Department of English

37 Pages·2013·0.33 MB·English

CHRIST UNIVERSITY
Bangalore -29

Department of English

English Studies

COURSE DESCRIPTION
Literature is an important cultural product of a society. Hence, the study of
literature offers insights into the worldviews of different societies. This course begins
with the traditional British literature introducing major writers of United Kingdom from
the early period of literature to the present. Keeping the recent developments in mind, the
course introduces our students to other literatures that have gained significance in the last
three decades, i.e., American, World, Postcolonial, and Indian literatures in translation
and in English. In the last semester the course will introduce the students to
interdisciplinary studies in culture and gender helping them to gain insights from other
disciplines like history, anthropology, sociology, political science, philosophy etc. Five
electives are introduced in the sixth semester. The department will offer any three of the
proposed five electives according to the available expertise.

OBJECTIVES

 To give an overview of literature from aesthetic, linguistic, socio-political and
cultural contexts
 To promote close reading of the individual texts
 To critique literature from varied cultures and different time periods
 To acknowledge and promote creative and subjective forms of epistemology
 To introduce the students to recent trends and debates in the literary arena
 To help students critique different genres of literature across countries
 To re-examine what is literature

Syllabus 2013 Page 1
COURSE STRUCTURE

I SEMESTER
Sub Code Subject Title Hours Marks Credits
EST 131 British Literature: Anglo-Saxon to Early 5 100 4
Victorian

II SEMESTER
Sub Code Subject Title Hours Marks Credits
EST 231 British Literature: Late Victorian to the 5 100 4
Present

III SEMESTER
Sub Code Subject Title Hours Marks Credits
EST 331 American Literatures 5 100 4

IV SEMESTER
Sub Code Subject Title Hours Marks Credits
EST431 Literary Theory 5 100 4

V SEMESTER
Sub Code Subject Title Hours Marks Credits
EST 531 Postcolonial literatures 5 100 4
EST 532 Indian Literatures: Themes and Concerns 5 100 4

VI SEMESTER
Sub Code Subject Title Hours Marks Credits
EST 631 Contemporary World Literatures 5 100 4
EST642 a Cultural Studies 5 100 4
EST 642 b Introduction to English Language Teaching
EST642 c Literatures of Diaspora

Syllabus 2013 Page 2
British Literature: Anglo-Saxon to Early Victorian

Paper code: EST 131
Marks: 100
Credits: 4 Total no. of hours: 75

General Description: This course will serve as an introductory course both for literature
and British literature. Considering that British literature is most encountered literature
among entry level learners, this course wishes to build on their existing knowledge. The
course will locate the texts in their respective socio-political and historical contexts. The
selection aims to represent British legacy of thought in its literary outpourings.

Objectives
 To introduce the students to the socio-political, religious, cultural, and linguistic
aspects of the UK through English literary texts
 To help the students realise texts as products of a historical, political and cultural
processes
 To enable students identify different forms, genres and subgenres in literature

Level of Knowledge: Working knowledge of English and literature

Expected Learning Outcome: Awareness of how the production, dissemination and
reception of literary material in England across different eras happened and the
contemporary debates and trends they stimulate

Unit I 10 Hours

The Anglo-Saxon Period
Emergence of English language; History of England from 42 BC to Norman Conquest-
salient features

The Medieval Period
Impact of Norman rule on English social structure; English language in the medieval
period; morality plays and miracle plays; feudalism

Chaucer: Wife of Bath

Unit II 15 Hours

The Renaissance Period and after
Syllabus 2013 Page 3
Protestantism; Bible translation; religious literature; humanism: Baroque Style, and later,
Rococo Style

William Shakespeare: Sonnets 18, 116
John Donne: Canonisation
George Herbert: The Collar
John Milton: Paradise Lost Book I (Lines 1-26)
William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
Francis Bacon: Of Studies

Unit III 25 Hours

Reformation, Restoration and after

Metaphysical Poetry; Epic conventions; Mock epic; Puritanism, Restoration, Rise of the
novel; the English novel in the eighteenth century; Gunpowder plot, Oliver Cromwell,

Dissolving the parliament; Periodical essays, empiricism, Influence of French culture
through restoration; The enlightenment

John Dryden: Alexander’s Feast
Thomas Gray: Elegy Written in the Country Church Yard
Alexander Pope:Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot
Addison and Steele: Character of Will Wimble
Oliver Goldsmith: Beau Tibbs
Henry Fielding: Joseph Andrews

Unit IV 25 Hours

Romanticism and early Victorian Age

Romanticism, notion of literary creation and poets, closet drama, the French Revolution;
Victorian morality, industrial revolution, utilitarianism, rise of nation-states, impact of
colonialism on England, emergence of universal education in England

William Blake: The Lamb, The Tyger
William Wordsworth: Resolution and Independence
S.T. Coleridge: Kubla Khan
Shelley- Ozymandias
Keats: Ode on a Grecian Urn
Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey

Notes:
Syllabus 2013 Page 4
1. For all texts, Norton Editions are to be treated as the official prescribed editions.
2. For critical material The Cambridge Companion Series of CUP, Case Book Series
of Macmillan and Palgrave, and Norton series of WW Norton are officially
prescribed.

