EN 251: British Literature I
Spring Semester 2010
Section A: Tuesday and Friday 9:30-10:45
Section B: Tuesday and Friday 12:30-1:45
Syllabus
Subject to revision
(All readings are in the Norton Anthology of English Literature or Shakespeare's The Tempest or Romeo and Juliet, except those highlighted.)
PART ONE: Other Worlds
Tuesday 1/19:Introduction. Selections from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville.
Friday 1/22: Sir Thomas More, Utopia
Response paper 1.
Tuesday 1/26: Utopia, continued
Friday 1/29: Michel
de Montaigne, “Of Cannibals”
Response paper 2.
Tuesday 2/2: Selections from Sir Walter Ralegh, “Empire of Guiana,” and other “discovery” literature
Friday 2/5: Edmund Spenser: Amoretti
15; The Faerie Queene: Letter to Ralegh; Prologue to
Book 1; Book 1, Canto 6; Prologue
to Book 2
Response paper 3.
Tuesday 2/9: John Drayton, "Ode to the Virginia Voyage"; Ben Jonson, "The Masque of Blackness"
Friday 2/12: William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1
Tuesday 2/16: [No class meeting.]
Friday 2/19:The Tempest, Act 2
Sunday 2/21: Performance of Shakespeare's The Tempest at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
Buses will leave campus at approximately 5:00 PM for the 7:30 PM performance.
Tuesday 2/23: The Tempest, Acts 3-4
Friday 2/26: The Tempest, Act 5
Tuesday 3/2: Thesis workshop
Friday 3/5: Mid-Term Exam
[Spring Break]
PART TWO: Beauty, Love, and Sex
Tuesday 3/16: Shakespeare, Selected Sonnets
Friday 3/19: Shakespeare, Selected Sonnets
Response paper 6.
Tuesday 3/23: Shakespeare, Selected Sonnets
Friday 3/26: Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Acts 1-2
Tuesday 3/30: Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Acts 3-5
Response paper 7.
Friday 4/2: [No class meeting.]
Tuesday 4/6: John Donne, Selected Poems
Friday 4/9: John Donne, Selected Poems
Response paper 8.
Tuesday 4/13: John Donne, "Holy Sonnets"
Friday 4/16: Selected poems by Mary Wroth and Katherine Philips
Also read these eight Renaissance poems.
Response paper 9.
April 20-28: Performances of "Romeo & Juliet" by the "R&J Project"
Tuesday 4/20: Andrew Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress”
Friday 4/23: Alexander Pope, The Rape of
the Lock: Letter to Arabella Fermor, and Canto 1
Response paper 10.
Tuesday 4/27:The Rape of the Lock: Cantos 2-3
Friday 4/30: The Rape of the Lock: Cantos 4-5
Tuesday 5/4: Jonathan Swift, “The Lady’s Dressing Room”; Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, “The Reasons that Induced Dr. S. to Write a Poem called The Lady’s Dressing Room”
Wednesday 5/12, 8:00 AM: Final Exam for Section A (Tuesday, Friday 9:30)
Wednesday 5/12, 3:00 PM: Final Exam for Section B (Tuesday, Friday 12:30)