Graduate Courses in English

ENGL 52700 : Medieval Drama in English Society. An examination of the representative mysteries, moralities, and folk plays in their social, political, and religious contexts. Consideration of critical issues including patronage, carnival, subjectivity, and audience reception.

ENGL 52800 : Medieval English Literature; Prerequisite: Upper division undergraduate level course work in English Literature (British and Commonwealth); six hours of literature. A survey of selected works of Medieval English Literature (700-1500 C.E.), exclusion of Chaucer's writings.

ENGL 53100 : The Rise of the Novel. A study of the history and theory of the emergent novel genre as it developed in 18th-century Britain and/or America.

ENGL 53200 : The English Novel in the Nineteenth Century. A survey of fiction up to about 1880, including such novelists as Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontës, Eliot, and Meredith.

ENGL 53300 : Renaissance Texts/Renaissance Theory to 1603. Renaissance texts by Spenser, Sidney, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and others. The course looks at literary background (classical and Continental), the art of translation, verse construction, poetics, rhetoric, and political and religious contexts. Possible approaches include new historicism, gender, and cultural theory.

ENGL 53400 : Seventeenth-Century Literature. Nondramatic literature from 1603 to 1660. Particular emphasis upon such figures as Jonson, Donne, Marvell, and Herbert, with representative prose from Bacon, Browne, Burton, and others.

ENGL 53500 : Restoration and Early Eighteenth Century Literature. A survey of the nondramatic literature from 1660 to 1744, from Claredon through Thomson. Emphasizes Bunyan, Dryden, Pope, and Swift.

ENGL 53600 : Later Eighteenth-Century Literature. A survey of nondramatic literature from 1744 to 1798, from Young through Gibbon and Cowper. Excludes the novel. Emphasizes Gray and his circle, and Johnson and his circle.

ENGL 53700 : Drama in Early Modern England. Analysis of plays by Marlowe, Jonson, Middleton, Webster, and others with attention to poetics, dramatic structure, and recent critical and cultural theory.

ENGL 53800 : English Drama from the Restoration to the Modern Period. A survey of English drama from Dryden and Wycherley through Robertson and Pinero.

ENGL 54000 : Studies in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. Critical reading of Troilus and Criseyde and related works in Middle English, with attention to the literary and cultural background and to secondary studies.

ENGL 54100 : Studies in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Intensive study of the development of Chaucer's literary work with consideration of his language, his sources, and various critical approaches to his poetry.

ENGL 54200 : Shakespeare's Dramatic Art. Analysis of Shakespeare's plays within the dramatic tradition of comedy, tragedy, history and romance. Consideration of matters such as poetics, dramatic structure and conventions, and textual problems.

ENGL 54300 : Shakespeare in Critical Perspective. Shakespeare's plays read in context of historical and contemporary literary theory and criticism, considering such issues and approaches as structuralism, Marxism, deconstruction, new historicism, colonialism, sexuality, race and gender.

ENGL 54400 : Milton. A study of Milton's poetry and prose, with particular emphasis on Paradise Lost, and some attention to the social, political, and literary background.

ENGL 54700 : British Romanticism. Readings from among the works of the High Romantics and other figures; discussion of historical, philosophical, cultural debates of the era, with attention to current critical and theoretical developments in the field.

ENGL 54800 : Victorian Literature. A study of selected English poetry and prose, largely non-fiction, from circa 1830-1900. Includes readings from such figures as Arnold, Barrett, Brontë, Browning, Carlyle, Mill, Rosetti, Ruskin, and Tennyson.

ENGL 54900 : Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature. A study of the rebellion against Victorian conventions that characterized the period from 1880-1910. Such movements as aestheticism, decadence, symbolism, and naturalism are examined in the works of such writers as Conrad, Dowson, Hardy, Mansfield, Schreiner, Wilde and Yeats.

ENGL 55000 : Studies in Major Early British Authors; May be repeated for a maximum of six credits; Prerequisite: One 400-level course in English Literature or the consent of instructor. A study of the works of one or two influential early British authors (700-1800 C.E.), exclusive of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton.

ENGL 55100 : Studies in Major British Authors; May be repeated for a maximum of six credits; Prerequisite: One 400-level course in English Literature or consent of instructor. A study of the works of one or two influential nineteenth- or twentieth-century British authors.

ENGL 55200 : Studies in Major American Authors; May be repeated for a maximum of six credits; Prerequisite: One 400-level course in English Literature or consent of instructor. A study of the works of one or two influential American authors.

ENGL 55300 : Colonial and Early American Literature. A survey of American literature to about 1820. Texts of major and minor authors, such as Bradford, Bradstreet, Rowlandson, and Cooper, are viewed within their cultural context.

ENGL 55400 : American Literary Culture 1820-1860. Emphasizes cultural inventory, definition, and production in early nineteenth-century literary culture. The approach is intertextual, moving back and forth between emerging culture and literary productions, and between one author and other authors.