Testing Pattern:

Since CIA II insists on individual testing, there could be three ways of testing the
students-

1. A class test based on the text
2. A movie review
3. A book review

For CIA III, the students can be asked

1. To prepare group presentations on topics relevant to British literature/Art and
literary movements
2. To put up an exhibition/display of the literature/paintings/other art of Diasporic
Asian community

These are a few ideas, however, during the course of teaching, there could be other
suggestions, and CIAs could be slightly modified.

Mid Semester

Section A: Short Notes – 3x5=15
3 questions to answer out of minimum 5

Section B: Essay Question 2x10=20
2 questions to answerout of minimum 3

Section C : Long Essay question 1x15 = 15
1 question out of minimum 2

End Semester and end semester pattern

Section A: Essay Question 4x10=40
4 questions to be answered out of minimum 6

Section B: Long Essay Question 4x15 = 60
4 questions to be answered out of minimum 6

Bibliography of Required Reading
Syllabus 2013 Page 5
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 8th Ed. New York: Wardworth, 2005. Print.
Ferguson, Margaret, Mary Jo Salter and Jon Stallworthy. Eds. The Norton Anthology of
Poetry. 4th Ed. New York: WW Norton, 1996. Print.
Gordden, Malcom, and Michael Lapidge. The Cambridge Companion to Old English
Literature. Rpt Cambridge: CUP, 2006. Print.
Gupta, Ambika Sen. Selected College Poems. Rpt. Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1999.
Herman, Daniel. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: CUP, 2007. Print.
John, Eileen, and Dominic McIver Lopes. Philosophy of Literature: Contemporary and
Classic Readings. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.Print.
Maxwell, Richard, and Katie Trumpener. The Cambridge Companion to Fiction in the
Romantic Period. Cambridge: CUP, 2008.Print
Sampson, George.The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature, 3rd Ed.
Cambridge: CUP, 2005. Print.
Ramarao, Vimala. Ed.Explorations. Vol I. Bangalore: Prasaranga, Bangalore University,
2004. Print.
Shingle, Michael. Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe. New York: WW Norton, 1994. Print.

British Literature: Late Victorian to the Present

Paper code: EST 231
Marks: 100
Credits: 4 Total no. of hours: 75

General Description: This course will build on the previous course and include the
remaining part of the British literature in terms of chronology. It will continue the
objectives of the previous course. The completion of this course should provide sufficient
ground to introduce literary theory in their fourth semester and postcolonial studies in
their later semesters.

Objectives

 To introduce the students to the socio-political, religious and cultural aspects of
England through English literary texts
 To help the students realise the texts as products of historical, political and cultural
contexts
 To enable students identify different forms, genres and subgenres in literature

Level of Knowledge: Working knowledge of English and literature

Syllabus 2013 Page 6
Expected Learning Outcome: Awareness of how the production, dissemination and
reception of literary material in England across different eras happened and the
contemporary debates and trends they stimulate

Unit I: Background 25 hours

Middle, Late Victorian Age and After

Darwin and the publication of Origin of Species; Victorian morality; utilitarianism,
working class struggles; realism; naturalism, neorealism, Marxism

Alfred Lord Tennyson: Ulysses
Robert Browning: My Last Duchess
Matthew Arnold: Dover Beach
Gerald Manley Hopkins: God’s Grandeur
Thomas Hardy: Tess of d’Urbervilles
Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest

Unit II: Early Twentieth Century 30 hours

Modernism; The World Wars; The Boer war; Russian revolution; Surrealism; Cubism;
Expressionism

W B Yeats: The Second Coming
T S Eliot: Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock
Virginia Woolf: A Room of One’ Own
John Osborne: Look Back in Anger
George Orwell: Animal farm

Unit III: Late Twentieth Century 20 hours

British Beat Generation, Performance Poetry, Postmodernism, Diaspora,
Multiculturalism, Hybridity

Adrien Mitchell: The Question
Ted Hughes: Hawk Roosting
Benjamin Zephaniah: Dis Poetry

Testing Pattern:

Since CIA II insists on individual testing, there could be three ways of testing the
students-

1. A class test based on the text
Syllabus 2013 Page 7
2. A movie review
3. A book review

For CIA III, the students can be asked

1. To prepare group presentations on topics relevant to British literature
2. To put up an exhibition/display of the literature/paintings/other art
productions of the United Kingdom

These are a few ideas, however, during the course of teaching, there could be other
suggestions, and CIA’s could be slightly modified.

