English 210

English 210/Survey of British Literature I

Fall 2021

Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:35-10:25 A.M. live on Zoom!

Since our class (if it were in person) would normally go until 11:00 A.M., we’ll be “flipping” our classroom and doing weekly discussion board posts, watching background lecture videos, and completing other activities with the rest of our time.

English 210 is a survey or overview of some of the more significant texts produced in Britain from the Middle Ages through the eighteenth century. During our semester together, we will read, analyze, and discuss a variety of texts (both canonical and non-canonical) in order to sketch out a basic understanding of some of the key authors, texts, trends, and historical and cultural contexts that have shaped British literature.

The class will be organized around the various movements within early British literary history so we can attempt to understand the historical shifts and cultural conditions that surround the works of literature that we will read.  Some of the authors and texts we’ll be reading include Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Aphra Behn’s Oronoko, Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Some of the questions we will be asking include:

• What are some of the key characteristics of the these time periods?
• Who were some of the major authors in each of these periods?
• What historical, cultural, and social conditions and concerns influenced writers in each period?

We will be using the Norton Anthology of English Literature (Volumes A, B, and C) as our textbook, and we will also be reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  In addition to purchasing the Norton Anthology, please also purchase our course Lecture Notes, which are available only at the Palomar Bookstore.

For a copy of our course syllabus, please visit our class Canvas website.

 

Norton Anthology and Writing Resources

• Norton Anthology’s Study Space website
• Sample literary analysis essay from the MLA website (on Jane Austen’s novel Mansfield Park)

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Resources on the Middle Ages

• Anglo-Saxon Literature:
  • Illustration of a medieval village
  • Getty Museum’s website on the making of medieval illuminated manuscripts
    • Getty Museum’s short video (6:13) on the making of manuscripts
  • Old English text of The Dream of the Rood
    • Video reading in Old English of The Dream of the Rood
    • Images of the Ruthwell Cross in Ruthwell, Scotland, which has lines from “The Dream of the Rood” on it

• Audio recordings of some of the texts we’ll be reading in class from the Norton website:
  • http://wwnorton.com/college/english/nael9/section/volA/audio.aspx
    • Caedmon’s Hymn
    • The Dream of the Rood 
    • The Wanderer — read in Old English
    • The Wife’s Lament — read in Old English

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• Beowulf Resources:
  • Short essay on the literary contexts of Beowulf from the Norton Anthology website
  • Images of the Sutton Hoo treasure
  • Images from the Staffordshire Hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasures — over 3,500 items that were discovered in 2009
  • Map of the Scandinavian setting of Beowulf
  • Images of Grendel from a Google search
  • Part 1 of Beowulf read by Seamus Heaney (YouTube audio recording)
  • Part 2 of Beowulf read by Seamus Heaney (YouTube audio recording)
  • Sections of Beowulf read by Seamus Heaney:
    • Prologue” from Beowulf (lines 1-98), read by Seamus Heaney from his translation
      
    • “The Fight with Grendel” from Beowulf (lines 710-823), read by Seamus Heaney from his translation
      
    • “The Last Survivor’s Speech” from Beowulf (lines 2241b-70a), read by Seamus Heaney from his translation
      
    • “Beowulf’s Funeral” from Beowulf (lines 3137-82), read by Seamus Heaney from his translation
      

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• John S. Troutman’s Lit Brick comic of Marie de France’s “Lanval“
• Link to The Domesday Book
• An interesting video on how people walked differently during the Medieval period

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• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Resources:
  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (lines 1-19) — read in Middle English

• One-hour BBC Documentary called “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” with poet Simon Armitage (the poet who did the translation of Sir Gawain that is in our Norton Anthology)

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• Canterbury Tales Resources:
  • Woodcut of the knight from Canterbury Tales
  • The Huntington Library’s digital copy of The Canterbury Tales
  • Website for Canterbury Cathedral
    • Photo 1 of the site where Thomas Becket was murdered
    • Photo 2 of the site where Thomas Becket was murdered

• Translations into Modern English:
  • Harvard University’s interlinear translation of “The General Prologue”
  • Harvard University’s interlinear translation of “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale”
  • Spark Notes’ side-by-side Middle English and Modern English version of the “The General Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales
  • Spark Notes’ side-by-side Middle English and Modern English version of the “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale”
  • Downloads (in Word, pdf, or plain-text formats) of Chaucer into Modern English from the “Chaucer in the Twenty-First Century” website

• Audio Recordings of Chaucer Read in Middle English:
  • Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The General Prologue” (lines 547-68 about the Miller) from The Canterbury Tales — read in Middle English
  • Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue” (lines 1-29) from The Canterbury Tales — read in Middle English

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Resources on the 16th and 17th Centuries

• “Shakespeare’s Original Pronunciation” video with David and Ben Crystal (10:21 minutes)
• “Shakespeare’s Accent” video with Ben Crystal (6:30 minutes)
• “How Did Shakespeare’s Actors Show the Status of the Character They Were Playing Physically?” video with Ben Crystal 
• Sample of Ben Crystal reciting the opening lines of Romeo and Juliet in what is called Original Pronunciation
• Monty Python’s “Oliver Cromwell” song

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Resources on the Restoration Period and 18th Century

• A four-minute audio clip of Kenneth Branagh reading some excerpts from Samuel Pepys’ diary

   

• Video of Enya’s song “Orinoco Flow”
• BBC 4 Documentary called Samuel Johnson, Dictionary Man (59 minutes; narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch)
• Article “This Is Your Brain on Jane Austen”