ENG 204 Survey of English Literature: Beowulf to Milton
Lecture Hours: 4
Credits: 4
Surveys selected representative English literature from its beginnings in the Anglo-Saxon period through Milton (c. 1660). Situates literature as the product of specific historical contexts. Requires careful reading. Fosters thoughtful interpretation, analysis, and appreciation of literature. Emphasizes genre, structure, characterization, imagery, and theme. Uses critical essays to explore assigned texts and to examine issues of class, gender, race, nation, imperialism, government, and the “other” in these texts and in this time period.
Prerequisite: Placement into WR 121Z ; or WR 115 or higher, with a grade of C or better; or consent of instructor.
Student Learning Outcomes:
- Name the major authors and texts and explain the major ideas and themes in English Literature from circa 700 to 1660.
- Read a literary work at a literal level: accurately describe genre, subject, structure, style, theme, character, and setting; understand older forms of English in annotated texts.
- Read a literary work at a figurative level: recognize literary devices and identify their function within a particular text and among different texts.
- Read a literary work at a critical level: question, interpret, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate.
- Situate literature from the various periods covered in this course within its socio-historical and biographical contexts. Explain the importance of race, nation, class, gender, time, and place in shaping a given text.
- Describe the cultural, social, and political functions of literature.
- Identify the cultural, social, political contexts that give rise to literary critical lenses and be able to identify how different lenses affect interpretation of texts.
- Use discussion to create reading communities within the classroom (online or face-to face).
- Articulate and defend plausible interpretations of texts and the ideas of major critics.
- Examine the way their own experiences, expectations, and historical moment shape their readings for texts; employ literary theory to identify their approaches to literature and understand other approaches.
- Write critical analyses of literary works, including at least one analytical essay that uses MLA style documentation and paper format.
Statewide General Education Outcomes:
- Interpret and engage in the Arts and Letters, making use of the creative process to enrich the quality of life.
- Critically analyze values and ethics within a range of human experience and expression to engage more fully in local and global issues.
Cultural Literacy (DPR) Outcome:
- Identify and analyze complex practices, values, and beliefs and the culturally and historically defined meanings of difference.
Content Outline
- Close Reading
- Attention to detail
- Note-taking and highlighting
- Responding to texts informally and formally
- Historical and Social Context
- Definitions: England and Englishness
- Roman Britain
- Anglo-Saxon Britain
- The heroic world
- Christianity
- Viking invasions
- Anglo-Norman Britain
- Medieval England
- Feudalism
- Class structure
- Crusades
- Pilgrimages
- Renaissance England
- Court culture
- London and the market economy
- Protestant reformation
- Luther
- Sola fides
- Sola scriptura
- Henry VIII
- Print culture
- Humanism
- Elizabeth I
- The king’s two bodies
- Cult of love
- Problem of succession
- Theatre
- The Enlightenment
- Conditions of publication and copyright
- Literacy
- Gender
- Class
- Religion
- Literary Terminology and Language
- Old English
- Regional language and literary forms
- Middle English
- Early Modern English
- Methods of Literary Analysis
- Discussion
- Convention of the literary essay
- Establishing a thesis
- Incorporating details from a text, including quotes
- Research
- Scholarly sources
- Norton online materials
- Incorporating and documenting information from other sources
- MLA format and style
- The “Canon”
- Definitions of “major” authors and works
- Who decides what is English Literature?
- Literary Periods, Movements, and Genres
- Medieval poetry
- Medieval epic
- Beowulf
- Conflict between heroic and Christian worldviews
- Concepts of wyrd, dom, wergild, weorÞra
- Elegiac sympathy
- Oral tradition
- Translations
- Apposition
- Kennings
- Alliteration
- Medial caesura
- Litotes
- Synecdoche
- Medieval romance
- Roman
- Lay
- Arthurian legend
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- Translatio imperii
- Chivalry
- Psychological interiority
- TrawΦe (ME truth, fidelity, loyalty, trustworthy)
- Alliterative revival
- Bob and wheel
- Medieval lyric
- Connection to riddles
- Literary devices also found in medieval epic
- Medieval drama
- Mystery plays
- Morality plays
- Allegory
- Issues of performance and audience
- Other medieval literature, including The Canterbury Tales, histories, and spiritual autobiography (such as the visions of Julian of Norwich and The Book of Margery Kempe)
- History
- Annals
- Foundation myths
- Historicity
- Spiritual autobiography
- Narration
- Characterization
- Gender and Sexuality
- Affective Piety
- The Canterbury Tales
- Chaucer
- Frame narrative
- Vernacular
- The Prologue
- Felawshipe
- The host
- Literary forms found in The Canterbury Tales (such as The Wife of Bath’s Tale, The Pardoner’s Tale, The Miller’s Tale, and The Nun’s Priest’s Tale)
- Dramatic monologue
- Antifeminist satire
- Breton lay
- Arthurian romance
- Didactic sermon
- Allegory
- Fabliau
- Bestiary
- Dream lore
- Spiritual exegesis
- Other concepts and terms
- Sexual ideology
- Stock character
- The liar’s paradox
- Gentilesse
- Maistrye
- Renaissance poetry
- The sonnet
- Italian/Petrarchan sonnet
- English/Shakespearean sonnet
- Common themes
- Sonnet sequence
- Blank verse
- Iambic pentameter
- Rhyme scheme
- Scansion
- Copiousness
- Literary “figures”
- Shakespeare
- Spenser
- The Faerie Queene
- Experimentation with language and form
- Political allegory
- Symbolism
- Other renaissance literature, including letters, essays, and speeches (such as Elizabeth I’s “Golden Speech”)
- The monarchy
- Empire
- Utopia
- Elizabethan Drama
- 17th-century poetry
- Metaphysical poetry
- Meter
- Metaphysical conceit
- Donne
- Wroth
- Herbert
- Crashaw
- Vaughan
- Jonson
- Cavalier lyricists
- Marvell
- Milton
- L’Allegro and Il Pensoroso
- Paradise Lost
- Epic
- Greek and Roman epic forms
- Epic simile
- Sources and allusions
- Invocation
- In medias res
- Elevated diction
- Free will
- Who is the hero?
- Accounts of the execution of Charles I
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