English 211/Survey of British Literature II
John William Waterhouse’s 1888 painting _The Lady of Shallot_
English 211 is a survey or overview of some of the more significant texts produced in Britain from the Romantic period to the present. 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 British literary history — Romanticism, Victorianism, Modernism, and Post-Modernism — 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 questions we will be asking include:
- What are some of the key characteristics of the British Romantic, Victorian, Modernism, and Post-Modernism 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?
Writers that we’ll be studying include Mary Wollstonecraft, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, John Keats, Percy Shelley, Christina Rosetti (Pre-Raphaelites), World War I poets, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Salmon Rushdie. The longer texts we will be reading include the 1818 edition of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest.
Our books for Spring 2022 will be the following:
- Norton Anthology of English Literature (Volumes D, E, and F)
- Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1818 edition)
- Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula
- Course Lecture Notes (available only at the Palomar College bookstore)
You can use either the 9th or 10th edition of the Norton Anthology, but be sure to get the three-volume edition since some of the things we’ll be reading aren’t included in the shorter, combined editions.
Here are images of what the three volumes of the 10th edition of the Norton Anthology look like:
Here are what the three volumes of the 9th edition of the Norton Anthology look like:
For a copy of our course syllabus, please visit our class Canvas website.
Here are some links to resources related to our class:
First-Generation Romanticism:
- Images of the French Revolution
- Article about statue in honor of Mary Wollstonecraft: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/10/mary-wollstonecraft-finally-honoured-with-statue-after-200-years
- Jonathan Bate, a leading Romanticism scholar, has put out a series of lectures on YouTube about Romanticism; here is a link to the first one, entitled “The Origins of Romanticism”
- The William Blake Archive at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
- Explanation of Blake’s illuminated printing process from the Blake Archive
- Video from the British Library on “William Blake’s Printing Process” (8:09 minutes)
- Video from the British Library on “William Blake’s Radicalism” (7:27 minutes)
- BBC TV series The Romantics on the Romantic writers
- Romantic-Era Poetic Forms handout
- Photos of the Lake District region, where Wordsworth and Coleridge lived, including a photo of Tintern Abbey
- Various versions of the Table of Contents for Lyrical Ballads
- Homepage for The Wordsworth Trust — contains images of the Lake District and his house Dove Cottage
- Gustave Dore’s 1884 engravings for “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
- Iron Maiden’s version of “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Second-Generation Romanticism:
- Paul Mealor’s choral version of Byron’s poem “She Walks in Beauty”
- Comedy Central UK’s Drunk History segment on Lord Byron
- Comedy Central UK’s Drunk History segment on Percy Shelley
- A March 9, 20177, article from The Guardian about a giant statue of Ozymandias that was recently unearthed in Egypt
- A short video (5 minutes) about the Keats-Shelley House in Rome
- An article from the BBC about the cemetery in Rome where Keats and P.B. Shelley are buried
- The Shelley-Godwin Archive, a repository of digitized manuscripts by Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and Percy Bysshe Shelley
- The Shelley-Godwin Achive’s copy of Shelley’s Frankenstein handwritten manuscript
- Study Aids to help with Frankenstein on the Romantic Circles website (RC is a peer-reviewed, scholarly website devoted to the study of Romanticism)
- The first film version of Frankenstein (1910)
- “Thug Notes” version of Frankenstein
Victorianism:
- “The Victorian Web” — a scholarly site dedicated to the literature, history, and culture of the Victorian period
- Website for Indiana University’s The Victorian Women Writers Project
- BBC History page about the Victorian era
- An article from the same BBC page about women’s work during this period
- Photos of life during the Victorian period from the UK publication The Mirror
The Pre-Raphaelites:
- John William Waterhouse’s paintings of The Lady of Shalott
- John William Waterhouse’s 1888 painting of The Lady of Shalott
- John William Waterhouse’s 1894 painting of The Lady of Shalott looking down at Lancelot
- John William Waterhouse’s 1915 painting “I Am Half Sick of Shadows”
- The Delaware Art Museum’s Collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings
- The Dante Gabriel Rossetti Archive
- Dante Gabriel’s painting “Ecce Ancilla Domini! (The Anunciation)”, in which he used Christina as the model for the Virgin Mary
- Pre-Raphaelite Paintings of Shakespeare’s Ophelia
- Sir John Everett Millais’ 1851-1852 painting
- Waterhouse’s 1894 sitting Ophelia painting
- Waterhouse’s 1910 standing Ophelia painting
- The Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood’s page about the fascination with Ophelia
- A BBC radio special on Christina Rossetti and her life
- Information about Wuthering Heights:
- “A Reader’s Guide to Wuthering Heights” website
- Link to the Bronte Parsonage Museum
- Guide to Wuthering Heights from the Bronte Parsonage
- Article from Harvard Magazine about the small books that Charlotte and Branwell created as children
- Video for Kate Bush’s song “Wuthering Heights”
- British comedian Noel Fielding’s parody of Kate Bush’s song
- Brontë Sisters Power Dolls video
- Monty Python’s skit on the “Semaphore Version of Wuthering Heights” — starts at about 1:03
- A short video about social class in Wuthering Heights
- Article from Longreads called “How the Brontes Came Out as Women”
- A funny article called “Every Meal in Wuthering Heights Ranked in Order of Sadness”
- An article about the house (now a bed and breakfast) that inspired Wuthering Heights
- A short article about how Oscar Wilde uses the verb “to fling” in much of his work
Modernism and Post-Modernism:
- Reading of Yeats’ “The Second Coming” poem
- Yeats reading his own poem “The Second Coming”
World War I Poetry:
- World War I information and images
- Short article from our Norton Anthology website that is an overview of of World War I
- Images from World War I from our Norton Anthology site
- Jessie Pope poems
- Three-minute video from the History Channel about trench warfare
- Eleven-minute video from the BBC about the trenches
- Two-minute video from the British TV show Downtown Abbey that shows what trench warfare was like (at the Battle of the Somme, which was one of WWI’s bloodiest battles)
- Short video (10:05) from The British Library about the World War I poets
- Wilfred Owen poems and information
- BBC History site with information about Owen (includes letters he wrote to his mother)
- Audio recording of “Dulce et Decorum Est”
- An article from The Telegraph called “How First World War Poetry Painted a Truer Picture”
- BBC article and recording of “The Only Surviving Recording of Virginia Woolf
- Website for the Katherine Mansfield House and Garden
- Article from The Guardian called “How Jane Austen’s Emma Changed the Course of Fiction” — on Austen’s pioneering use of free indirect discourse
- PBS interview with Salman Rushdie on the nature of fiction (28 minutes)
- Salman Rushdie explains magical realism (3:30 minutes)
- Time magazine interview with Salman Rushdie (6 minutes long) — “Ten Questions with Salman Rushdie”