ECTS credits ECTS credits: 6
ECTS Hours Rules/Memories Student's work ECTS: 99 Hours of tutorials: 3 Expository Class: 24 Interactive Classroom: 24 Total: 150
Use languages Spanish, Galician, English
Type: Ordinary Degree Subject RD 1393/2007 - 822/2021
Departments: English and German Philology
Areas: English Philology
Center Faculty of Philology
Call: Second Semester
Teaching: With teaching
Enrolment: Enrollable
-To provide students with an overview of the history of English literature from its origins to present day.
-To learn how to establish relationships between the literary production of a given period and the social, cultural and political context in which it took place.
-To contribute to the students' learning how to write critically about English Literature and read criticism with responsive understanding by providing them with the necessary philological instruments and methods.
-To acquire linguistic sensibility.
This will be a history of ideas, ideologies, artistic tendencies, and literary movements, rather than a history of individual writers, though these will be also referred to. We shall pay special attention to the rise of genres and to the sociopolitical conditions in which they appeared. Five are the main aspects to be studied in each period:
I. Social, economic and cultural context.
II. Material conditions for the production of art: production (the writer´s status…), circulation (oral tradition, printing, publishing), reception.
III. Poetics; the function of literature; self-consciousness of the work of art; current re-readings.
IV. Genres, themes and technical aspects.
V. Other artistic manifestations.
SYLLABUS:
1. Anglo-Saxon Literature. (2 weeks)
2. Medieval Literature. (2 weeks)
3. Renaissance Literature. (2 weeks)
4. Revolution and Restoration Literature. (1 week)
5. Enlightenment. Eighteenth century literature (2 weeks)
6. Romantic and Early Victorian Literature. (2 weeks)
7. Victorian Literature (1 week)
8. Edwardian and Modernist Literature. (1 week)
9. Post-War and Postmodernist Literature. (1 week)
1. Anglo-Saxon Literature. (2 weeks)
I. Migrations of Saxons and Anglos. Migrations and the values of a heroic society. The Fusion of Two Cultures: Germanic and Christian. The Dane law.
II & III. Oral literature: Form and Style. The manuscripts.
IV. Epic poetry and the elegy. Celtic myths and legends. Anglo-Saxon Prose. Translations.
V. Sutton Hoo. The Gospels. Lindisfarne. The Book of Kells.
2. Medieval Literature. (2 Weeks)
I. The Norman invasion. Continental Influence. The Crusades. Conflicts between the Church and the State. The Black Death. The Peasant´s Revolt. From anonymity to individualism.
II. Authorship. Women inside and outside the convent.
III. Ubi auditus non est non efundas sermonem.
IV. Medieval Lyric Poetry. The Medieval romance. Courtly love. The legends. Allegory. Mystery and Morality plays. Mysticism.
V. Tapestries, jewelry, Gothic cathedrals, and motets.
3. Renaissance Literature. (2 weeks)
I. "Encounter" with America. Printing. Humanism. Luther, Reform and Counter-Reform. Protestant preachers. Henry VIII, head of the Church of England. Queen Elizabeth´s appropriation of patriarchal language. The Courtiers. The "modern" state. London.
II. Patrons and poets, audiences and playwrights. Women translators. Political and religious censorship.
III. Moral and political function of literature. Rhetorics. The defence of poetry. Comedia dell´arte (1545).
IV. Utopian satire and political science-fiction. Translations of the Bible.
Poetry- The Italian and the Elizabethan sonnet. The sonnet sequence. Elizabethan rhetoric. Paradoxical and hyperbolic presentation of love. Metaphysical poetry.
Drama- The revenge plot. Fame and posthumous reputation. Heroic tragedy. The masque.
V. Pictorial perspective, musical polyphony.
4. Revolution and Restoration Literature. (1 week)
I. The English Revolution. The Commonwealth. The Restoration. Royalists vs. Parliamentarians. The Religious and the political problem. Reason and religion. The question of social order. Rationalism. Scepticism, relativism, experimentation. Colonialism and the good savage. Plagues and fires.
