Introduction to English Literature

- To provide students with an overview of the history of English literature from its origins to the present day.

- To learn how to establish relationships between the literary production of a given period and the social, cultural and political context in which it was developed.

- To enhance students’ ability to write critically about English literature and to read literary criticism, providing them with the philological instruments and methods necessary to accomplish such tasks.

- To acquire a greater degree of linguistic awareness.

Overview of history of English literature (ideas, ideologies, artistic trends, literary movements, etc.). Overview of the origins of different literary genres and the socio-political conditions under which they were developed. Analysis of the main authors, genres and literary movements, paying attention to

I. Social, economic and cultural context.
II. Material conditions for the production of art: production (the writer´s status…), circulation (oral tradition, printing, publishing), reception.
III. Poetics; the function of literature; self-consciousness of the work of art; current re-readings.
IV. Genres, themes and technical aspects.
V. Other artistic manifestations.

SYLLABUS:

1. Anglo-Saxon Literature. (2 weeks)
2. Medieval Literature. (2 weeks)
3. Renaissance Literature. (2 weeks)
4. Revolution and Restoration Literature. (1 week)
5. Enlightenment. Eighteenth-century literature (2 weeks)
6. Romantic and Early Victorian Literature. (2 weeks)
7. Victorian Literature (1 week)
8. Edwardian and Modernist Literature. (1 week)
9. Post-War and Postmodernist Literature. (1 week)


1. Anglo-Saxon Literature. (2 weeks)

I. Migrations of Saxons and Anglos. Migrations and the values of a heroic society. The Fusion of Two Cultures: Germanic and Christian. The Danelaw.
II & III. Oral literature: Form and Style. The manuscripts.
IV. Epic poetry and the elegy. Celtic myths and legends. Anglo-Saxon Prose. Translations.
V. Sutton Hoo. The Gospels. Lindisfarne. The Book of Kells.


2. Medieval Literature. (2 Weeks)

I. The Norman invasion. Continental Influence. The Crusades. Conflicts between the Church and the State. The Black Death. The Peasant´s Revolt. From anonymity to individualism.
II. Authorship. Women inside and outside the convent.
III. Ubi auditus non est non efundas sermonem.
IV. Medieval Lyric Poetry. The Medieval romance. Courtly love. The legends. Allegory. Mystery and Morality plays. Mysticism.
V. Tapestries, jewellery, Gothic cathedrals, and motets.


3. Renaissance Literature. (2 weeks)

I. "Encounter" with America. Printing. Humanism. Luther, Reform and Counter-Reform. Protestant preachers. Henry VIII, head of the Church of England. Queen Elizabeth´s appropriation of patriarchal language. The Courtiers. The "modern" state. London.
II. Patrons and poets, audiences and playwrights. Women translators. Political and religious censorship.
III. Moral and political function of literature. Rhetoric. The defence of poetry. Comedia dell´arte (1545).
IV. Utopian satire and political science-fiction. Translations of the Bible.
Poetry- The Italian and the Elizabethan sonnet. The sonnet sequence. Elizabethan rhetoric. Paradoxical and hyperbolic presentation of love. Metaphysical poetry.
Drama- The revenge plot. Fame and posthumous reputation. Heroic tragedy. The masque.
V. Pictorial perspective, musical polyphony.


4. Revolution and Restoration Literature. (1 week)

I. The English Revolution. The Commonwealth. The Restoration. Royalists vs. Parliamentarians. The Religious and the political problem. Reason and religion. The question of social order. Rationalism. Scepticism, relativism, experimentation. Colonialism and the good savage. Plagues and fires.
II. Bourgeois audience and entertainment literature. Literature, religion and politics. Empiricism: idea of culture and education.
III. The English epic poem: The satanic rebellion as an antecedent of the romantic "genius." Change of style. Satire. Allegorical narrative. Travel literature. Restoration theatre. Autobiography.


