English Course Descriptions

Every semester. Intensive writing course that trains students in expository writing through a number of variable topics. Satisfies first-year English writing requirement.

Every semester. Intensive writing course that trains students in techniques of writing and literary analysis through writing about literature. Readings and format vary in different sections. Satisfies first-year English writing requirement.

Every semester. Freshmen only. Through readings on variable topics, frequent writing assignments, and in-class discussions, the seminar emphasizes reasoned discourse and intellectual community. Does not satisfy first-year writing requirement.

Topics/genres vary. Emphasizes writing and reading as elements in intellectual exploration. Does not satisfy first-year writing requirement.

Studies in poetry and poetic forms. Readings may vary in individual sections, but all sections emphasize critical reading and writing about poetic art. Required for English majors.

An introduction to one or more major authors in English literature, with an emphasis on literary merit and its determination, canon formation, literary movements, and reading strategies.

An exploration of the connections between literature and various other mimetic and expressive arts, including painting, film, theater, music, sculpture, architecture, and dance.

An exploration of literary works (fiction, poetry, drama, essays) that have had or have a popular readership, and an examination of the factors governing popular taste and literary production.

An inquiry into the various expressions of human desire through readings of selected works of literature. Topics may include romance, psychoanalysis, gay and lesbian studies, or the four loves, classically conceived.

An exploration of Anglophone literatures from around the world. Regional focus and selection of texts will vary but may include works by Achebe, Cliff, Friel, Head, Lamming, Rushdie, Silko, Soyinka, Tan, and/or Walcott.

(Same as Theater Studies 215.) General history of the theater from its origins through the Renaissance, focusing on representative dramatic works and on the influence of actor, staging, and audience.

(Same as Theater Studies 216.) General history of the theater from French neoclassicism through the twentieth century, focusing on representative dramatic works and on the influence of actor, staging, and audience.

Prerequisites: English 101 or 181 and written permission of instructor. Practical introductions to various kinds of media and professional writing. May be repeated for credit when topic varies.

Readings in American literature, with attention to cultural and historical backgrounds.

Readings in American literature from 1865 to the present, with attention to cultural and historical backgrounds.

Readings in English literature written up to 1660, with attention to cultural and historical backgrounds.

Readings in English literature written from 1660 to the early twentieth century, with attention to cultural and historical backgrounds.

An introduction to the themes, texts, and methodologies of Irish studies. Required for the Irish studies minor but open to all students.

Introduction to the Old English language and readings of representative prose and poetry.

Prerequisite: English 300. The earliest English epic, read in the original language.

Representative works of Middle English literature from 1100 to 1500, exclusive of Chaucer.

Readings in The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, and selected other works.

Readings in the medieval and subsequent Arthurian tradition.

Representative medieval, Elizabethan, and Jacobean plays with some attention to the development of early English drama.

Selected major plays from the histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances. May be repeated for credit when topic varies.

Selected works of sixteenth-century literature, including authors such as More, Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare.

Selected works of early to mid-seventeenth century literature, with an emphasis on the poetry of Donne, Herbert, Crashaw, Jonson, Herrick, Vaughan, and Marvell.

Selected major works (poetry and prose) with particular emphasis on the early lyric verse, Comus, Paradise Lost, and Samson Agonistes.

Selected works of Restoration and Augustan literature, including authors such as Dryden, Behn, Congreve, Swift, Pope, Addison, and Steele.

Selected works of later eighteenth-century authors such as Johnson, Boswell, Burke, Burns, Blake, and Wollstonecraft.

The development of the English novel in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with representative works by novelists such as Behn, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Burney, and Sterne.

Selected works of Romantic literature with an emphasis on poetry, including poets such as Smith, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats, as well as selections from prose writers such as Hazlitt and DeQuincey.

Representative works from the Victorian period, including poets such as Tennyson, the Brownings, and the Rossettis, and prose writers such as Carlyle, Mill, Ruskin, and Cobbe.

The development of the English novel in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, including authors such as Austen and Scott and significant genres such as the gothic novel and the novel of education.

The development of the British novel during the Victorian period, with representative works by novelists such as the Brontes, Dickens, Eliot, Meredith, Hardy, and Conrad.

Selected works from various genres by twentieth-century authors writing in English such as Yeats, Joyce, Shaw, Eliot, Lawrence, Auden, and Thomas.

The development of the modern English novel with representative works by authors such as Joyce, Forster, Woolf, Lawrence, Waugh, and Naipaul.

An interdisciplinary course which examines the trajectory of Irish writing from the 1890s to the present.

New literatures in English by writers from former British colonies

Selected works from various genres by writers from the 1950s to the present.

