12 - 047
History of British Culture / Literature
Brother Anthony (An Sonjae)
Fall Semester 2006
  Monday, Wednesday, Friday 14:00



This course is designed to give students a deeper understanding of the historical origins and the development of the literature written in England. Usually the Monday and Wednesday classes will focus on the society and histroical events of the period, the Friday class will be spent looking at the poems etc set for the week. 

The main text book (available from the University Bookstore) will be :

An Illustrated History of Britain by David McDowall (Longman, 1989).

Students must also have a copy of History of English Literature Through Poetry (available in the first week of class)

Grading: The two Reports and the two Exams (midterm and final) will have equal value.

If you have questions you may write emails to Brother Anthony or visit him in his office (X109)

There are many Internet resources available. See my page of links.



Class topics and linked materials

Page numbers refer to "An Illustrated History of Britain"
Works with underlined titles are found in "History of English Literature Through Poetry"

Week 1  Introduction  A map of Britain    An outline of Britain

Week 2 (Pages 1 - 33) Early history, Celtic, Roman Britain Stonehenge (+ in English Heritage), (BBC) Roman Britain, The Romans in Britain, Roman roads, Hadrian’s Wall, Roman Bath. Roman London. Anglo-Saxons, Vikings,
   
Old English literature: The Wanderer, Beowulf

Week 3  (Pages 34 - 65)   Medieval England:  The Norman Conquest... Bayeux Tapestry Part : 18, Magna Carta Canterbury Cathedral 1, Westminster Abbey,
     Medieval literature: The Troubadors,
King Arthur and the Round Table, The Grail, Dante, Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, The Canterbury Tales

Week 4 (Pages 67 - 85) Renaissance and Reformation, Tudor England
        Thomas More: Utopia

Week 5   Elizabethan England
     Sonnets by  Shakespeare


Week 6   (No classes Tuesday, Thursday, Friday) 
Shakespeare: Hamlet (video)

Week 7    Hamlet (video)

Week 8   Mid-term Exams

Week 9 (Pages 87 - 129)  The 17th Century: Tradition and Revolution
John Donne 'Song', 'The Sun Rising',  'A Valediction Forbidding Mourning',
'Batter My Heart';.
George Herbert 'The Pulley', 'The Altar', 'Easter Wings', 'Love 3' etc.  John Milton 'Il Penseroso'

Week 10  The 18th Century:  Satire and Sensitivity
Alexander Pope, Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady. Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.

Week 11  Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice  (video)

Week 12  (Pages 131 - 150)  19th-century Britain : Industry, Empire, Progress
      Poems: Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey; Keats, To Autumn, Ode on a Grecian Urn; Robert Browning, Home-Thoughts; Gerard Manley Hopkins, God's Grandeur.
  Fiction: a brief survey of 19th-century novels

Week 13 (Pages 151 - 184) The history of the 20th-century
  Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth, Strange Meeting.  T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

Week 14
       The culture / literature of Britain today

Week 15  Final Exams


Assignments : Each student will prepare two illustrated reports:

The first report will be  a discussion of what you think Shakespeare's Hamlet is about and why it is so popular. It will be accompanied by a few pages (combining pictures and your own text) evoking the Elizabethan Age in which Shakespeare's Hamlet was written.

(The first report will be due at the first class after Mid-term Exams)

The second report will be a descriptive survey of one major aspect of British society and culture in its development through history until today. (eg one of the following: Parliament, the monarchy, the education system, health care, sport, art, music, architecture . . .)
(The second report will be submitted by the Tuesday after the end of the Final Exam)