NCSSM COURSE CAtAlOG - North Carolina School of Science and ...

EN404 British Literature from 1603-1837
One trimester
Credit: One unit core English credit
Prerequisite: Completion of three trimesters of AS303 Writing and American
Studies or AS305 American Studies or completion of two trimesters of AS303 or
AS305 and permission of the Dean of Humanities.
Meeting pattern: Three periods per week including lab.
This course is an exploration of literature and its cultural contexts, which include
Britain’s rise as a modern, maritime, commercial empire. The course spans the
period from the reign of James I to the accession of Queen Victoria. It begins
with the literary Baroque and with poems and plays by writers like Shakespeare,
Ben Jonson, and John Donne, and it concludes with English Romanticism, with its
redefinition of the poet and poetry. Writers include figures like Marvell and
Lovelace, who wrote from the vantage point of Civil War, revolutionary thinkers
and writers like Milton, whose Satan inspired William Blake and Percy Shelley,
who believed poets had political as well as aesthetic roles to play. We also
encounter gentler voices – those of Romantic writers like Wordsworth and
Coleridge – and the somber voices of Keats and the early Tennyson. This period
also chronicles the rise of the novel – one of the major achievements of English
literary history – and may include works by Daniel Defoe, Jane Austen, Mary
Shelley (Frankenstein) and the Brontë sisters. Grades are based on a variety of
essays and tests.
EN406 British Literature from 1837 to Present
One trimester
Credit: One unit core English credit.
Prerequisite: Completion of three trimesters of AS303 Writing and American
Studies or AS305 American Studies or completion of two trimesters of AS303 or
AS305 and permission of the Dean of Humanities.
Meeting pattern: Three periods per week including lab.
This course explores British literature in the Age of Empire – and in the wake of
the Empire’s decline. Readings may include works by Victorian writers like the
later Tennyson and Arnold, as well as Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Bram
Stoker’s Dracula, Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, and other works that allow us to
think about changing perceptions of women, the social world, and the world of
Nature. Literary Modernism is a central feature of the course, and readings
include works by Joyce, Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, and others. Evelyn Waugh’s
Brideshead Revisited is a nostalgic look at the world and the way of life that was
lost in two world wars. The course ends with modern poets such as Ted Hughes,
Philip Larkin, and others. Grades are based on a variety of essays and tests.
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