BBNAN11100 – Survey Literature Seminar 2: From the Restoration to the End of the 19th
Century
Wednesday 12.30 (Amb 205) Dr. Michael McAteer
In this seminar you will read and discuss some of the most important works of English
literature from the later sixteenth century (the Restoration) to middle of the nineteenth
ceutury, concluding with Emily Brontë’s celebrated novel, Wuthering Heights. The seminar
will introduce you to many styles and movements in English literature as it developed during
this period. These include the ‘mock heroic’ form of John Dryden’s poetry, satire in Swift and
Congreve, and the neo-classical style in the poetry of Pope and the fiction of Jane Austen.
Your knowledge of English language and literature will be enriched as you discover the array
of dispositions evoked in writing over the course of two centuries: witty, stylish, demure,
passionate, cynical, idealistic, tragic, and heroic.
Week One Wednesday February 10: Introduction
Week Two: Wednesday, February 17: John Dryden ‘Mac Flecknoe’.
Week Three: Wednesday, February 24: Jonathan Swift, Gullivers Travels (Part 1, 2, 4)
Week Four: Wednesday, March 2: William Wordsworth, ‘Ode: Intimations on Immortality’
Week Five: Wednesday, March 9: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Week Six: Wednesday, March 16: Alexander Pope, ‘Essay on Criticism’
TERM BREAK: MONDAY MARCH 21 TO FRIDAY APRIL 1
Week Eight: Wednesday, April 6: Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13 – NO CLASS
Week Ten: Wednesday, April 20: Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
Week Eleven: Wednesday, April 27: Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
Week Twelve: Wednesday, May 4: IN-CLASS EXAMINATION (1 HOUR, 30 MINS)
Week Thirteen: Wednesday, May 11: Results/Feedback
Reading:
Many of the texts for this seminar can be found online in the following website: archive.org.
Additionally, consult The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Major Authors
(London: Norton, 1987). Copies of this are available in PPKE Library. Cheap paperback
editions of the novels on this seminar course are widely available.
N.B.: I STRONGLY ADVISE YOU TO BEGIN READING NOVELS AT LEAST TWO WEEKS IN
ADVANCE OF CLASS. THIS WILL GIVE YOU ENOUGH TIME TO COMPLETE THE READING
BEFORE THE SEMINAR.