British Literature II: 1785-Present
Mrs. Warstler
This is a tentative schedule. While I fully intend to cover all of the material that is
listed, I will adjust for unforeseen events that result in cancelled class time.
Romantic Period (1785-1832) Volume D
Week 1: Aug. 19-22
Course Guidelines/Introduction to Stark State website
Historical background (3-27)
Ballads (32-33)
Week 2: Aug. 25-28
Anna Letitia Barbauld: “The Rights of Woman” (48)
Mary Robinson: “London’s Summer Morning” (80), “The Poor Singing Dame”
(81),
Robert Burns: “”Green grow the rashes” (167), “Auld Lang Syne” (173)
“A Red, Red Rose” (181), “Song: For a’that and a’that” (181)
Week 3: Sept. 2-5
William Blake: “The Lamb” (120), “The Tyger” (129), “Infant Joy” (123),
“Infant Sorrow” (134), “The Human Abstract” (133), “A Divine Image” (135)
Weeks 4 and 5: Sept. 8-19
Edmund Burke: “Reflections on the Revolution in France” (187)
Mary Wollstonecraft: “A Vindication of the Rights of Man” (194)
Thomas Paine: “Rights of Man” (199)
James Gillray: Prints and Propaganda (204-207)
Week 6: Sept. 22-26
William Wordsworth: “Goody Blake and Harry Gill” (272), “Expostulation
And Reply” (280), “The Tables Turned” (281), “Lines Composed a Few Miles
above Tintern Abbey” (288)
Week 7: Sept. 29-Oct. 3
Samuel Coleridge: “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (443)
Critical Essay 1 due Oct. 3 at the beginning of class
Weeks 8 and 9: Oct. 6-17
Jane Austin: “”Love and Friendship: A Novel in a Series of Letters” (525)
Pride and Prejudice
Mid-term exam: Oct. 9
Week 10: Oct. 20-23
Percy Bysshe Shelley: “The Mask of Anarchy” (779), “England in 1819” (790)
“To Sidmouth and Castlereagh” (790), “Ode to the West Wind” (791)
John Keats: “Ode To a Nightingale” (927)
The Victorian Age (1830-1901) Volume E
Week 11: October 27-31
Introduction (1017-1041), Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “Sonnets from the
Portuguese” (11-29), Alfred Lord Tennyson: “The Lady of Shalott” (1161)
Presentations: Victorian Issues (Evolution, Industrialism, The“Woman
Question”, Empire and National Identity)
Week 12: Nov. 3-7
Oscar Wilde:The Importance of Being Earnest” (1733)
Critical Essay 2 due on Nov. 7 at the beginning of class.
Week 13: Nov. 10-14
Bernard Shaw: Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1780)
Note: As we read Shaw during class, read Mrs. Dalloway for Week 14.
The Twentieth Century and After (1901 to present) Volume F
Week 14: Nov. 17-21
Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway (2155)
Week 15: Nov. 24-25
Katherine Mansfield: “The Garden Party” (2581)
George Orwell: “Shooting an Elephant” (2605)
Week 16: Dec. 2-5
Doris Lessing: “To Room Nineteen” (2759)
Margaret Atwood: “Death By Landscape” (2969)
Week 17: Dec. 8-12
Dylan Thomas: “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” (2703)
Seamus Heaney: “Digging” (2953), “Casualty” (2957)
Stevie Smith: “Not Waving but Drowning” (2601), “Sunt Leones”
Exam Week: Dec. 15-19 Final Exam Dec. 16
Research Essay due Jan. 5 at the beginning of class.