Course title: History of English Literature 1

Code: AN128K1

Cedits
1 / Semester:
3 / Type of class: lecture / Evaluation: examination
Language of Instruction: English
Description:
The series of lectures attempts to provide an overview of the major trends and directions in the Anglo-Saxon, Middle English and Renaissance periods in the context of the respective social and cultural developments, paying attention to the history of the English language and the role of literacy and art in the medieval and renaissance approaches to life. Special emphasis is laid on the works of Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare.
Readings:
Beowulf; The Wanderer; The Seafarer; The Dream of the Rood; Pearl
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales – selections
Thomas More: Utopia
Thomas Kyd: The Spanish Tragedy
Christopher Marlowe: Doctor Faustus
William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Richard III; Hamlet; King Lear; Romeo and Juliet; Othello; Macbeth; Timon of Athens; The Tempest
Ben Jonson: Volpone
Sir Thomas Wyatt, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser: poems
Baugh, A. (ed.). A Literary History of England. (relevant chapters) New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1967.
Daiches, D. A Critical History of English Literature. (relevant chapters) London: Mandarin. 1994 /1969.
Ford, B. (ed.). Medieval Literature. The New Pelican Guide to English Literature. Vol. 1. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1984.
Ford, B. (ed.). The Age of Shakespeare. The New Pelican Guide to English Literature. Vol. 2. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1984.
Bluestone, Max and Rabkin, Norman. Shakespeare’s Contemporaries. New Jersey: Harvard University Press. 1970.
Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy. London: Macmillan. 1992.
Charlton, H. B. Shakespearean Comedy. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd. 1959.
Bolton, W. F. (ed.). The Middle Ages. The Penguin History of Literature. Vol. 1. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1993/1986.
The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 1. (introductory chapters) 6th ed. New York: W. W. Norton. 1993.
Wells, S. (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Studies. Cambridge: CUP. 1986.
Pearsall, D. The Canterbury Tales. London: Unwin Hyman. 1985.
Penguin Critical Studies series – Chaucer, Marlowe, Shakespeare
The New Penguin Shakespeare series (introductions, notes)
Boyce, C. The Wordsworth Dictionary of Shakespeare. Wordsworth Reference. Ware: Wordsworth Editions. 1996/1990.
Course director: dr. Tóth Tibor PhD
Instructors: dr. Reichmann Angelika PhD, dr. Antal Éva PhD, dr. Dolmányos Péter PhD, dr. Tóth Tibor PhD