Preparatory Reading List for
FIRST YEAR ENGLISH AND DRAMA
In preparation, we would encourage you to read widely within dramatic literature, and also to take
every opportunity to see as much live theatre as possible. We would particularly encourage you to
see/read as much contemporary theatre – especially plays written since 2000 – as possible.
FIRST TERM
As Drama and English students you will be taking Drama in Production throughout the year.
Literature Courses in Year One
During your first term you will study
Dramatic Literature
Poetry
In subsequent terms you will also study
Modern Prose (1780 – present day)
International Literature
Film
Preparatory reading lists for the first term, which give some sense of the course content, are
included below. You should also consult the Modern Prose and International Literature reading
lists for Lent Term (see below), as these contain a number of novels and longer pieces which
are best read while you have time, in the summer. You should be able to find up to date full
reading lists for each of these courses on the Education Faculty website by the summer. Do e-mail
if you have difficulty finding anything and we will send a copy.
Poetry
Everybody will need The Norton Anthology of Poetry (fifth edition)
You may also like to read one of the following introductory books by contemporary poets:
James Fenton An Introduction to English Poetry
Ruth Padel 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem
Jeffrey Wainwright Poetry The Basics
We recommend that you browse widely in The Norton Anthology of Poetry, particularly in
selections of poems by Chaucer, Milton, Blake, Burns, William Wordsworth, Hardy, Browning,
Christina Rossetti, Yeats, Eliot, Auden, Larkin, Heaney, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Duffy and
Brathwaite
Dramatic Literature
It may make sense to purchase the Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume One, which
contains many of the plays that we will study. You will also find that many Classical and
Renaissance texts are online at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/
For background reading:
John Russell Brown, The Oxford Illustrated History of the Theatre, Oxford University Press
John Lennard and Mary Luckhurst, The Drama Handbook , Oxford University Press
Brockett and Hildy (2013), History of the Theatre (Pearson)
For the first seminar:
Ian C. Storey and Arlene Allan, A Guide to Ancient Greek Drama, Blackwell Publishing
Aeschylus, The Oresteia Trilogy: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides, in any
translation.
Aristophanes, The Clouds, in any translation.
Preparatory Reading List for
FIRST YEAR ENGLISH AND DRAMA
Drama in Production
David Edgar, How Plays Work (London: Nick Hern Books)
Raymond Williams, Drama in Performance (Buckingham: Open University Press)
J. L. Styan, Modern Drama in Theory and Practice – 3 vols, Cambridge University Press
Steve Waters, The Secret Life of Plays (London: Nick Hern Books)
You may also wish to consult these longer books from the Lent Term reading lists:
Modern prose
Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby (serialisation begins March 1938, appears in book form 1839)
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights (1847)
George Eliot, Silas Marner (1861)
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (serialised in 1899 in Blackwood’s Magazine in three parts. It
first appeared in book form as the middle story of a collection called Youth: A Narrative, and Two
Other Stories published by Blackwood in 1902).
James Joyce, "The Dead" in Dubliners
(1914)
Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway
(1925)
Bram Stoker, Dracula
(1897)
Angela Carter, Wise Children
(1991)
International Literature
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko (1688)
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958)
Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)
Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1991)
J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace (1999)
Zadie Smith, White Teeth (2000)
We very much look forward to meeting you.
Georgie Horrell, Director of Studies/ Faculty Coordinator (English, Drama and Education)
(gah27@cam.ac.uk)
Joel Chalfen, Director of Studies (English, Drama and Education) (jhc20@cam.ac.uk)