LIVR23: Survey of English Literature (15 ECTS) - HT2023

This course offers a representative, chronological survey of canonical works of English

literature in verse, prose, and drama. The course will resituate these works in relation to the
cultural-historical contexts from which they arose and which they transformed and outline
some significant theoretical approaches to them. It will also introduce you to some key
academic debates concerning ideas of canonicity, etc.

The course will be taught by Barbara Barrow (barbara.barrow@englund.lu.se), Monika Class

(monika.class@englund.lu.se) and Cian Duffy (cian.duffy@englund.lu.se). Should you have
any queries not addressed by the information which follows, please do not hesitate to contact
us.

Primary (required) Reading Material

Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism (any edition; 15pp)

Anon., Beowulf (Seamus Heaney’s translation; available via Norton Anthology; 67pp)*
Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (any edition, but recommended Norton New Critical;
384pp)*
Chaucer, Geoffrey, ‘General Prologue’ and ‘The Miller’s Tale’, from The Canterbury Tales
(any edition, but recommended Oxford World’s Classics, 2011; 36pp)*
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (any edition; 14pp)
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The
African (any edition, but recommended Penguin Classics, 2003; 250pp)*
Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince (any edition, but recommended Penguin Classics;
160pp)*
Ann Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest (any edition; but recommended Oxford World’s
Classics; 423pp)*
Shakespeare, William, Richard II (Arden edition; 305pp)*
Jonathan Swift, Part IV of Gulliver’s Travels (any edition; 35pp)
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (any edition but ensure it is the three-act
version; 220pp)*
Virgina Woolf, To the Lighthouse (any edition; 195pp)

Romantic-period poetry (any editions): William Blake, from Songs of Innocence &
Experience: ‘The Lamb’, ‘The Tyger’, ‘Nurse’s Song’ (both versions); Robert Burns, ‘To A
Mouse’; Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘Kubla Khan’; John Keats, ‘Isabella, or the Pot of Basil’,
‘Ode to a Nightingale’; Felicia Hemans, ‘To Wordsworth’; Letitia Elizabeth Landon, ‘Lines
of Life’; Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘To a Skylark’, ‘Ode to the West Wind’; Charlotte Smith,
‘Thirty-Eight. To Mrs ____y’; William Wordsworth, ‘The Ruined Cottage’.

Victorian poetry (any editions):

Michael Field (Katherine Bradley and Edith Emma Cooper), ‘La Gioconda’; Angelina Weld
Grimké, ‘A Mona Lisa’; Christina Rossetti, ‘In an Artist’s Studio’; Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, excerpt from Aurora Leigh (excerpt will be provided); Robert Browning, ‘My Last
Duchess’ and ‘Porphyria’s Lover’; Alfred Tennyson, ‘The Lady of Shalott’ (1842 version)
and ‘The Lotus Eaters’ (1842 version)

Excerpts from Oscar Wilde’s 1895 trial (to be provided).

Schedule

11 September 1015-1300 A313 Intro & Beowulf (CD)

18 September 1015-1300 L123 Chaucer (CD)

25 September 1015-1300 A214 Shakespeare (CD)

02 October 1015-1300 H402 Swift & Pope (CD)

09 October 1015-1300 H402 Radcliffe (MC)

16 October 1015-1300 A313 Romantic-period Poetry (CD)

23 October 1015-1300 L123 Prince & Equiano (BB)

01 November 1015-1300 A214 Austen (MC)

06 November 1015-1300 A214 Victorian Poetry (BB)

13 November 1015-1300 L123 Wilde (BB)

20 November 1015-1300 L123 Eliot (CD)

28 November 1015-1300 H402 Woolf (MC)

04 December 1015-1600 A214 revision / exam preparation (CD)

Assessment

The course will be assessed by a take-home exam of between 12-15 pages, due on 15
December 2023. There will be a formal revision and exam preparation session at the end of
the course. To pass (Grade G), you will need to achieve at least 66% on the written exam. To
achieve a distinction (Grade VG), you will need to achieve at least 85% on the written exam.