ENGL 2020 - Literature in English II: 1750 to the Present

(HB) (LA-AS)

Spring. 4 credits. Student option grading.

G. Londe.

What is a self? An integrated whole or a mass of fragments? Is each of us connected to others, and if so, which others? Are we mired in the past, or can we break from old habits and beliefs to create new selves and new worlds? How affected are we by status: as servant or slave, explorer or settler, indigenous or immigrant? These are some of the most vital questions in literatures from Britain, the U.S, the Caribbean, and Africa. We will consider some of the texts that engage these questions including those by authors such as Phillis Wheatley, John Keats, Edgar Allan Poe, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, Zitkala-Ša, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Chinua Achebe, and Samuel Beckett.