ENGL 55600 : Nineteenth-Century American Fiction. Surveys the development of American fiction from its beginnings. Though representative works of all periods will be read, emphasis will be given to Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, and James.

ENGL 55700 : Nineteenth-Century African-American Narrative. The application on contemporary theories to search for "authority" and "authenticity" in texts of selected nineteenth-century African-American writers of narratives, autobiographies, and essays. Examination of how issues of race, class, and gender impact on the texts' narrative voice(s).

ENGL 55800 : American Literature in the Later Nineteenth-Century. Study of American Literature from about 1865 to 1900. Addresses realism, regionalism, naturalism, and other related movements. Focuses on such writers as Whitman, Dickinson, Stowe, Davis, Stoddard, Alcott, Twain, Howells, James, Jewett, Chopin, Crane, Chesnutt, and Norris.

ENGL 56000 : Modern American Poetry. A survey of modern American poetry. Emphasis will be on major writers such as Eliot, Pound, Frost, Stevens, and Lowell, but attention will be paid to lesser figures.

ENGL 56100 : Modern British Poetry. Surveys modern British poetry from Hardy to Auden; relates it to the main currents of modern thought and feeling; introduces critical principles.

ENGL 56900 : Contemporary Criticism and Theory. Study of contemporary criticism and theory generally focused on such schools and movements as structuralism, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, feminism, new historicism, cultural studies, and gay and lesbian studies.

ENGL 57200 : Modern British Drama and its Contexts. A study of representative works by major playwrights from Wilde, Shaw, and the Irish dramatic renaissance to the present. Some attention to continental European movements and influences that provide a context for these writers.

ENGL 57300 : Tragedy. The chief tragic views of life, as illustrated in Greek, Shakespearean, and modern drama, as well as in the novel and poetry, with selected reading on the theory of tragedy.

ENGL 57400 : The Continental Novel. Reading and discussion of representative novels from European and Russian Literature from the seventeenth century to the present, by such writers as Cervantes, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Proust, Mann, and Kafka.

ENGL 57500 : Modern American Drama. Representative plays by major American playwrights from 1920 to the present.

ENGL 57600 : Philosophy and Literary Theory (PHIL 576). May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Six hours of Philosophy or six hours of English or consent of instructor. Explores the interchanges between philosophy and literary theory that animate such areas as hermeneutics, phenomenology, existentialism, Marxism, feminism, African-American studies, postmodern theory, and cultural studies.

ENGL 57700 : Modern British and American Poetry. A survey of modern British and American poetry from Hardy and E. A. Robinson to Auden and Robert Lowell.

ENGL 57800 : Early Twentieth-Century American Fiction. Study of American fiction from about 1900 to1945. Addresses naturalism, social realism, modernism, and related movements, and such writers as Dreiser, Wharton, Stein, Lewis, Toomer, Cather, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Glasgow, Roth, Dos Passos, Miller, Faulkner, Hurston, Wright, and Welty.

ENGL 57900 : Modern British Fiction. Critical study of twentieth-century novels, mainly before World War II, by such writers as Conrad, Lawrence, Forster, Joyce, and Woolf.

ENGL 58000 : Theories of Modernity and Postmodernity. Exploration of theories and models of modernity and postmodernity, with emphasis on cultural and critical issues.

ENGL 58300 : U.S. Ethnic/Multicultural Literature. May be repeated for a maximum of nine hours. A critical examination of multicultural literature or the literature of a particular ethnic group or groups, such as African American, Asian American, Jewish American, Latina/o, Native American.

ENGL 58400 : Literature and Psychological Problems. May be repeated for a maximum of six hours. Novels, stories, plays, and other types of literature dealing with important psychological problems. To show how great imaginative writers have treated problems of human relationship with which contemporary psychology is concerned.

ENGL 58600 : Theory of Film. An intensive survey of film theory and aesthetics utilizing both films and written texts. Topics covered include: changing conceptions of film language, theories of authorship and genre, theories of narrative, social theory of film, film aesthetics as related to other forms.

ENGL 59200 : Postcolonial Studies; May be repeated for credit. Study of works from once colonized cultures in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, and/or postcolonial diasporas. Individual sections will focus on one or more of the following: literature, women's literature, film or feminist and cultural theory.

ENGL 59300 : Contemporary British Fiction. Critical study of the British novel since World War II. Survey of scholarship and criticism.

ENGL 59400 : Contemporary Poetry. Study of poetry of the past two or three decades, both American and foreign, and their interaction. Attention to influences, "schools", and little magazines, as well as to conventional sources.

ENGL 59500 : Contemporary American Fiction. Intensive study of contemporary and postmodern American fiction within various formal, theoretical, and cultural contexts, including multiculturalism, poststructuralism, and gender analysis, among others.

