ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE (81 hours)

Course Description

Students will study a range of texts in the three main forms of literature: prose, poetry and drama. Set texts will be offered from a wide range of different periods and cultures and the students will be taught skills of effective and appropriate communication, including the ability to discuss the critical context of texts. The primary focus of the course is to provide students with the tools to critically read, analyse and interpret a considerable variety of English and American literature from diverse periods. All genres are encompassed, from medieval poetry, prose and drama to their contemporary forms and to contemporary science fiction. The course will equip students with literary criticism tools that will in turn lead them to substantially more profound comprehension and appreciation of the ways language functions in literature and of the devices writers have used throughout the history of literature. The course also aims to stimulate students by challenging them to become critics themselves, so that they will be able to offer their own interpretations of the texts and use the tools of analysis to develop their confidence and enhance their skills of engagement, responsibility and innovative thinking.

Learning Outcomes:

The ultimate goals concerning the outcome of the programme are as follows:

1. Students will be able to properly organise, produce and present analyses on texts, while discerning the salient features of the texts
2. They will be able to analyse and apply literary criticism concepts and approaches to any kind of text, defending their arguments with confidence
3. Students will be able to demonstrate profound knowledge of form, structure, narrative techniques and literary devices
4. They will be able to demonstrate advanced critical and analytical thought processes and produce thought-provoking essays
5. Students will gain confidence in working with information and ideas and they will become more intellectually and socially engaged to express their own ideas and thoughts
6. They will learn to use innovative tools and methods that will stand them in good stead in their future challenges

Syllabus

READING MATERIAL

Literature

ALBEE, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf, Penguin Books Ltd, London 1965

BLAKE, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992

BRONTE EMILY, Wuthering Heights, Penguin Books, London, 2008

BYRON, Don Juan, Penguin Books, London, 1986

CHAUCER, The Canterbury Tales, The Franklin’s Tale, Cresset Press, London, 1992

ELIOT, The Family Reunion, Faber and Faber Ltd, London, 1968

FROST, Selected Poems, Penguin Books Ltd, London 2000

HARDY, Far from the Madding Crowd, Penguin Books Ltd, London, 2003

HUXLEY, Brave New World, Penguin Books Ltd, London, 1971

JAMES HENRY, Beast in the Jungle, John Murray Press, London, 2014

KEATS, The Eve of St. Agnes, Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, London, 1992

LEVY, Small Island, Penguin Books Ltd, London, 2003

MILLER, Death of a Salesman, Macmillan Education UK, London, 2015

MILTON, Paradise Lost, Penguin Books, New York, 1989

PLATH, Collected Poems, Faber and Faber Ltd, London, 1989

POE, The Fall of the House of Usher, Penguin Books Ltd, London,1986

SHAKESPEARE, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Longman, London, 1981

SHELLEY, The Mask of Anarchy, Wordsworth Editions Ltd, Denmark, 1994

SHELLEY MARY, Frankenstein, Penguin Books Ltd, U.S.A., 1993

STEINBECK, The Grapes of Wrath, Penguin Books Ltd, London 2000

THOMAS, Selected Poems, Phoenix, London, 1993

WOLF, The Waves, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992

FROST, Selected Poems, Penguin Books Ltd, London 2000

Literary Criticism

Eagleton T., Literary Theory, An Introduction, Blackwell, London, 2003

Lodge d. with Nigel Wood, ed. Modern Criticism and Theory, A Reader, Longman, London, 2000

NICHOLLS P.  Modernisms, Macmillan, London, 1995