ENGL 209

Fall 2022 All Classes

All Classes

Early British Literature and Culture

SHOW FINAL EXAM SCHEDULE

Credit: 3 hours.

This course surveys more than a thousand years of British literature from the early Middle Ages through the Renaissance and well into the eighteenth century. But what does "British literature" really mean, especially in the context of an island archipelago populated by multiple nations (England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) and repeatedly subjected to foreign rule (either by violent invasion or dynastic succession)? The range of texts we thus characterize as "early British literature" is staggering, and part of our goal in this course will simply be to appreciate the sheer volume and breadth of written work created in Britain and Ireland between the sixth and eighteenth centuries. We will do this through a necessarily selective sampling of historical periods, languages, and genres. Our authors will range from the famous (e.g., Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton) to the lesser-known (e.g., Marie de France, Lady Mary Wroth, and Eliza Haywood) to the unknown (e.g., the anonymous Beowulf-poet).

Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement and ENGL 200.

Students must register for one discussion and one lecture section.

This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2022 for:

Humanities – Lit & Arts

Cultural Studies - Western

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ENGL 209 class schedule data for fall 2022
CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
33907	Discussion/ Recitation	AD1	10:00AM -10:50AM	F	English Building	Morrow, M	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/22/22-12/07/22 Degree Notes: Humanities - Lit & Arts, and Cultural Studies - Western course.
33909	Discussion/ Recitation	AD2	11:00AM -11:50AM	F	English Building	Morrow, M	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/22/22-12/07/22 Degree Notes: Humanities - Lit & Arts, and Cultural Studies - Western course.
41808	Discussion/ Recitation	AD3	12:00PM -12:50PM	F	English Building	Larkin, M	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/22/22-12/07/22 Degree Notes: Humanities - Lit & Arts, and Cultural Studies - Western course.
41809	Discussion/ Recitation	AD4	1:00PM -1:50PM	F	English Building	Larkin, M	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/22/22-12/07/22 Degree Notes: Humanities - Lit & Arts, and Cultural Studies - Western course.
33895	Lecture	AL1	10:00AM -10:50AM	MW	Henry Administration Bldg	Barrett, R	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/22/22-12/07/22 Degree Notes: Humanities - Lit & Arts, and Cultural Studies - Western course. Section Info: FA22 ENGL 209, Rob Barrett This survey of early British literature begins in the marketplace of sixth-century Rome, where English boys are being sold as slaves, and ends in the eighteenth-century country house of the German-born Prince of Wales, where the final of a patriotic masque insists that “Britons never will be slaves!” We will consider this contradiction, tracing the centuries-long process whereby the peoples occupying a particular group of islands off the northwest coast of Europe argue about who does and doesn’t count as “British.” Some of the questions we’ll ask over the course of the semester: why is Beowulf, a poem about Danes and Swedes, celebrated as the first English epic? How does a woman from France (Marie de France) end up on an English Department syllabus? Why does Shakespeare include an untranslated Welsh song in Act III of 1 Henry IV? Is it any coincidence that Aphra Behn publishes Oroonoko (the story of a slave revolt in colonial Surinam) in the same year that the Dutch Prince of Orange invades England and takes over as king? Assignments will include regular message board posts, several mini-papers, and a final exam.