Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition Syllabus
Ms. Gavin
The literary critic Christopher Clausen has said that all of literature attempts to answer, either
directly or indirectly, two questions: 1. What kind of world is this and 2. How should we live in it?
Welcome to AP Lit, where we will look at how authors use language to answer these searching
questions. This year you will study highly challenging works in their historical and philosophical
contexts. We will discuss not only a work’s content, but also the writing style in which the author
has chosen to present it. Designed to be a college course, this is an intense class rooted in critical
thinking, close reading, and extensive essay writing.
AP Fridays: Every Friday you will work on Advanced Placement exam skills with selected
passages, alternating between multiple choice questions and in-class essays. There will be takehome essays in addition to in-class essays.
Will my course grade be the same as my AP Exam grade? Not necessarily. No doubt, the AP
Lit Exam you will take in May is a great exam. In a series of multiple-choice passages and two
timed essays, you will showcase your poetry analysis and ability to do a detailed, close reading
of prose or drama. These passages are all brief excerpts. You will not be expected to place a
work in its historical context or apply broader literary theory on the AP exam. This course will
help to prepare you for the exam; however, there are several English skills we cover that are not
assessed by the AP exam, for example: research, take-home writing, expository writing,
persuasion, revision, critical theory, editing workshops, vocabulary, Socratic seminars, and
analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of a text. Applying a work’s historical, intellectual,
and artistic context to the work itself is not required on the exam, but will lead to fruitful
discussions and writing assignments in class. Your mastery of these skills, all crucial components to
the study of English, in addition to AP Exam skills, will all factor into your grade.
Readings will be broken up on reading schedules, with a certain amount of pages due each day
(usually exceeding thirty pages) or, to reflect the college experience, assigned in its entirety to
be due on a particular date. Below you will find brief descriptions of the course’s units. Text
order may vary according to time restrictions and book availability. Each book will be
accompanied by supplemental short stories, essays, works of art, and poems.
Grendel by John Gardner
Grendel is the tormented outsider in a society that defines itself upon exclusivity. As he rails
against the idea of a moral absolute, he encounters other characters who each exhibiting
particular philosophies. Whether it is the idealistic ethnocentrism of the medieval knight Unferth,
the nihilistic dragon who thinks of the world in numbers, the power-crazed administrators of the
mead hall, or Grendel’s own existential dilemma, these works offer a cornucopia of twentieth
century philosophy. Applying these theories to your own lives and to modern society, you will
determine whether you would rather be vilified as a societal outsider or have the world exist in
meaningless chaos. Supplemental readings include works of Adam Bede, excerpts from Beowulf,
“London” by William Blake, excerpts from Kierkegaard’s diaries and Either/Or, J.R.R. Tolkien’s
“Gollum,” and Louis MacNeice’s “Dark Age Glosses on the Venerable Bede.” Essays will include
an analysis of the meaningful/meaningless universe in the first four chapters (workshop included)
and a close reading of Grendel’s encounter with Beowulf.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
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The Scarlet Letter may be described as the Great American Novel, but, as literary critic Eva
Brann remarks, Pride and Prejudice is “the perfect novel.” Balanced with symmetry, wit, and
sparkling dialogue, Austen’s classic mocks the desperate hunt for a husband, but also subtly
satirizes the behavior of the landed gentry. Pride and Prejudice epitomizes the ideals of
neoclassicism while creating memorable characters such as the snobbish Mr. Darcy, the odious Mr.
Collins, and the independent Elizabeth Bennett. Forget When Harry Met Sally: this is where sly,
witty banter begins. Poetry will include neoclassical poems with a particular focus on Alexander
Pope. Major essay is on neoclassicism in the novel—which pair of characters best illustrates
concordia discors?
Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman
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Albert Einstein, who suggested that time is a human construct and actually does not exist, set forth
theories of time that have intrigued philosophers and writers up to the current day. In this unit
the anchor text will be Alan Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams, comprised of beautiful, thoughtprovoking passages which combine poetry and physics. The book will be supplemented by two
short stories of Jorges Luis Borges, an Argentinian writer whose works explore the complex
labyrinth of time. We may also include excerpts from A Sideways Look at Time, which examines
various notions of time in modern non-Western cultures. In-class essay will be about how time
and fate are connected in either a Borges story or a chapter from Lightman. You will revise this
paper after workshop and resubmit all drafts.
Family Happiness and Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy
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In these classic novellas of dwindling ideals in a declining social order, Tolstoy’s intense heroes
and antiheroes tend to evoke a strong reaction in readers. With its commentary on the
individual as a political, morally ambiguous creature, the haunting prose of the Russian work will
invite close analysis, both in content and in writing style. An author’s syntax can achieve its
ultimate apotheosis in the height of dramatic irony. Nabokov’s “The Vane Sisters” will illustrate
that an author’s diction can expose forces about which even the scholarly protagonist himself is
unaware. Leo Tolstoy’s novellas emphasize themes of disillusionment of youthful ideals—
although this may not be the tragedy it initially appears. Essay will be a persuasive piece about
whether or not Tolstoy is promoting nihilism as a valid philosophy by which to live a fulfilling life.
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Many critics consider The Scarlet Letter to be the Great American Novel. Set against a stark
Puritan backdrop, the tale of adulterous Hester Prynne inspires discussion about the tension
between inner conscience and social, public recrimination. What measures does a community
enjoy taking to establish itself as a lawful body of justice, and what are the repercussions on the
individual? We will examine Hawthorne’s writing style closely, with particular attention on his
use of chiaroscuro details that resemble Rembrandt’s artwork. You will learn about Aristotle’s
rules of rhetoric and analyze the first scaffold scene looking for ethos, logos, and pathos.
Supplemental readings include New England rhetoricians Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards.
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Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Bronte
In this famous tale of unrequited love on the dark, tormented moors, Charlotte Bronte has
created several of literature’s most famous characters. We will examine how the harsh, brutal
landscape reflects the wild, passionate (not necessarily romantic) love of Catherine and
Heathcliff, and decide whether this intensity and drama classifies the novel as a “Gothic” or
“Romantic” novel. Additionally, excerpts from Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus will present
images of Victorian masculinity for us to consider when presented with the wild-eyed Heathcliff.
Poetry analysis will focus on the English Romantic era.
Dante’s Inferno from The Divine Comedy
Sometimes individuals need to walk through fire to attain knowledge. With the venerated Virgil as
the voice of reason, Dante must find “the true path” in order to attain the enlightenment personified
by the lovely Beatrice. In Inferno, written by a passionate man who lost everything and then wrote
his way to salvation, we see the alarmingly clever and stomach-turning punishments of those who
have lost “the good of the intellect.” While this complex, densely-layered work is gruesome, funny,
and at times, inscrutable, we will examine works of art based on the poem, analyze the tone and
diction of different translations, and discover what makes this one of the most beautiful and
influential works of western literature.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
“What evil lurks in the hearts of men?” Joseph Conrad knows. Like Dante’s pilgrim, Conrad’s
protagonist undergoes a nekyia, or a visit to the underworld—in this case, to the depths of the
unconscious. Both a critique of imperialism and a geography of the human psyche, Conrad’s journey
traverses intense psychological terrain. Kurtz’s mesmerizing voice haunts this dark, densely layered
work. Like Melville, whose Ahab pays the price for peering too deeply into the abyss of the whale,
Conrad exposes the price of peering into the depths of one’s “heart of darkness.”
Other works may include the following:
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, The Road by Cormac
McCarthy, short stories of Flannery O’Connor, selections from The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey
Chaucer, Aristotle’s Poetics, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Benito Cereno by Herman
Melville, and The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka