English 301/10486
English Literature to 1800
3 Credits
Tuesday & Thursday 9.30 - 10.45 pm
Keystone 211
M.
G. Aune
Office Hours: TTh 7.00 - 8.00 & W 2.00 - 6.00
and by appointment
aune(at)calu.edu
724.938.4341
223 Azorsky Hall
Subject to change. *Available on
Blackboard site.
NB: I expect you to have the works listed after “Read:” to be read an annotated
before class so that we may discuss them.
I also assume that you will have read the relevant introductions,
headnotes, timelines, and footnotes.
The works listed after “Additional:” we will discuss generally in class.
You are encouraged to read them, especially if you are an English major.
“Topics:” list the lecture and discussion points for that week.
Part 1 Medieval England, Old English and Middle English, Manuscript culture
Week 1
1-3 September Introductions, Topics: Old English and Anglo Saxon England,
geography, nomenclature, AS Poetry, genre,
Beowulf, AS Bible, prose, gender
Read: “Cædmon’s Hymn,” (24-26), Riddles (handout), “The Wanderer,” (111-13),
“The Dream of the Rood,” (27-29), “The Wife’s Lament,” (113-14),. Additional:
Beowulf,
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Week 2
8-10 September Topics: Middle English and Anglo-Norman England, Middle English
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,
Norman Conquest, Domesday Book, King Arthur, The Magna Charta, Black Death,
Hundred Years War, romance, folk tale, allegory. Read: Marie de France, “The
Wolf and the Lamb”* “From Ancrene Riwle”
(158-60), Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales,
General Prologue (218-38), Additional:
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, John Gower, “The Lover’s Confession,” and
William Langland, The Vision of Piers
Plowman
Week 3
15-17 September Chaucer and Middle English Continued
Week 4
22-24 September Topics: Devotional writing, Langland, Medieval drama, gentilesse.
Read: Incarnation & Crucifixion Lyrics (367-70) and Margery Kempe (395-97),
Everyman. Additional:
Wakefield Second Shepherds’ Play
(407-35)
Part 2 Early Modern English, the Renaissance and Reformation, Print Culture
Week 5
29
September - 1 October Read: Sir Thomas Wyatt, “Whoso list to hunt” (595), Henry
Howard, Earl of Surrey, “Love, that doth …” (608), Edmund Spenser,
The Shepheardes Calendar: October
(709-13), Sir Philip Sidney, “Loving in Truth…” (975), “Queen Virtue’s Court…”
(977), William Shakespeare, Sonnet 130 (1074), Christopher Marlowe, “The
Passionate Shepherd…” (1022), Sir Walter Ralegh, “The Nymph’s Reply…” (917).
Topics: Manuscript and print culture, sonnet tradition, circulation,
publication, answer poem
Annotation Project 1 due (1 October).
Week 6
6-8 October Read: Christopher Marlowe,
The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus (1022-55)
Topics: humanism, early modern English drama, Reformation
Week 7
13
October Examination 1
15
October Study Day
Week
8
20-22 October Read: John Donne, “The Flea,” “Go and Catch…,” “A Nocturnal on St.
Lucy’s Day…,” “The Bait,” Ben Jonson, “On Lucy, Countess of Bedford,” (1403),
“To Penshurst,” Mary Wroth, Pamphilia to
Amphilanthus, 1 (1457), Aemilia Lanyer, “The Description of Cookham,”
(1319-24). Topics: country house poem
Week 9
27-29 October Read: George Herbert, “The Altar,” “Easter Wings,” “The Windows,”
“Affliction (1);” Andrew Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress,” (1703), Robert Herrick,
“To the Virgins…” (1659), Thomas Carew, “To Saxham,” (1671). Topics:
carpe diem poem
Week 10
3-5 November Read: John Milton, Paradise
Lost Book 1 (1831-50), Annotation Project 2 due
Part 3 The Restoration, the Enlightenment, Imperial England
Week 11
10-12 November Katherine Philips, “A Married State,” Upon the Double Murder…”
(1691), Margaret Cavendish, “The Poetess’s Hasty Resolution,” “The Hunting of
the Hare” (1774-75)
Week 12
17-19 November John Dryden, “Epigram on Milton,” “From
Annus Mirabilis,” (2085-86) “From
An Essay of Dramatic Poesy,” (2125-29), Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism,”
(2497-2513) Aphra Behn, “The Disappointment” (2180-83), Earl of Rochester, “Upon
Nothing” (2171-72)
Additional: Dryden, “Alexander’s Feast,” Behn,
Oroonoko
Week 13
24
November Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal” (2462-68)
Additional: Gulliver’s Travels
26
November Thanksgiving Break
Week 14
1-3 December William Congreve, The Way of
the World (2228-84), Annotation Project 3 due, Additional, John Gay,
The Beggar’s Opera
Week 15
8-10 December Thomas Gray, “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,” “Ode on
the Death of a Favorite Cat,” “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (2862-70)
10
December Poetical Miscellany Project due
15
December Final Exam, 10.00 – 11.50 am, regular room