5. Enlightenment. Eighteenth century literature (2 weeks)

I. Towards capitalism. Agricultural revolution, mining and trade. The Enlightenment: faith in reason vs. light of faith. Homo economicus, individualism.
II. Bourgeoisie and the novel. The rise of the public sphere. Newspapers.
Criticism and the public sphere. The sentimental novel and the woman reader.
III. The rise of aesthetics. The beautiful and the sublime. The Picturesque.
IV. The rise of the novel. The picaresque novel. The novel as comic epic in prose. The novel as comic satire. The novel of ideas. Travel literature. Essays on human nature, human understanding, and human knowledge. Journalism.
Irony and parody
Point of view and narrator´s reliability. Authorial intrusion.
Empiricism and the novel. Stream of consciousness and association of ideas.
V. British Baroque in music, architecture and painting.


6. Romantic and Early Victorian Literature. (2 weeks)

I. The French Revolution. Reactions to the French Revolution in England. Human rights, civil rights. The industrial Revolution. Social unrest. Revaluation of nature. Nostalgia for rural society. Transcendentalism vs. materialism; universalism vs. nationalism.
II. Romanticism and revolution. The poet and his public. Transformations in the public sphere. Circulating libraries. Periodicals and the rise of criticism.
III. Expression vs. imitation. The role of the imagination. The romantic symbol. Negative capability. The pathetic fallacy. Organic unity of the work of art. Aesthetic education.
IV. Romanticism. New Mythology: Symbols and archetypes of the unconscious; innocence and experience, memory and the visionary moment; internalization of the quest myth; the romantic hero: marginal, alienated, nihilistic, satanic. Narcissism and solitude.
Classical imagery and the philosophic poem.
New themes and contexts for the novel. The gothic novel. The Bildungsroman, Crime novels, Domestic novels, Condition of England novel...
Manners and Decorum.
V. Romantic painting.


7. Victorian Literature. (1 week)

I. Science, evolutionism and the "Death of God". Reform Bills. Liberalism vs. Marxism. The British Empire. Social and moral reform. Organicism. Evolutionism.
II. Serial publication.
III. Realism. The social function of literature. The man of letters (England/Ireland).
IV Historical and social novel. The realist novel. Naturalistic determinism. Dramatic monologue. Decadence and art for art´s sake
V. The Aesthetic Movement. Arts and Crafts.



8. Edwardian and Modernist Literature. (1 week)

I. First World War. Women´s suffrage. From Naturalism and Decadence to Modernism and Modernity. Freud: desire, unconscious and language. Saussure: identity and difference.
II. Modernism and mass culture. Best sellers and "Little Reviews". Literature and journalism. Modernism and avant-garde.
III. Poetry vs Rhetoric. Intertextuality and the literary tradition. The Canon making. Modernism and Avant-garde.
IV. Experimentation. Discontinuity, simultaneity, spatiality. Use of Myths. Opacity of language. Stream of consciousness and free indirect speech. "Écriture Féminine"?
V. Cubism: The end of the naturalistic illusion. Surrealism.


9. Post-War and Postmodernist Literature. (1 week)

I. The end of the Empire. The atomic era. The landing on the moon. Cold war and collapse of the eastern block. Welfare state, consumerism, mass media. Feminism and ecology. Relativism: truth, ethics and politics. Postmodernism. Cosmopolitanism and nationalism.
II. Paperbacks and best-sellers. The visual text and the written text.
III. The Death of the author. Literary mimesis, parody, metafiction. Subversion of myths. Rhetoric and undecidability.
IV. Between modernism and postmodernism: the theatre of the absurd. Alternative endings. Inclusion of the impossible or the unlikely. Magic realism. Minimalism.
V. The cinema. Cyborgs and the end of the millennium.

BASIC BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Carter, Ronald and John McRae. The Routledge History of Literature in English. Britain and Ireland. London & New York: Routledge, 2006.

Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.


FURTHER BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Abrams, M. H., et. al., gen. ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 2 vols. 7th ed. New York: Norton, 2000.

Alexander, Michael. A History of English Literature. London: Macmillan, 2000.

Barbeito Varela, J. Manuel. El individuo y el mundo moderno. El drama de la identidad en siete clásicos de la literatura británica. Oviedo: Septem, 2004.

Drabble, Margaret, ed. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Ford, Boris, ed. The Pelican Guide to English Literature. 8 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988.

Fowler, Alastair. A History of English Literature: Forms and Kinds from the Middle Ages to the Present. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987.