Mid Semester

Section A: Short Notes – 3x5=15
3 questions to answer out of minimum 5

Section B: Essay Question 2x10=20
2 questions to answerout of minimum 3

Section C : Long Essay question 1x15 = 15
1 question out of minimum 2

End Semester and end semester pattern

Section A: Essay Question 4x10=40
4 questions to be answered out of minimum 6

Section B: Long Essay Question 4x15 = 60
4 questions to be answered out of minimum 6

Notes:
1. For all texts Norton Editions are to be treated as the official prescribed editions.
2. For critical material The Cambridge Companion Series of CUP, Case Book Series
of Macmillan and Palgrave, and Norton series of WW Norton are officially
prescribed.

Bibliography of Required Reading

Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 8th Ed. New York: Wardworth, 2005. Print.
Corcoran, Neil. The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century English Poetry.
Cambridge: CUP, 2007.Print.
Davis, Alex, and Lee M Jenkins. The Cambridge Companion to Modernist Poetry.
Cambridge: CUP, 2007.Print.
Syllabus 2013 Page 8
Ferguson, Margaret, Mary Jo Salter and Jon Stallworthy. Eds. The Norton Anthology of
Poetry. 4th Ed. New York: WW Norton, 1996. Print.
Gupta, Ambika Sen. Selected College Poems. Rpt. Hyderabad: Orient
Longman,1999.Print.
The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: CUP, 2007.Print.
John, Eileen, and Dominic McIver Lopes. Philosophy of Literature: Contemporary and
Classic Readings. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.Print.
Kaplan, Fred, and Monod, Sylvere. Hard Times. New York: WW Norton, 2002.Print.
Sampson, George. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature, 3rd Ed.
Cambridge: CUP, 2005.Print.
Ramarao, Vimala,. Ed. Explorations. Vol II. Bangalore: Prasaranga, Bangalore
University, 2004.Print.

American Literatures

Paper code: EST 331
Marks: 100
Credits: 4 Total no. of hours: 75

General Description: The design/structure of the course supports an extensive study of
particular age/period in favour of a more conventional ‘representative writers’. While the
numbers of the literary texts and writers identified for the study are enormously large, the
critical focus being on the period should override all such arbitrary considerations as
representative-ness(of writers) and readable/teachable-ness (of texts).
The course identifies ‘varieties’ as a crucial determinant of the nature and scope of the
literature in this selection, thus dismantling/dissolving conventional boundaries between
the classic and the popular. Instead it incorporates a wide variety of literary and non-
literary texts as simultaneously framing the cultural assumptions of the age/period.
Toward realising this value/principle, there is a recommended reading list following the
units.

Objectives

 To introduce the students to the socio-political, religious and cultural aspects of
America through literary texts
 To enable the students to realise the texts as products of historical, political and
cultural contexts

Level of Knowledge: Basic literary competence

Expected Learning Outcome: Awareness of how the production, dissemination and
reception of literary material in America across different eras happened and the
contemporary debates, tensions and trends they stimulate

Syllabus 2013 Page 9
Eighteenth Century

The Liberty Song
Context: Patriot and Loyalist Songs and Ballads
Phillis Wheatly (1753-1784)
On being brought from Africa to America
Context: Contested Boundaries, National Visions: Writings on “Race”, “Identity”, and
“Nation”

Unit II 25 Hrs

Early Nineteenth Century: 1800-1865

Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)
The Purloined Letter
Context: Myths, Tales, and Legends
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Address at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery
Context: The Literature of Slavery and Abolition
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
From Leaves of Grass – preface, song of myself
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
I felt a funeral in my brain
Context: The Emergence of American Poetic Voices

The Literature of an Expanding Nation: 1865-1912

Mark Twain (1835-1910)
From Old Times on the Mississipi
Kate Chopin (1851-1904)
Desiree’s Baby

Unit III 25 Hrs

The Literature of Modernism: 1912-1940

Prose

William Faulkner
That Evening Sun
Ernest Hemingway
Big Two-hearted River
Zola Neal Hurston
The Gilded Six- bits

Syllabus 2013 Page 10