History of English Literature
WSJO
Winter semester
OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE
I
“The Wanderer”, (“The Seafarer”)
1. early forms of OE writing: runic alphabet, inscriptions, the advent of Roman alphabet,
manuscripts
2. definitions: elegy, lament, charm
3. characteristic features of OE poetry (formulaic language, kennings, variations, alliteration
and alliterative line, gnomes)
4. themes:
- exile, ruin, solitude, the hardships of sea life (as contrasted with the land life),
- contrast between the past and present condition
- loss and consolation (pagan: accepting things as they are, Christian: promise of
brighter future after death); transitory nature of human splendour, Ubi sunt motif
5. Christian vs. pagan elements
6. representation of the organisation of Anglo-Saxon society
“The Dream of the Rood”
Anglo-Saxon religious poetry; parallels and differences between “Dream of the Rood” and
heroic poetry
1. dream vision technique
2. personification and prosophopeia
3. Germanic and Christian elements
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II Beowulf (fragments)
Germanic and Scandinavian sources of the poem
Beowulf as an example of courtly literature
Beowulf as a heroic poem
epic – definition; the role of the genre in medieval European literatures
- protagonists and their actions
- world and values
- heroic society
- historical vs. supernatural reality
- the supernatural
- style and language
pagan and Christian elements; pre-Christian mores infiltrated through Christian awareness
definitions: formulaic language, alliteration, kennings
MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
1. sources and characteristic features of medieval romances
2. characteristics of a romance hero
3. the poem as an example of courtly literature (language, behaviour, customs)
4. courtly love and chivalry
5. symbols (the Pentangle)
6. pagan vs. Christian elements; nature vs. culture
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III
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales – The General Prologue,
Italian sources: Boccacio, Petrarch
1. frame story – definition, advantages of the technique
2. The Canterbury Tales as an encyclopaedia of literary genres (fabliau, exemplum, saint’s
life, fable, verse romance, folk tale)
3. character drawing
4. panorama of medieval society: low culture and high culture.
5. Chaucerian realism
6. formal features: iambic pentameter, heroic couplet
IV
Geoffrey Chaucer The Miller’s Tale, The Wife of Bath’s Tale
fabliau as a genre, characteristic features
Everyman
1. origins of the medieval theatre
2. types of medieval drama:
- mystery plays – origin, themes
- miracle plays
- morality plays
3. Characteristic features of morality plays
- allegory and personification
- the main motifs: memento mori, danse macabre, ars moriendi
- the conflict, psychomachy
4. Character drawing
RENAISSANCE
William Shakespeare – Sonnets 2, 20, 116, 130, 73, 144, 147
1. Wyatt and Surrey’s contribution to domesticating of the sonnet into English literature
- definition of a sonnet
- three basic sonnet forms (Petrarchan, Spenserian, Shakespearean)
2. Shakespeare’s sonnets:
- the sonnet cycle; the order of the sonnets
- the characters,
- themes: love , time, death, begetting children, creating poetry
- anti Petrarchan tradition
- platonic and sexual love
VII William Shakespeare: Midsummer Night’s Dream
1. the concept of comedy, romantic comedy (poetically transformed folk beliefs, high and
low life, imagination, tragic potential of love), idyll, pastoral, play-within-a play
2. sources of comic effect vs. tragic elements
3. levels of disguise- social and histrionic roles – attitudes toward love
4. court vs. woods, nature vs. culture
5. the real and the illusory – law vs. magic, reality vs. theatre [Theseus’s monologue,
Bottom’s transformation],
6. ‘the concord of discords’ – language, characters, love
7. Shakespearean elements in European drama – the Romanticism
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VIII William Shakespeare: Hamlet, King Lear
1. sources of Shakespeare’s plays
2. tragedy – definition, classical vs. Renaissance tragedy
3. hamartia as an error of judgement or a tragic flaw
4. characteristic features of Shakespearean tragedy (supernatural elements and their role,
madness, exploration of human passions, questions of morality)
5. technical devices in Shakespearean theatre (subplots, play-within-the play, theatrical
rhetoric, soliloquies, asides, monologues, on-stage and off-stage audiences, functioning of
prologues and episodes, comic relief)
6. (in King Lear) the significance of Nature, the role of the Fool, metaphors of madness and
blindness, the significance of the love contest, the vision of the family and its universal
implications
7. tragic irony
IX
Metaphysical and Cavalier poetry:
John Donne “The Flea”, “A Valediction: Forbidden Morning”, “The Anniversary”,
“Elegy XIX” pp.298-302,
George Herbert “The Pearl”/ “The Collar” pp.305-307,
Andrew Marvell “To His Coy Mistress” “The Definition of Love” 325-327,
Robert Herrick: “Gather Ye Rosebuds”
1. metaphysical poetry - the origin of the term
2. characteristic features of metaphysical poetry:
- metaphysical conceit and the source of conceit
- wit
- dramatic imagination, the tone of persuasion
- balance between emotion and reason
3. angelic vs. beastly nature of man
4. images of sensual love
5. recurrent themes: death, love, God
X
Neoclassicism and the beginning of the novel
Jonathan Swift Guliver’s Travels (Fragments from the anthology.)