Rogers, Pat, ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.

CB1, CB2, CB3, CB4, CB5
CG3, CG5, CG6, CG7, CG8, CG9, CE5, CE6, CE7, CE8, CE9, CE10


- Diachronic knowledge of the history of English literature.

- Capacity to relate English Literature to its social, cultural and political context.

- Command of critical terminology and of its application to the analysis of cultural and literary texts.

- Competence in organising, supporting and summarising information.

- Ability to understand the connotations and the historical specificities of certain words in different periods.

- Fluency in essay writing in English with clarity and precision.

- Ability to summarise, take notes, and organise data.

LECTURE CLASSES will be used to introduce key theoretical concepts and to offer an overview of the history of English literature. Students must take notes, using these notes to complement the material already available on the course page (Virtual Campus).

SEMINARS will be devoted to examining, from a critical perspective, the texts that feature as compulsory readings. Students are expected to participate actively in the seminar classes.

Students must keep a close eye on the course page (Aula Virtual) and use the materials and resources available on the Virtual Campus to prepare the course.

Assessment breakdown for the course:
- Final Exam (70%)
- Continuous Assessment (30%)

In order to pass the course, students must obtain a minimum mark of 4 out of 10 in the final exam.

Amongst others, the teaching team will apply the following criteria when assessing students’ performance:
1.- Attendance and active participation in class over the semester.
2.- Submission of all assigned tasks.
3.- Precision, coherence, cohesion, and critical depth both in those assignments counting towards the continuous assessment and the final exam.
4.- All assignments, as well as the final exam, must meet the minimum requirements of linguistic correctness (spelling and grammar, punctuation, syntax, lexical precision, and formal register). Deficiencies in this area will be penalised and might lead students to fail the course.

IMPORTANT: Attendance is compulsory. Those students failing to attend FIVE OR MORE SESSIONS (either lecture classes or seminars) without due cause over the semester will lose their right to the percentage grade for the continuous assessment component (30%).

This assessment system will also apply to the second opportunity (July Call).

STUDENTS RETAKING THE COURSE OF EXEMPT FROM CLASS ATTENDANCE:
1.- Those students retaking the course will be assessed according to the above-mentioned system, unless it is impossible for them to attend class. In such cases, they must inform the coordinator about their wish to take the assessment system applied to those students exempt from class attendance (exam – 100%). If students in this situation fail to notify their circumstances at the beginning of the term, they will lose their right to be assessed via a final exam (100%).
2.- Those students who are officially exempt from class attendance (‘dispensa académica’) will have to do a final exam worth 100% of the mark.

Students are encouraged to spend an hour before each class reviewing the main contents dealt with in previous sessions to ensure that they have understood what has been explained in class, to have the possibility of clarifying any questions they may have in the next session, and to be able to participate actively in the seminar classes.

Students must read and prepare in advance the texts that will be covered in class, particularly those examined in the seminar classes.

The teaching team recommends devoting about 6 hours per week to preparing this course, and this includes reading the assigned texts, preparing assigned tasks, reviewing key concepts, etc.

Students are encouraged to attend and participate actively and regularly in class, to revise and complete their notes weekly, and to work in groups.

Texts must be read in advance and all problems related to vocabulary and syntax solved before the corresponding class.

For further details, please see the Teaching Guide available on the course page.

For more information, please check the Teaching Guide available on the course page. Students must read this document carefully at the beginning of the semester.

IMPORTANT:

1.- Students must use the corporate email addressed provided by the USC when emailing the teaching team.

2.- If fraudulent practices are detected in assignments or exams of any kind, art. 16 of “Normativa de avaliación do rendemento académico dosestudantes e de revisión de cualificacións” will apply, which will bring about a direct fail in the subject: “A realización fraudulenta dalgún exercicio ouproba esixida na avaliación dunha materia implicará a cualificación de suspenso na convocatoria correspondente, con independencia do procesodisciplinario que se poida seguir contra o alumno infractor. Considerarase fraudulenta, entre outras, a realización de traballos plaxiados ou obtidos defontes accesibles ao público sen reelaboración ou reinterpretación e sen citas aos autores e das fontes”.