EH 335: British Literature Survey
This course is a survey of British Literature from the Anglo-Saxon period to the twentieth century. As we read through this literature we will work to understand its many literary genres and forms, its place in historical context, its social, political, and religious ramifications, and its periodization. We will further work towards a basic understanding of manuscript and print history in Britain, as well as some issues of the English language as it moved toward and beyond standardization.
HW= homework for following class
Calendar
Jan 6 Syllabus; Anglo-Saxon England/English
HW: Anglo-Saxon Literature (p.29-), “The Dream of the Rood” (p.32-), “The Wanderer” (p. 107-); “The Wife’s Lament” (p.110-)
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Jan 11 Anglo-Saxon Poetry
HW: “Anglo-Norman Romance” (p.119-), Marie de France and “Lanval” (p. 120-)
Jan 13 Romance and Marie De France
HW: “Geoffrey Chaucer” (p. 188-); “The General Prologue” (p. 193-); Summary: The Knight’s Tale and “The Miller’s Prologue and Tale” (p. 213-)
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Jan 18 no class
Jan 20 Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales
HW: “Mystery Plays” (p. 299-); “The Second Shepherd’s Play” (p. 300-)
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Jan 25 Mystery Plays
HW: “Thomas Wyatt the Elder” (p. 382-) and “The long love that in my thought doth harbor” with Petrarch’s “Rima 140” (p. 383-); “Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey” (p. 386) and “Love, that doth reign and live within my thought” (p. 387-)
Jan 27 early modern sonneteers
HW: Study for Exam
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Feb. 1 Exam 1
HW: “The English Bible” (p. 388); “1 Corinthians 13” from each version (p. 389-); “Elizabeth I” (p. 393-) and “Speech to the Troops at Tilbury” (p. 396-) and “The ‘Golden Speech’” (p. 396-)
Feb 3 Religion and Sovereignty
HW: “Edmund Spenser” (p. 399-) Amoretti Sonnet 1 (p. 475); Sir Philip Sidney excerpts from “Defense of Poesy” (CANVAS)
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Feb 8 Spenser and Sidney
HW: “Christopher Marlowe” (p. 498-); “Doctor Faustus” (p. 500) and play (p. 501-)
Feb 10 The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
HW: “William Shakespeare” (p. 535-); Sonnets 20, 116, 129, 130, 147 (p. 542-); Macbeth Act I (CANVAS)
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Feb 15 Shakespeare sonnets and begin Macbeth
HW: complete OED assignment; Macbeth (CANVAS)
Feb 17 OED assignment due; Macbeth
HW: finish Macbeth (CANVAS)
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Feb 22 Macbeth
HW: Read “John Donne” (p.666-) and “The Flea” (p. 669-), “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” (p. 679), “Satire 3” (p. 686-); “Meditation 17” (p. 697-);“George Herbert” (p. 730-) and “The Altar” (p. 732) and “The Collar” (p. 735”); “Robert Herrick” (p. 739-) and “Corinna’s Going A-Maying” (p. 741-) and “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” (p. 743-)
Feb 24 Donne, Herbert, Herrick
HW: complete scansion assignment; “Aemilia Lanyer” (p. 699-) and “The Description of Cookham” (p. 702-); “Ben Jonson” (p. 707-) and “To Penshurst” (714-)
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Feb 29 Scansion Assignment Due; Country House Poems
HW: “John Milton” (p. 768-) and excerpts from Areopagitica (p. 786-); Paradise Lost Book I (p. 800-)
Mar 2 Milton
HW: study for Exam 2
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Mar 7 Exam 2
HW: “Aphra Behn” (p. 1004-); Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave (p. 1010-)
Mar 9: Aphra Behn and Oroonoko
HW: finish Oroonoko (if you have not); “John Dryden” (p. 961-) and excerpts from “Criticism” (p. 995-)
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Mar 14 Oroonoko and Dryden’s “Criticism”
HW: complete Paper 1;
Mar 16 no class
HW: for the Monday after Spring Break, read “Alexander Pope” (p. 1205-) and “The Rape of the Lock” (p. 1226-), “Samuel Johnson” (p. 1283-); “Rambler No. 4 [On Fiction]” (p. 1327-); “Rambler No. 60” [Biography]” (p. 1331)
Friday Mar 18 Paper 1 due
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Mar 21-26 Spring Break
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Mar 28 Alexander Pope; Samuel Johnson on “Fiction” and “Biography”
HW: “William Wordsworth” (p. 124-); “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” (p. 131-); Wordsworth article (CANVAS)
Mar 30 Romanticism; Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”
HW: “Samuel Taylor Coleridge” (p. 250-); “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (p. 256-); “George Gordon, Lord Byron” (p. 312-); “She Walks in Beauty” (p. 318); “When We Two Parted” (p. 319-); “Darkness” (p. 320-)
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Apr 4 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; Byron’s “She Walk in Beauty”
HW: “Percy Bysshe Shelley” (p. 376-); “From A Defence of Poetry” (p. 431-); John Keats” (p. 466-); “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” (p. 469-); “On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again” (p. 476-); “When I have fears that I may cease to be” (p. 476-); “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (p. 494-)
Apr 6 Shelley’s “Defense” (remember Sidney’s Defense!) and Keats “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
HW: “Alfred, Lord Tennyson” (p. 613-); “Ulysses” (p. 624-); “Locksley Hall” (p. 628-); “Robert Browning” (p. 709-); “My Last Duchess” (p. 716-); “Andrea del Sarto” (p. 738-)
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Apr 11 Tennyson’s “Ulysses” and Browning’s “My Last Duchess”
HW: “William Butler Yeats” (p. 1057-); “Easter, 1916” (p. 1068-); “The Wild Swans at Coole” (p. 1071-); “Sailing to Byzantium” (p. 1077-); “James Joyce” (p. 1221); “Araby” (p. 1223-)
Apr 13 Irish Nationalism; Yeat’s “Sailing to Byzantium” and Joyce’s “Araby”
HW: “T.S. Eliot” (p. 1298-); “The Waste Land” (p. 1305-)
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Apr 18 T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”
HW: read MArgaret Atwood, Death by Landscape (p. 1485-)
Apr 20 Atwood’s Death by Landscape
Paper 2 Due Friday April 22
Exam 3 Monday April 25 3-5:30pm