English literature Fall 2023
“The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived
and not as they are known.” - Victor Shklovski
Course Description:
This course is designed to provide a thematic introduction to the English
literature by studying selected texts dated roughly from the Anglo-Saxon
conquest to the outbreak of World War I. In an attempt to pursue a syntagmatic
reflection upon literature and cultural heritage, the discussion might cover
several ages, periods (the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Neoclassical,
Romantic, Victorian and Modernist periods). To explore, preliminarily, the
literariness of English Literature, our emphasis will be put on the last three
ones of which the major authors or groups will be systematically introduced or
investigated. We will also try to study the evolution and intricacy of the
important literary and artistic movements of the epochs that are accentuated.
Students are generously invited to discover the realistic and imaginary England
through the “secret passages” revealed by the works of the time.
Each lecture will be roughly divided into two parts; the first will be on the
analysis of selected texts; the second will be focused on the key concepts and
ideas that characterize the critical thoughts of each epoch that is introduced,
and on the important intellectual, cultural currents that bear directly or
indirectly upon the literary production.
Themes:
1) Man and Nature
2) Moral Imagination
Tentative Schedule (欲修習本課程的同學，請盡量不要缺席，尤其是開學前三周，請勿錯過):
Week 1 Introduction and Orientation
Week 2-4 Texts and contexts; The Middle Ages; the Renaissance; The Romanticism
Week 5-7 The Romantic and its counterparts (figurative); the Restoration and the
Eighteenth Century; The Romantic Period
Week 7-8 The Romantic Period; Review
Week 9 Mid-term Exam
Week 10-11 Texts and contexts; The Romantic Period; The Victorian Age
Week 12-14 The Victorian and its counterparts (figurative)
Week 15 The Victorian and the modern; The Twentieth Century; Review
Week 16 Final Exam
*This schedule is susceptible to change.
Teaching Method:
Lectures, discussions, close reading/appreciation of selected passages and
images, students’ oral reports and reflections on selected texts.
Tentative Evaluation:
class attendance, participation/learning attitude, tests and assignments (weekly
readings) 40 %,
mid-term exam 25%,
final exam 35%
Text Book:
Greenblatt, Stephen, et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature-The Major
Authors, 10th ed. New York: W.W. Norton Company, 2019.
Main Reference Books:
The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory by J. A. Cuddon
(4th edition or 5th edition).
Glossary of Literary Terms, by Abrams, M. H. and Harpham, Geoffrey Galt (10th
ed. Wadsworth, 2012).