ENGL 59600 : Advanced Studies in Literature or Language. May be repeated for credit. Advanced study of a topic within the instructor's field of specialization. Emphasis on scholarly analysis and research.

ENGL 59700 : Contemporary Black Feminist Literature. An intense examination of recent literary works by black women along with various critical theories constructed about black women's literature, beginning with the premise that black feminism is a "sign to be interrogated, a locus of contradictions."

ENGL 61100 : Old English Language. A study of the principal prose and poetry from the beginnings to about 1100. Emphasis on the language.

ENGL 61200 : Old English Literature. A survey of Old English literary works, including heroic poetry, religious epic, elegiac poetry, homilies, and secular prose, illustrative of the early development of English literature and culture. Prerequisite: ENGL 61100.

ENGL 61300 : Middle English Language. A study of selected readings from the literature of about 1100 to about 1500. Emphasis on the language.

ENGL 61400 : Middle English Literature. Study of representative works in the major literary traditions and genres of Middle English literature (exclusive of Chaucer): lyric, romance, satire, and allegory. Detailed examination of major works, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman, and Pearl. Prerequisite: ENGL 61300.

ENGL 61500 : A Reading of Beowulf. An intensive reading of Beowulf in the original with a consideration of background sources and interpretive theories. Prerequisite: ENGL 61100.

ENGL 61600 : Introduction to Old Norse. An introduction to the study of Old Norse prose and poetry, and an introduction to literary problems, together with a survey of the linguistic relationship of Old Norse to other Germanic languages, especially Old English.

ENGL 63200 : Seminar in Narrative Theory. Examination of various theoretical approaches to narrative: may include structuralist, posstructuralist, rhetorical, psychanalytic, feminist, post-colonial, materialist, and other approaches to narrative in its cultural and historical manifestations.

ENGL 63300 : Seminar in English Literature Before 1660. Variable subjects (authors, themes, periods, movements) in English literature from Beowulf to Paradise Lost.

ENGL 63500 : Seminar in English Literature 1660-1783. Intensive consideration of one to three or four authors or of literary topics and genres, such as drama, fiction, literary criticism and literary history, the medieval revival, poetic and prose satire, the periodical essay, biography, etc.

ENGL 64200 : Seminar in Shakespeare. Special topics in Shakespeare criticism, concentrating on one or more plays. Topics such as women in Shakespeare's plays, performance theory and practice, and current theoretical approaches. Students investigate a single topic in depth.

ENGL 64700 : Seminar in the Romantic Movement. A close investigation of the works of one or more outstanding writers of English literature from 1783 to 1832, their place in the Romantic Movement, and their historical and cultural relations to the times.

ENGL 64800 : Seminar in Victorian Literature. A detalied study of the works of one or more figures of English literature from 1832 to 1880: their relation to the literary movements and historical and cultural backgrounds of the age.

ENGL 64900 : Seminar in English Literature 1880-1920. Subjects range from individual authors and specific literary types to transitional literary movements.

ENGL 65700 : Seminar in American Literature 1630-1900. A variable content seminar on authors, themes, genres, movements, geographic regions, or cultural contexts.

ENGL 66000 : Comparative Literature: Function and Methods. (FLL 63000) An introduction to methods, problems, and the bibliographical tools pertaining to comparative study. Prerequisite: Required of all students in the Comparative Literature Program.

ENGL 66500 : Seminar in Comparative Literature. (FLL 63900) Advanced study of international literary movements, influence thematology, literary theory, and genre development. See Comparative Literature Program.

ENGL 66700 : Seminar in Poetics and Aesthetics. Study of selected influential figures, concepts, and texts in the history of poetics and aesthetics from ancient times to the present.

ENGL 66800 : Seminar in Interpretation and Cultural Theory. Examination of selected developments in social, cultural, and hermeneutical theories from the eighteenth century to the present.

ENGL 67200 : Seminar in Women's Literature and Feminist Theory. A variable topic course investigating gender as a category of analysis. Intensive study of one or two women authors, of a particular genre or period, or of a critical issue relevant to women's literature and/or feminist theory.

ENGL 67300 : Seminar in Postcolonial Studies. Advanced study of works from once-colonized cultures in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, and/or postcolonial diasporas in the first world. Individual sections will focus on one or more of the following: literature, women's literature, film, and feminist and cultural theory.

ENGL 67700 : Seminar in Modern Literature. Developments in English, American, and European literature in modern times. Individual seminars will ordinarily be concerned with drama, poetry, or fiction, but may treat all three types together.

ENGL 67800 : Seminar in Modern American Literature. A variable content course, focusing on developments, movements, and authors in modern American literature and culture. Major research project required.

ENGL 67900 : Seminar in Modern British Fiction. Study in depth of one or two major novelists, a literary movement, a group of writers, or a form of modern fiction. Oral reports and research papers required.

ENGL 69600 : Seminar in Literature. Advanced study of special subjects.

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