ENGL 2010 - Dragons, Green Knights and the Origins of English Literature

(HB) (LA-AS)

Fall. 3-4 credits, variable.

ENGL 2010, not a prerequisite for ENGL 2020, may be used as one of the three pre-1800 courses required of English majors.

Non-majors may choose a 3-credit option with less writing.

M. Raskolnikov.

How did England, once a backwater, create some of the culture that now dominates our world? Who wrote the first poem in English, and why did Londoners believe that they were descended from exiled Trojan warriors? This course introduces you to the works that make up the foundation of what we came to call English literature, and teaches you how to read them well. Along the way, you will learn how to talk about literary works like an English major, whether you plan to be one or not. Readings include Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, selections from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, some of the first plays written in England as well as Shakespeare’s King Lear, Elizabethan sonnets, poems by Donne, Marvell, and Herbert, and a selection from Milton’s Paradise Lost.