English Literature I (Elizabethan Drama to the Eighteenth Century)
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
NationalChungHsingUniversity
Professor Shu-ching Chen
Spring, 2007
Office: 701; 713
Office Hours: Friday 2:00-4:00 PM or by appointment
A Syllabus
Course Description:
The second semester of this introductory course of English Literature will strive to provide a survey of English literature from the Restoration to the Eighteenth century, based upon the understanding of the social, political and cultural history of England, the investigation of literary genres, and the scrutiny of the idea of “human,” “humanism” and “individual subjects” in its specific social historical contexts. We will pay special attention to the dialectics of form and content in terms of specific literary genres, the concept of individual subjects in relation to God, the church, kings, the noble men and fellow commoners, the ideas of gender, class and nation, and the division between public and private spaces as they are expressed and represented in literature.
Selected works of Shakespear, Milton, John Donne, Ben Jonson, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, etc.
Class Policy:
There will be at least 2 pop quizzes before the midterm exam and another 2 pop quizzes after the midterm. So make sure you are fully prepared before you step in to our class.
Each absence without leave will cost you 2 points of deduction in your final grade.
Midterm 35%, Final Exam 35%, pop quizzes, attendance and class performance 30%
Office: Y 713 Office hour: Friday 2:00pm-5:00pm or by appointment
Course Schedule:
The content and the scope of the assigned readings may subject to revision if necessary.
Date / Assigned Reading / Page numbers2/20 / Introduction to Elizabethan Drama;
Movie:Shakespeare in Love
2/24 / Shakespearean Sonnets
2/27 / Shakespeare, King Lear,Act 1 / 1106-1131
3/3 / Shakespeare, King Lear,Act 2 / 1131-1147
3/6 / Shakespeare, King Lear,Act 3 / 1147-1162
3/10 / Introduction to The Early Seventeenth Century
1603-1660 / 1209-1220
3/13 / Introduction to The Early Seventeenth Century
1603-1660 / 1220-1230
3/17 / John Donne “The Flea”“The Good-Morrow”“
“Song’“The Cannonization” / 1236,1236-1237,
1237-1238, 1240-1241
3/20 / John Donne, “Love’s Alchemy”“A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning” / 1245, 1248-1249
3/24 / Aemilia Lanyer, The Description of Cooke-ham / 1287-1292
3/27 / Ben Jonson, The Masque of Blackness / 1294-1303
3/31 / Ben Jonson, Epigrams: To My Book
To Penshurst; Song: To Celia / 1393-1394
1402-1403
4/7 / George Herbert,
Robert Herrick
4/10 / Andrew Marvell, “A Dialogue Between the Soul and the Body”“The Nymph Complaining for the Death of Her Fawn”“To His Coy Mistress” / 1687-1688, 1688-1691,
1691-1692
4/14 / John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 1 / 1815-1836
4/17 / John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 1 / 1815-1836
4/21 / John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 2 / 1836-1858
4/24 / John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 3 / 1858-1874
4/28 / Midterm Exam
5/1 / Introduction to the Restoration and the Eighteenth Century (1660-1785) / 2045-2054
5/5 / Introduction to the Restoration and the Eighteenth Century (1660-1785) / 2055-2061
5/8 / Introduction to the Restoration and the Eighteenth Century (1660-1785);
Movie: Restoration / 2062-2068
5/12 / John Dryden, “Absalom and Achitophel” / 2077-2099
5/15 / Samuel Pepys, John Bunyan, John Locke
5/19 / Aphra Behn, Oroonoko
5/22 / Daniel Defoe and the rise of the novel / 2170-2215
5/26 / Jonathan Swift Gulliver’s Travels / 2329-
5/29 / Jonathan Swift Gulliver’s Travels / 2329-2473
6/2 / Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele
6/5 / Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism / 2509-2524
6/9 / Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock / 2525-2535
6/12 / Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock / 2536-2544
6/16 / Samuel Johnson,
6/19 / Frances Burney
6/23 / Final Exam
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