British Literary History

Syllabus

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 leaving us time to introduce some topics in literary, social, and political history which influenced literature in various ways, and time to introduce some themes in literary criticism. The class format with be lecture-with-discussion, so regular attendence will be required. Course requirements include: 3 short commentaries (50%) a 6-8 pp paper (20%) and a final examination (30%). Readings are availabe at the books store and online.

Schedule

Week 1 (January 20) Introduction

Week 2 (January 25-27) Gawain and the Green Knight

Week 3 (Feb 1) Canterbury Tales: Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale

Week 3 (Feb 3) Wyatt, "Whoso Lists to Hunt," Shakespeare, "Sonnet 18," Marlowe, "The Passionate Shepherd," Raleigh, "The Nymph's Reply"

Week 4 (February 8) Donne, "A Valediction: forbidding Mourning," Marvell, "To his Coy Mistress"

Week 4 (February 10) 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 5 (February 15) Paradise Lost: Book I

Week 5 (February 17) Paradise Lost: Book IX

Week 6 (February 22-24) Congreve, Way of the World

Week 7 (February 29) Gray: "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College," "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard"

Week 7 (March 2) Collins: "Ode to Evening," Blake: "The Ecchoing Green," Burns: "To a Mouse"

(Spring break March 5-13)

Week 8 (March 14) Pride and Prejudice

Week 9 (March 21) Pride and Prejudice

Week 10 (March 28) Wordsworth: "We are Seven," "The Solitary Reeper," "Tintern Abbey"

Week 10 (March 30) Shelley: "Ozymandias," Keats: "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

Week 11 (April 4) Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol

Week 12 (April 11) Tennyson: "The Lotus-Eaters," Browning: "My last Duchess"

Week 12 (April 13) Yeats: "The Stolen Child," "Easter, 1916," "The Second Coming"

8-10 pp. Essay due 18 April

Week 13 (April 18-20) Conrad: Heart of Darkness

Week 14 (April 25) T. S. Eliot: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "Tradition and the Individual Talent"

Week 14 (April 27) Sayers: Gaudy Night

Week 15 (May 2-4) Sayers: Gaudy Night

Final Examination: May 9, 2:05 PM