School of English

Preparing for your first year modules in the BA in English

‘TEXTS IN TIME 1’ (taken by Single Honours English; all English joint BAs except
English Language and Literature)

Module documents for your first year autumn term modules, with full details of required
reading, will be available when you arrive at Sussex. However, given the pace of study in
term time, you are very strongly advised to read as much in advance as possible. The list
below details texts which we will study on Texts in Time 1 this autumn:

 Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë (any good scholarly edition, eg Oxford or Penguin)

 The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald (any good scholarly edition)

 Alice Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll. Please use the Penguin edition, ed
Hugh Haughton (published with Alice in Wonderland)

 July’s People, Nadime Gordimer (Bloomsbury)

 The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde (any good scholarly edition, eg Oxford or
Penguin)

 T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land (any good scholarly edition)

 Frank O’Hara, Lunch Poems

 Alison Bechel, Fun Home (graphic novel)

You will need to have your own copy of all of the above.

FOR ‘CRITICAL APPROACHES’ (Single Honours English; English Language and

Literature)

Much of the core reading will be found in the recommended module text, The Norton
Anthology of Theory and Criticism (You will need to have a copy of this with you in class
every week! Please also make sure you purchase the second edition):

 Vincent Leitch and others (eds), The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism (2nd
ed), New York: W. W. Norton, 2010.
We also highly recommend Terry Eagleton’s helpful and entertaining introduction to theory:
 Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (University of Minnesota Press,
2008; 3rd edition)
Other useful introductions include:
 Jonathan Culler, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press,
1997)
 Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle (eds) An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and
Theory (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2009)
If you want to get a start with an overview of some of the ideas we will be discussing in the
course have a read through Terry Eagleton’s Literary Theory or dip into Andrew Bennett and
Nicholas Royle’s An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory over the summer. They
should give you much food for thought.

A module reader for Critical Approaches will be available to you on Study Direct after you
register.  You must print this out and bring it to class, since it contains many key texts that
will be referred to during the module. The campus bookstore will be stocking copies of your
core text, The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism when you arrive, if you do not get it
in advance.

FOR ‘READING GENRE’ (Single Honours English, unless taking an elective; English
Language and Literature)

The core texts are Milton’s Paradise Lost, and three tales—‘The Knight’s Tale’, ‘The Miller’s
Tale’ and ‘The Reeve’s Tale’—from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. You should be sure to
read the whole of Paradise Lost before the start of term.

Recommended editions of Paradise Lost are as follows (and you should buy one of
these):

 Paradise Lost, edited Stephen Orgel and Jonathan Goldberg, Oxford World's
Classics (Oxford University Press, revised edition, 2008); or,

 Paradise Lost, edited John Leonard (Penguin Classics, 2003); or,

 Paradise Lost, edited Alastair Fowler, Longman Annotated English Poets

(Longman Books, 2nd edition, 2006). This is an edition with copious notes of
explanation and annotation. It is more expensive than the above. Or,

 Paradise Lost, edited Barbara K. Lewalski (Blackwell Books, 2007). A nicely

produced book with good notes, if not as extensive as Fowler.

The ONLY recommended edition of The Canterbury Tales is as follows:

 Geoffrey Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer, third edition, edited Larry D.

Benson (Oxford University Press, 1988, reissued 2008). This is the only edition of
Chaucer you should use, and you will need to buy this.

A good introduction to Chaucer is John Hirsh, Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales: A Short
Introduction (Blackwell Books, 2002).

See also the following useful introductory websites:

 for Paradise Lost,

http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/darknessvisible/sitemap.html#paradiselost

 for The Canterbury Tales (an online interlinear version):

http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/teachslf/tr-index.htm