Selected American writings of the colonial, revolutionary, and early national periods including authors such as Taylor, Bradstreet, Edwards, Franklin, Wheatley, and Irving.

Selected poetry and prose works of nineteenth century American authors such as Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, Hawthorne, Whitman, Dickinson, Howells, James, and Twain.

Selected works from various genres by twentieth-century American writers such as Frost, Eliot, Stevens, W. C. Williams, Faulkner, Hemingway, O'Neill, Miller, and T. Williams.

The early development of the American novel with representative works by novelists such as Cooper, Hawthorne, Melville, Stowe, Howells, and Twain.

The development of the modern American novel with representative works by novelists such as Wharton, Dreiser, Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, and Bellow.

The traditions of Native American verbal expression in the United States.

The development of Southern literature with representative works by writers such as Mark Twain, Cable, Glasgow, Chesnutt, Faulkner, Welty, O'Connor, and Percy.

(Same as African American Studies 358.) Major literary traditions of African American writers to 1900.

Major literary traditions of African American writers from 1900 to the present.

Structure and history of the English language.

American English from the colonial period to the present; the sources of its vocabulary, the characteristics of its dialects, and the linguistic distinctiveness of its literature.

Modern English grammar, with attention to phonology, morphology, and contemporary models of syntactic description.

Development of modern drama from the late nineteenth century to 1950, including dramatists such as Strindberg, Jarry, Chekhov, Yeats, O'Neill, Witkiewicz, Stein, and Brecht.

Selected works of the theater since 1950, including dramatists such as Beckett, Bernhard, Churchill, Duras, Fornes, Handke, Krötz, and Soyinka.

An introduction to the relationship between literary studies and the study of cultural theory and popular culture.

A study of major satiric literary works, primarily English and American, with some attention to visual and journalistic satire and to theories of satire.

Topics and perspectives vary over successive offerings, such as the political novel and feminist poetics. May be repeated for credit when topic varies.

Selected works of British and American women, including authors such as Browning, Rossetti, Dickinson, Plath, Levertov, Rich, and Lorde. May be repeated for credit when topic varies.

Selected prose works of British and American women, including authors such as Behn, Austen, Woolf, Lessing, Morrison, and Walker. May be repeated for credit when topic varies.

Prerequisites: two courses in literature or the instructor's consent. The relationship of critical theory to various literary forms. Specific material for analysis will vary in successive offerings of this course. May be repeated for credit when topic varies.

Exploration of the ways in which literary writers have developed scientific ideas and scientists have expressed themselves through creative writing.

(Same as Religion 387.) Prerequisites: one course in religion and one in literature or the instructor's consent. Reading and interpretation of literary works (poems, novels, plays) with special attention to the religious issues they address and/or the way they engage the Bible. May be repeated for credit when topic varies.

Literary topics vary. May be repeated for credit when topic varies.

Every semester. Credit variable; may be repeated for a maximum of eight hours of credit. Prerequisite: approval of project by adviser before preregistration. For students wishing to pursue projects of their own design.

Prerequisite: English 311. Studies focus on groups of plays, dramatic genres, Shakespearean criticism, non-dramatic verse, or similar subjects. May be repeated for credit when topic varies.

Studies in poetry. Readings may focus on one or more authors or poetic traditions. May be repeated for credit when topic varies.

Studies in drama and theater history. Readings may focus on one or more authors or on questions of dramaturgy and theater history. May be repeated for credit when topic varies.

Studies in narrative fiction and narrative forms. Readings vary and may focus on one or more authors or on questions of literary art. May be repeated for credit when topic varies.

Studies in literary criticism, the history of criticism, and literary theory. May be repeated for credit when topic varies.

Intensive study of specific literary topics, e.g., questions of form or history, or concentrations on one or more authors or literary movements. May be repeated for credit when topic varies.

Fall semester. Required of honors students (other seniors may enroll with permission of director of undergraduate studies). Readings in the theory and practice of literary criticism. Designed to assist honors students in researching their theses.

Offered every semester. Credit variable; may be repeated for a maximum of eight hours credit. Prerequisite: academic eligibility and approval of honors project director. A tutorial designed primarily to assist honors candidates in preparing their projects.

Every semester. Credit, variable; may be repeated for a maximum of eight hours of credit. Prerequisite: approval of adviser and the director of undergraduate studies. Open to students writing honors theses.

Every semester. Credit, variable; may be repeated for a maximum of twelve hours of credit (does not count toward the major). Open to junior and senior English majors with approval of the coordinator. Applied learning in a supervised work experience, using skills related to the English major.