230323 The History of British Literature (S) (SoSe 2005)

This is a course in response to the demand from students in the autumn of 2004. We will look at the major English language texts and periods in the history of British literature, starting with the Old English period and ending with Modernism (c. 1930), by which time have appeared the majority of authors and works that are part of serious educated and informed discourse about literarature today.

The focus will be on four major periods that have been especially rich in, and characteristic of, British literature: Ricardian Poetry (late 14th century); Elizabethan and Jacobean literature (late 16th and early 17th century); Romantic literature (late 18th century to 1830); and Modernism (late 19th century to c. 1930).

Sessions will be divided between the discussion of the set text (see below) and additional secondary passages on the one hand and, on the other hand, the close reading of selected passages from primary literature, which it is intended to make available in a Reader.
Students could do worse than read the set text in the break before the summer term.

Place in the curriculum:
BA course: This is one of the courses in Profilmodul 4
Others: Hauptstudium, B2, B3

Credits and Requirements:
All students are expected to offer active and regular participation and a report on selected secondary literature, for all of which BA's can earn three credits.

Set Text:
Pat Rogers ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature. OUP 1987; this edition will be used in class.
There is also an edition without illustrations, P. Rogers ed., An Outline of English Literature. OUP 1992.