ENGL 260-01/02, Survey of British Literature I, Spring 2011

Abstract

This course will introduce you to a selection of works of British literature from the Middle Ages through the eighteenth century. Our syllabus will cover a period of roughly a thousand years—a great swathe of time during which Britain, along with its languages and literatures, underwent a series of transformative changes. We will explore those changes and their part in British history through the poetry, prose, drama, and fiction of authors both still well known and now somewhat more obscure. The course will take a number of different critical approaches to these texts even as we more broadly consider the social, political, and economic circumstances of their production. Through lectures, class discussion, and written assignments, this class will develop your knowledge of British literary history as well as your critical thinking and compositional skills.