1. Travel accounts, theories of geographical discoveries
2. Guliver’s Travels as a political and philosophical satire
relativity of truth; corruption of court life; critique of reason; social satire
XI
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Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe (fragments from the anthology)
early definitions of the novel – counter-distinction with romance
formal realism (the novel’s assimilation of the forms of factual literature)
puritan doctrine,
individualism, the rise of middle classes
colonialism
homo economicus [herald of English expansion]
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XII
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3.
Samuel Richardson Pamela (fragments),
Henry Fielding Tom Jones (fragments),
Laurence Sterne Tristram Shandy (fragments)
Samuel Richardson: Pamela.
- epistolary novel- advantages and disadvantages of using this technique
- interest in the psychological problems of characters in the social context.
Henry Fielding: Tom Jones
- structure of the novel; ways of telling the story
- intrusive narration- the conventions created in front of the reader’s eyes
‘comic epic in prose’
Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy
- form of the novel; anti-hero, anti-novel
- self-conscious fiction
- impotency of language
- language games
- association-based novel
- the picture of society
ROMANTICISM
XIII-XIV
Pre-Romantic poetry
William Blake: “The Lamb”, “The Tyger”, “The Little Vagabond”, “Holy Thursday”,
“The Chimney Sweeper”, “London”
1. Ideas of ‘new’ poetry
2.
Robert Burns:
- the sources of language of Burns’ poems – rejection of poetic diction
- folk tradition; the attitude to nature; humanistic views
3. William Blake:
- visionary quality of Blake’s poetry, rational and mystical elements
- the philosophy of Blake – mysticism, idea of universe, Swedenborg
- romantic elements; children [and their reality] in Blake’s poems
Romantic Poetry
William Wordsworth: “The Preface to Lyrical Ballads”, “We Are Seven”, “ The strange
fits of passion”
1. romantic idea of poetry and its role
2. folk elements in Wordsworth’s poetry (ballad, children and their vision of the world)
3. attitude towards nature: contemplation, source of morality
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, Biografia Literaria –
chapter 14
1. the nature of poetic process, the concept of poetic insight
2. the role of a poet;
3. approaches to nature
4. the romantic hero
5. ballad
6. the language of Coleridge’s poetry
7. the supernatural, symbols and dreams
Percy Bysshe Shelley: “Ode to the West Wind”, “The Cloud” pp.312-317
1. ode - definition
2. the force of chaos in Shelley’s ‘nature’ poems, the properties and symbolism of wind and
Autumn
3. the idea of revolution
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4. the role of the poet; poetic inspiration; the powers of the poet (“The Cloud”)
John Keats: “Ode to a Nightingale”, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” pp.352-355
1. the relation between art and life
2. the function of fancy/art and Death
3. the significance of images on the urns
VICTORIAN LITERATURE
XV
Charles Dickens: Great Expectations
1. the notion of realism – conventions
2. the social aspect of the novel; representation of Victorian society
3. recurrent themes of Victorian literature: upgrading one’s existence, moral lesson, social
development, public vs. private, gentility vs. morality
4. Bildungsroman
5. character drawing – caricature, irony
XVI Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights/ Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre
1. romantic and gothic elements in Wuthering Heights
2. Romantic and Victorian philosophy of the human soul
3. narration - Chinese-box technique
4. symbols (e.g. the split tree in Jane Eyre); heaven and hell in Wuthering Heights
5. the portraits of characters
6. religion
7. violence and extremes of emotion
8. the significance of nature
Victorian Poetry
Alfred Tennyson: “In Memoriam”, “The Lady of Shallot”, “Ulysses”
1. a changed status of poetry
2. fascination with Arthurian legends
3. the image of the poet
4. themes: alienation and separation of reality and art (“Lady of Shallot” – medieval story adapted to express
contemporary concerns), religion vs. nature vs. science (“In Memoriam”, “Ulysses”)
5. “Ulysses” as dramatic monologue
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: the brotherhood and their aims; characteristics of their art
Dante Gabriel Rosetti: “The Blessed Damozel”, “Sonnet”
1. medieval elements
2. decorative use of poetry – girl’s yearnings
3. symbols
4. bringing together of the spiritual and physical
5. realistic description
The turn of the century
XVII Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
