 15 (May 2) Sayers: Gaudy Night
Final Examination: May 10, 1:05 PM