Survey of English Literature I
Syllabus
Winter 2015
Dr. sc. Boris Beric
boris.beric@bj.t-com.hr
Office: 72
Office Hours: Mon 2:30 – 3:30 p.m.
Tu 10:30 – 11:30 a.m., or by appointment
Texts: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. I
A Glossary of Literary Terms. Ed. M. H. Abrams
http://www.luminarium.org
Reading Assignments
Week 1
Introduction: Roman and Anglo-Saxon Britain
Week 2
Caedmon’s Hymn; Beowulf
Paper #1 assigned
Week 3
Anglo-Norman Britain. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Week 4
Middle English Period. Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales, The
General Prologue; “Miller’s Tale”
Paper #1 due
Week 5
The Sixteenth Century. Sir Thomas More, Utopia; Roger
Ascham, From The Schoolmaster
Week 6
The Sonnet. Skelton: “Lullay, lullay, like a child”; Wyatt, “The
long love that in my thought doth harbor”; Surrey: “The soote
season”; Sidney, Astrophel and Stella:#5, #10, #52;
Shakespeare, Sonnets: #3, #18, #20,#116, #130.
Week 7
Marlowe, Dr. Faustus
Week 8
Examination #1
Week 9
The Early Seventeenth Century. John Donne: “The
Indifferent”, Holy Sonnets, #5, #10; George Herbert: “Easter
Wings”, “The Windows”;
Paper #2 assigned
Week 10
Robert Herrick: “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time”,
“Upon Julia’s Clothes”; Francis Bacon, “Of Marriage and
Single Life”; Hobbes, Leviathan
Week 11
Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I
Paper #2 due
Week 12
The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century. Dryden, “Annus
Mirabilis”; “Alexander’s Feast”; Pepys, “The Great Fire”
Week 13
Pope, The Rape of the Lock
Week 14
Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, Part IV
Examination #2 (as scheduled in the January/February exam period)
Class Requirements and Grading Policy
While the reading assignments outline primary texts, you are also expected to read the
accompanying introductions to individual authors and their works as well as general
introductions to various periods.
Please come to class regularly and always bring the assigned texts. It is a must! You
won’t be able to participate in seminar discussions if you don’t have them with you.
Make sure you read the assigned texts because I’ll be giving you pop quizzes at the
beginning of class. Quizzes and class participation are worth 10% of your final grade
for the course. There will be 2 written examinations (20% each) and 2 out-of-class
papers (50% of your final grade).
Important: If you have any problems meeting these requirements let me know in
advance; late excuses won’t be accepted. The final grade is based on your total
performance in this course, and there is no comprehensive examination at the end.
You cannot take or retake exams at any other date or make up for them in any other
form. If you miss five or more classes or if you don’t accumulate more than 29.9% of
your final grade during semester, you won’t be granted my signature for the course.
Submit your essays on time: late papers will be penalized 2 points a day.
Plagiarism is a serious breach of academic ethics and it won’t be tolerated.