HISTORY OF

HISTORY OF

HISTORY OF

HISTORY OF BRIT

BRIT

BRIT

BRITISH LITERATURE

ISH LITERATURE

ISH LITERATURE

ISH LITERATURE

Lecturer: mgr BARBARA BRAID

COLLEGIUM BALTICUM

Szczecin ul. Mieszka I 61c

2010/2011

The course is designed for the second year intramural students

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
The purpose of the course is to provide students with the basic overview of the history of the British literature. It
will cover the literature produced in Britain, from the introduction of Old English by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th
century to the present. It is also the aim of the course to develop the skill of reading, analysing and criticising the
works of literature.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:
By the end of the course, the students will be expected to:

•

posses the knowledge of the essential elements of the course: characteristics of the literary periods,
philosophical and cultural background of the periods, certain authors and their literary works;

•

present the skill of analytical and critical reading of the literature;

•

present the skill of identifying the crucial characteristics of an epoch in the given representative work.

CLASS ACTIVITIES AND PROCEDURES:
The course is structured chronologically, from the Anglo-Saxon period to the contemporary times. The class will
include a critical analysis of a text or texts in a form of a discussion, with focus on characteristic features of literary
works in a given literary period.
The students are required to:

•

attend the classes (only 2 absences, including a sick leave, in a semester are permissible);

•

read the assigned texts in advance and be able to discuss them;

•

take active participation in discussions about the assigned texts;

•

take a class test on the texts discussed, after each new set of texts are covered (10 in a semester).

In case of 5 or more class tests failed, the student will be given an additional test covering the whole semester, but
which can only be marked ‘ndst’ or ‘dst.’

TEXTBOOKS:
Abrams, M. H. et. al. The Northon Anthology of English Literature. 4th Ed. New York and London: W. W. Norton and
Company, 1979.
Allen, Derek R. (et. al.) Words, Words, Words. A History and Anthology of Literatures in English. Volumes 1-3. Milan:
La Spiga Languages, 2003.
Carter, Ronald and John McRae. The Routledge History of Literature in English. Britain and Ireland. London:
Routledge, 1997.
Daiches, David. A Critical History of English Literature. London: Mandaryn, 1960.
Dobson, Michael and Stanley Wells, eds. The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. Oxford: OUP, 2001.
Drabble, Margaret (ed.) The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Sixth Edition. Oxford: OUP, 2000.
Ferguson, Margaret, Mary Jo Salter and Jon Stallworthy. The Northon Anthology of Poetry. 5th Ed. New York and
London: W. W. Norton and Company, 2005.
Glencoe Literature Course. Glencoe McGraw & Hill: 2002.
Mroczkowski, Przemysław. Historia literatury angielskiej. Zarys. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1986.
Quinn, Edward. A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms. 2nd Ed. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006.
Sikorska, Lilianna. An Outline History of English Literature. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 1996.
Zbierski, Henryk. Historia literatury angielskiej. Poznań: Oficyna Wydawnicza Atena, 2002.

STRUCTURE OF THE COURSE

The titles in bold represent the longer texts (dramas and novels)

1.

Anglo-Saxon literature - Beowulf (fragments); The Dream of the Rood

2.

Medieval literature - Geoffrey Chaucer: Canterbury Tales: General Prologue, Everyman (fragments)

3.

Elizabethan poetry - William Shakespeare: Sonnets 18, 20, 73 & 130

4.

Elizabethan drama - William Shakespeare: The Tempest

5.

Metaphysical poetry - John Donne: A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning, George Herbert: The Collar, Andrew

Marvell: To His Coy Mistress

6.

18

th

century in literature - Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels (fragments), Thomas Grey: Elegy Written in the

Country Churchyard

7.

Pre-Romantic literature – Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto

8.

Romantic poetry - William Blake: The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience,

William Wordsworth: I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud, John Keats: La Belle Dame Sans Merci, George Gordon

Byron: She Walks in Beauty

9.

Romantic prose - Mary Shelley: Frankenstein

10.

Victorian prose - Emily Brontё: Wuthering Heights

11.

Victorian poetry - Alfred Tennyson: The Lady of Shalott, Robert Browning: Porphyria’s Lover and My Last

Duchess, Dante Gabriel Rossetti: The Blessed Damozel

12.

Edwardian prose – Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

13.

Modernist literature - Wilfred Owen: Dulce Et Decorum Est, William Butler Yeats: The Second Coming, T. S.

Eliot: The Love Song of J. A. Prufrock; Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway (fragments)

14.

Contemporary literature - William Golding: Lord of the Flies

15.

The summary of the semester