English 10A-1 - Spring, 2014

Literature in English I: to 1700

Class Information

Instructor: Waters, Claire
CRN: 22424
Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Location: 90 SS/Hum.

Description

The aim of this course is prepare you for advanced study in English literature. Our focus will be literature written in English before 1700, a period of historical, political, social, and linguistic transformation. Looking at poetry, prose, and drama, we will consider how texts from the early British and Colonial American traditions represent contact with unfamiliar worlds and traditions and attempt to synthesize differing religious and cultural modes, with particular attention to language variety and the emergence of English as a literary language; the medieval and early modern synthesis of traditions and contexts from the biblical to the Celtic, the classical to the courtly; and national identity and England’s relationship to other worlds both historical (Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and especially Colonial America) and imagined (Utopia, Faerie). Of paramount importance will be students’ development of skills in reading, discussing, and writing about the literature. Specifically, we will work on three kinds of skills: (1) seeing a big picture by spanning time and surveying the globe to track the emergence, development, and dissemination of the English language and its literatures; (2) focusing carefully on key literary texts and some strategies for interpreting them, particularly through close reading of poetry, prose, and drama; (3) positioning your interpretation of a literary text in relation to other scholarship on it; and (4) the creation of an effective argument that attends to evidence, organization, logic, and style. Texts will be available in a single course reader.

Grading

Short exercises, discussion questions, and quizzes, 15%; one close-reading paper of 1200 words (about 4 pages), 15%; a research paper of 1800 words (about 6 pages), 25%; class attendance and participation, 15%; midterm, 10%; final exam, 20%.

Texts

The Dream of the Rood
Sir Orfeo
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Middle English lyrics
Utopia , Sir Thomas More
Renaissance lyrics, Donne, Herbert, and others
A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare
Account of Mary Rowlandson
Second Shepherds' Play