English 40B
Introduction to British Literature Part II

Texts

The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. II. 7th ed.
The Mill on the Floss.  George Eliot  (recommended)

Course Description

In this introductory course to British literature, we will read texts written by English authors who lived during the past 200 years. We will begin with the Romantic authors who wrote during the nineteenth century, such as William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Lord Byron. We will also study works written by Victorian writers such as Alfred Tennyson and Matthew Arnold, Modernists such as T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf; and we will probably conclude the course with a short story by Doris Lessing. We will analyze each literary text carefully as well as attempt to make thematic connections between texts from different time periods. 

By the end of the semester, students should have developed the ability to analyze literary texts with confidence. They should also have acquired a good understanding of the different kinds of literary texts—poetry, prose, and drama—as well as the thematic concerns of the authors writing within different periods, which will give them a good foundation for reading more English literature on their own. 

English 40B

English Department
California State University, Sacramento