Access 2017-18
ENGLISH LITERATURE ( d)
Thursdays 10.00 am – 12.00 noon
(Please note: this information is provisional and could be subject to change. )
Course Outline
Course aims and structure: This course will provide an introduction to the study (at
university level) of poetry, prose and drama written in English. The course will have an
overall theme of ‘The Identity of the Individual’. In the first semester we will study the novel
The History of Mr Polly by H.G. Wells and a selection of poems: ‘The Collar’ by George
Herbert; ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ by T.S. Eliot; ‘Remember’ by Christina
Rossetti; ‘Penumbra’ by Amy Lowell; ‘I Look into My Glass’ by Thomas Hardy and ‘The
Face in the Mirror’ by Robert Graves. In the second semester we will study the
Shakespeare play Julius Caesar and the short stories ‘A Jury of Her Peers’ by Susan
Glaspell and ‘A Bottle of Perrier’ by Edith Wharton. (Note: the poems are all quite short
and will be available on class handouts)
Class format: The course will take the form of weekly two-hour meetings, generally
consisting of a lecture and seminar. The lecture format will enable the delivery of
information relating to the various texts under discussion, and will encourage the
development of skills relating to note-taking, while the seminar format will enable students
to engage in group discussion and develop skills in this area. These formats constitute
the main styles of teaching likely to be encountered at university.
Required Class Work: Each semester students will produce 2 written essays (to be
submitted on a date decided by the tutor), making four essays in all. You will also
complete a short written analytical exercise at the start of the first semester which will not
be formally assessed but for which you will receive feedback. The final class meeting will
take the form of a one hour exam, and the preceding class will be a revision session for
this. In the exam students will answer a total of three questions: one on poetry, one on
drama (i.e. Shakespeare) and one on prose fiction.
Suggested reading: You would benefit from acquainting yourself with examples of
poetry, prose and drama before you begin the course. This should additionally help you
to begin to develop your own study practices, as well as enabling you to estimate how
long it will take you to read texts (something which will help you with time management
as you progress through the course, for example!) Any recent anthology of modern
English literature (such as Oxford, Cambridge, Penguin, or Norton) should enable you to
encounter different forms and genres of writing.