-art and life in fin de siecle; aestheticism; art for art’s sake; pardox
The twentieth century
William Butler Yeats: "Sailing to Byzantium", "The Second Coming", "Easter 1916"
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-Irish themes in William Butler Yeats' poetry
-the treatment of past and tradition
-symbolism
-The Irish literary revival/ the Celtic Revival
The Great War Literature: Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoona Rupert Brooke, Robert Graves
Edwardian influences,
poetry of traumatic experiences;
heroic vs. disillusioned views of war
Modernism
XVIII T.S. Eliot: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'', The Waste Land
-symbolism in The Waste Land
-indictment of the twentieth century civilization
-struggle for impersonality, objective correlative
-T.S. Eliot as a neoclassical modernist
-objective correlative
Ezra Pound: chosen poems -imagism- modernist use of language
Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness
W.H. Auden"Spain 1937", "The.Shield of Achilles"
-love and menace in Auden's poetry, the vision of the thirties as a “ low dishonest decade”
Dylan Thomas: "Author's Prologue", "Fern Hill" -defamiliarization of language
-the role of nature
D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers,
-success and failure of human relationships; Freudian echoes
-nature and human nature as interdependent
E.M. Forster: Passage to India
-the clash between East and West
- the colonial occupation of India
-the value of friendship, the figure of an outsider
XX
Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway,
- narrative experiments [interior narration], perspectivism, symbols
-the use of time and space; the concept of psychological time
-female characters and their significance
XXI James Joyce: A Portrait of_the_Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses [Molly's
monologue],
-Dublin as the epicenter of Joyce's writing
-art and life in A Portrait....
-the concept of epiphany
-stream of consciousness
Post-war literature
XXII Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot, Engame -the theatre of the
absurd -metaphysical despair -insufficiency of language symbolism
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Harold Pinter: The Birthday party, The Dumb Waiter
-Pinterian theater of the absurd
-the drama of menace'
XXIV George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty Four
-antiutopia;
-critique of totalitarian systems
William Golding: The Lord_of the_Flies,
-allegory and regression, antiutopia
-moral and psychological implications
-pessimistic vision of the evolutionary progress
XXV. John Fowles: The French Lieutenant's Woman
-the question of post-modern novel, forms of narration, narrative experiments
- intertexuality; the use of history and literature, metafiction, self-consciousness
Julian Barnes: A History of the World in 10 l/2 Days,
John Osborne: Look Back in Anger – social contexts - rebellion in its dramatic form
Additional resources:
Cambridge Companion to English literature
Cuddon, J.A.: The Penguin dictionary of literary terms and literary theory
Ford, Boris: New Pelican guide to English literature
Sikorska, Liliana: An outline history of English literature
Additional reading list: (for students who want to take up a seminar in literature)
Martin Amis: Time's Arrow
Doris Lessing: The Grass is Singing
Julian Barnes: A History of the World in 10 l/2 Days,
Ian McEwan: The Cement Garden, The Innocent
Anita Brookner: Fraud, Family and Friends
S. Rushdie: Satanic Verses, Midnight's Children
A.S. Byatt: The Time of Angels, The Possession
Graham Swift: Last Orders, The Waterland
Angela Carter: The Bloody Chamber, Love,
William Wharton: The Spire, The Inheritors
John Fowles: The Ebony Tower, The Magus
Jeanette Winterson: The Passion, Sexing the Cherry
Hanif Kureishi: The Buddha of Suberbia,
David Lodge: Small world, The British Museum is Falling Down
Zasady obowiazujące studentów II roku, dotyczące ćwiczen z literatury angielskiej:
Obecność na zajęciach (nieobecność usprawiedliwiona zwolnieniem lekarskim); możliwe są dwie
nieobecności bez usprawiedliwienia w semestrze.
2. Czytanie tekstów w oryginale i przynoszenie ich na zajęcia. Każdy student zobowiązany jest mieć
własną kopie danego tekstu (lub własny egzemplarz powieści).
3. Ćwiczenia nie są wykładem, zatem na polecenie nauczyciela studenci pracują w grupach, biorą udział
w dyskusji, zdają relację z przeczytanego tekstu, etc.
4. Studentów obowiązuje zaliczenie dwóch testów semestralnych wedle skali ocen:
61% - dst
71% dst +
76% db
86% db+
91% bdb
1.
5.
Studenci czytają zadane teksty z zajęć na zajęcia. Nauczyciel może sprawdzać znajomość treści
zadanej na dany dzień lektury za pomocą ‘wejściówek’.
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