ENGL 30110 - British Literary Traditions I

Institution:

University of Notre Dame

Subject:

English

Description:

This is an introductory survey of English poetic and prose texts written from the eighth to the mid-seventeenth century. We will study these literary artifacts as imaginative representatives of experience, as cultural maps, and as human messages-in-a-bottle, set afloat in the seas of time. As we read these selections composed in English from past centuries past, we will be looking for both familiarity and strangeness. We will also be forming a sense of the variety and differing uses of literary genres: epic and romance [Beowulf and Sir Gawain & the Green Knight]; short story [Chaucer¿s Canterbury Tales and the Lais of Marie de France]; religious diary [excerpts from the mystical visions of Julian of Norwich in Revelations of Divine Love] and autobiography [from the first written in English, authored by Marjorie Kempe, a laywoman who records her business ventures, her negotiations of marital sex life, her adventures on pilgrimage, and her religious examination by the archbishop as a potential heretic]. We will also read lyric poems from the Old and Middle English periods, and from the Renaissance and seventeenth centuries, including some of Shakespeare¿s sonnets; political satire [excerpts from Utopia, a prose fiction authored by Sir/Saint Thomas More]; and at least on play¿possibly two ¿from the Medieval and/or Renaissance performing tradition. The semester¿s literary pilgrimage will conclude by coming full circle, back to the epic revisited, with selections from Milton¿s Paradise Lost. Regular short quizzes. Midterm & final examinations. Two short (5-10 pp.) Essays, due at mid-term and end-term. Text: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. I, 7th edition.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.nd.edu

Phone Number:

(574) 631-5000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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