Most of the readings for this class are in the public domain and available on this site. For a few of the readings, the link will take you to an outside site where the reading is available.
Wednesday 22 January: Overview of course. Phillip Larkin, “An Arundel Tomb” (reading and memorial effigy).
Monday 27 January: William Blake, “The Chimney Sweeper” poem & “London.”
Wednesday 29 January: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “The Cry of the Children”; James Joyce, “The Sisters.”; Katherine Mansfield, “The Garden Party“
Monday 3 February: Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener“; James Joyce, “Counterparts“
Wednesday 5 February: Hannah More, “The Sorrows of Yamba”; William Blake, “The Little Black Boy,”; William Wordsworth, “To Toussaint L’Ouverture.”
Monday 10 February: Phyllis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America”; John Newton, “Amazing Grace”; Robert Southey, “The Sailor who served in the Slave Trade”; S.T. Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Wednesday 12 February: William Shakespeare, extracts from Othello; Abdullah Ibrahim, “Blues for District 6”; June Jordan, “Song for Soweto”
Monday 17 February: James Joyce, “Eveline”; Kate Chopin, “The Story of an Hour”; Katherine Mansfield, “Bliss”
Wednesday 19 February: Sappho, “Some Say” & “One girl” ; Anne Bradstreet, “The Author to Her Book”; Anna Laetitia Barbauld, “The Rights of Women”; Adrienne Rich, “What kind of times are these.” Dramatic reading due
Monday 24 February: Katherine Mansfield, “Daughters of the Late Colonel”; Virginia Woolf, “The Mark on the Wall”; Elizabeth Bishop, “In the Waiting Room.”
Wednesday 26 February: D.H. Lawrence, “The Prussian Officer” & “The Snake”; Wordsworth, “Nutting”; W.H. Auden, “Lullaby: Lay your sleeping head.”
Monday 2 March: Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market” and “Apple Gathering”; Emily Dickinson, “Wild Nights”; Virginia Woolf, extract from Mrs. Dalloway.
Wednesday 4 March: Christopher Marlowe, “Come Live with me” & Sir Walter Raleigh “The Nymph’s Reply”; Shakespeare, extract from Romeo and Juliet
Monday 9 March: Joyce, “Araby”; D.H. Lawrence, “White Stocking”; Phillip Larkin, “High Windows” and “Annus Mirabilis”
Week of 16 March: Instructional Pause (as a result of COVID-19 pandemic)
Week of 23 March: Writing the essay. The essay is due by midnight, Friday 27 March.
SPRING BREAK [Please read Frankenstein over the break if you can. We will be tackling it over two weeks, starting 13 April.]
Week of 6 April: Boccaccio, from The Decameron; Defoe, from Journal of the Plague Year; Poe, “The Masque of the Red Death”
Week of 13 April: Byron, “Prometheus” and “Darkness“; Mary Shelley Frankenstein
Week of 20 April: Frankenstein, cont. Text and Archive
Week of 27 April: The Young and the Old. William Blake, “Infant Joy” and “Infant Sorrow”; William Wordsworth, “Bless’d the Infant Babe” (from The Prelude); W.B. Yeats, “A Prayer for my daughter”; Katherine Mansfield, “Miss Brill”; James Joyce, “Clay”
Week of 4 May: Death and poetry. John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”; Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”; Phillip Larkin, “Aubade”; Shakespeare, extract from Romeo and Juliet.
Monday 11 May, 1 – 3 pm: Final Project Due
Back to syllabus
Additional Readings: Robin Hood; King Arthur; Achilles, Patroclus, and Hector; Charlotte Smith “On being cautioned …”; Robert Southey, “The Idiot”; William Wordsworth, “The Idiot Boy,” “The Old Cumberland Beggar,” “Discharged Soldier,” “The London Beggar.”
Introduction to Literature 