English 201: Selected Works of British Literature
Medieval through 1800
Web Resources * Professor Burks' home page * OSU-Lima * OSCAR
I am resolved to rise with the sun and to study Scriptures on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings, and to study some Latin author the other three mornings. Noons and nights I intend to read English authors. . . . I will rouse up my mind and fix my attention. I will stand collected within myself and think upon what I read and what I see. I will strive with all my soul to be something more than persons who have had less advantages than myself. -- John Adams, July 21, 1756, in his journal. Quoted by David McCullough in John Adams, 41.
NOTE: Some items have links to other internet sites that may be of help to you as you work with this material. Where page numbers are indicated in parentheses, these refer to The Longman Anthology. I am always interested in learning of other academic sites with good information relevant to the authors and works we will study in this course. (Of course, I would also like to be made aware of any broken links in the pages below.)
| Thursday | Introduction: Taliesin (139-43); "The Wanderer" (143-6); "The Wife's Lament" (148-9); Bede, "An Ecclesiastical History of the English People" (126-31). Reading and Study Questions |
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| Tuesday | "The Middle Ages" (2-26); "Judith" (114-19); "The Dream of the Rood" (120-24, plus alternate translation, see xerox handout. FYI: here's a modern English verse translation); Medieval lyrics (520-35). Reading and Study Questions |
| Thursday | The Play of Adam (Medieval literature packet); Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, "General Prologue, lines 1-286" (272-6; 293-301). Reading and Study Questions |
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| Tuesday | Chaucer, "General Prologue" (lines 286-end); "The Pardoner" (all parts, 357-72). Reading and Study Questions |
| Thursday | Chaucer, "The Wife of Bath's Prologue" (Medieval literature packet); "The Wife of Bath’s Tale" (348-56). Reading and Study Questions; |
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| Tuesday | Medieval Cycle Plays: Noah, Wakefield; The Sacrifice of Isaac, Brome (Medieval literature packet). Reading and Study Questions |
| Thursday | Julian of Norwich, A Book of Showings, (chapters 1-5); Margery Kempe, "The Book of Margery Kempe," (500-20). Reading & Study Questions |
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| Tuesday | Arthurian Literature: Marie de France (170-85); Sir Thomas Malory, Morte Darthur (344-63, plus Malory handout); Courtly Love handout; Reading and Study Questions |
| Thursday | Midterm Exam |
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| Tuesday | "The Early Modern Period" (569-88); Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Introductions, "A letter of the Authors," Book One, Invocation to his Muse (4 stanzas); Book One, canto one, stanzas 1-28 (pp. 735-6, 740-51). Reading and Study Questions |
| Thursday | Philip Sidney, from Astrophil and Stella #1, 31, 39, 45, 60, 71, 108 (pp. 911-12; 987-93); Spenser, Amoretti #1, 13, 22, 62, 65, 75 (pp. 898-901); William Shakespeare, Sonnets #1, 18, 55, 60, 130, 138, (pp. 1166-78). Reading and Study Questions |
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| Tuesday | Mary Wroth, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus (1571-7); Christopher Marlowe/Sir Walter Raleigh: The Passionate Shepherd and the Nymph (1046, 1098-9); John Donne, "Song," "The Indifferent," "The Bait," "The Apparition (1549-53, 1558-59). Reading and Study Questions |
| Thursday | Mary (Sidney) Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, "Even Now that Care," "Psalm 71: In Te Domini Speravi," "Psalm 121: Levavi Oculos"; Amelia Lanyer, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1036, 1041-5); Anne Bradstreet (handout). Reading and Study Questions |
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| Tuesday | John Donne, "The Good Morrow," "The Sun Rising," "Break of Day," "The Flea," "A Valediction of Weeping," "A Valediciton: Forbidding Mourning," Holy Sonnets #1, 6; "For whom the bell tolls" (1564-9). Reading and Study Questions |
| Thursday | Shakespeare, Othello, Act One, (1179-97). Reading and Study Questions |
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| Tuesday | Shakespeare, Othello, Acts Two and Three (1197-1232). Reading and Study Questions |
| Thursday | Shakespeare, Othello, Acts Four and Five (1232-60). Reading and Study Questions |
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| Tuesday | Shakespeare, Othello in production on stage and film Paper Due at Start of Class |
| Thursday | Thanksgiving |
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| Tuesday | "The Civil War, or the Wars of Three Kingdoms" (1698-1701); John Milton, Paradise Lost. Read the introduction, plus the "arguments" for each book (1755-57, 1776, 1799-1800, 1813, 1832, 1842, 1844, 1854, 1879, 1897-8). Reading and Study Questions |
| Thursday | Milton, Paradise Lost, Book Nine (1854-78). Reading and Study Questions |