Survey of English Literature: Romanticism to the Present

Join us as we zip through 200 years of British literary history! We’ll make our way Romantic, Victorian, Modern, and Contemporary, tracking major literary movements and considering how literary developments responded to social and political contexts of the time. Our readings will encompass the generic complexity of each period. We’ll read essays, novels, drama, and poetry. We will begin with the Romantic poets and Jane Austen’s Persuasion, proceed through George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, selections from working-class Victorian poets, Virginia Woolf’s essays, and conclude with Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You? 

Assignments will include a handwritten reading journal, lively discussions, exams, short essays, and presentations.