Survey Course I: British Literature - Beginnings to Romanticism

Course content

Group A:
This course (the first in a two-part sequence) aims at providing a rough (and necessarily sketchy) overview over the key texts and periods of English literature from the Renaissance to Romanticism. Our starting point will be the merits, pitfalls and governing principles of writing literary histories. We will then focus on Medieval, Renaissance (Elizabethan, Jacobean, 1500 to 1660), Classicist Restoration, Augustan (1660 to 1789), up to Romantic literature (1790 to 1830).

Group B:
This survey course is designed as a rough overview over the literary history(ies) ranging from Medieval Literature to early Romanticism. Our literary as well as cultural journey will encompass poetry, drama, narrative fiction, essays, and culturally relevant critical texts. By discussing selected works ranging from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to Pre-Romanticism, from Beowulf and William Shakespeare to Thomas Gray, we will trace lines of development and place these texts into their literary, as well as cultural contexts. This course will provide an opportunity to deepen analytical skills and to further an awareness of litera-ture as a crucial part of rapidly changing times.