Summer 2004

E f316K • Masterworks of Literature: British

Course Description

This course examines selected works by British writers that represent, chronologically, literary, socio-political, and religious diversity as well as "scholastic greatness." Discussions will include genre appropriations, ideological formations, and some theoretical grounding of both texts and context. For example, the dominant thematic focus in course readings centers on the so-called “other;” the outcast or the outsider. In other words, we will ponder how nations and/or societies appropriate the other in proportion to itself and its own mores. From assorted monstrosities, such as Beowulf’s Grendel, Shakespeare’s Caliban (The Tempest), Frankenstein’s monster, and Olaudah Equiano’s enslavement, we witness the writer’s struggle to impose order upon a chaotic world and to construct a valid self against an opposite, undesirable “other.”

Grading Policy

In-class Essay Exam I 30%
In-class Essay Exam II 30%
Brief critical paper (3 pages) 40%

Regular attendance is required. More than four absences from regular classes will be sufficient grounds for failure in the course. These absences will include all sickness, deaths of relatives, and other emergencies. If you are more than five minutes late of leave before class ends (without permission), you will be counted absent for that class. You are responsible for all work covered in your absence.

Texts

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 7th edition
William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Bantam Books, 1988
The Classic Slave Narratives, Gates, ed., Penguin, 1987
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, Signet, 1983

back