II. Bourgeois audience and entertainment literature. Literature, religion and politics. Empiricism: idea of culture and education.
III. The English epic poem: The satanic rebellion as an antecedent of the romantic "genius." Change of style. Satire. Allegorical narrative. Travel literature. Restoration theatre. Autobiography.
5. Enlightenment. Eighteenth century literature (2 weeks)
I. Towards capitalism. Agricultural revolution, mining and trade. The Englightenment: faith in reason vs. light of faith. Homo economicus, individualism.
II. Bourgeoisie and the novel. The rise of the public sphere. Newpapers.
Criticism and the public sphere. The sentimental novel and the woman reader.
III. The rise of aesthetics. The beautiful and the sublime. The Picturesque.
IV. The rise of the novel. The picaresque novel. The novel as comic epic in prose. The novel as comic satire. The novel of ideas. Travel literature. Essays on human nature, human understanding, and human knowledge. Journalism.
Irony and parody
Point of view and narrator´s reliability. Authorial intrusion.
Empiricism and the novel. Stream of consciousness and association of ideas.
V. British Baroque in music, architecture and painting.
6. Romantic and Early Victorian Literature. (2 weeks)
I. The French Revolution. Reactions to the French Revolution in England. Human rights, civil rights. The industrial Revolution. Social unrest. Revaluation of nature. Nostalgia for rural society. Transcendentalism vs. materialism; universalism vs. nationalism.
II. Romanticism and revolution. The poet and his public. Transformations in the public sphere. Circulating libraries. Periodicals and the rise of criticism.
III. Expression vs. imitation. The role of the imagination. The romantic symbol. Negative capability. The pathetic fallacy. Organic unity of the work of art. Aesthetic education.
IV. Romanticism. New Mythology: Symbols and archetypes of the unconscious; innocence and experience, memory and the visionary moment; internalization of the quest myth; the romantic hero: marginal, alienated, nihilistic, satanic. Narcissism and solitude.
Classical imagery and the philosophic poem.
New themes and contexts for the novel. The gothic novel. The Bildungsroman, Crime novels, Domestic novels, Condition of England novel...
Manners and Decorum.
V. Romantic painting.
7. Victorian Literature. (1 week)
I. Science, evolucionism and the "Death of God". Reform Bills. Liberalism vs. Marxism. The British Empire. Social and moral reform. Organicism. Evolutionism.
II. Serial publication.
III. Realism. The social function of literature. The man of letters (England/Ireland).
IV Historical and social novel. The realist novel. Naturalistic determinism. Dramatic monologue. Decadence and art for art´s sake
V. The Aesthetic Movement.. Arts and Crafts.
8. Edwardian and Modernist Literature. (1 week)
I. First World War. Women´s suffrage. From Naturalism and Decadence to Modernism and Modernity. Freud: desire, unconscious and language. Saussure: identity and difference.
II. Modernism and mass culture. Best sellers and "Little Reviews". Literature and journalism. Modernism and avant-garde.
III. Poetry vs Rhetoric. Intertextuality and the literary tradition. The Canon making. Modernism and Avant-garde.
IV. Experimentation. Discontinuity, simultaneity, spatiality. Use of Myths. Opacity of language. Stream of consciousness and free indirect speech. "Ecriture Féminine"?
V. Cubism: The end of the naturalistic illusion. Surrealism.
9. Post-War and Postmodernist Literature. (1 week)
I. The end of the Empire. The atomic era. The landing on the moon. Cold war and collapse of the eastern block. Welfare state, consumerism, mass media. Feminism and ecology. Relativism: truth, ethics and politics. Postmodernism. Cosmopolitanism and nationalism.
II. Paperbacks and best-sellers. The visual text and the written text.
III. The Death of the author. Literary mimesis, parody, metafiction. Subversion of myths. Rhetoric and undecidability.
IV. Between modernism and postmodernism: the theatre of the absurd. Alternative endings. Inclusion of the impossible or the unlikely. Magic realism. Minimalism.
V. The cinema. Cyborgs and the end of the millennium.
BASIC BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Carter, Ronald and John McRae, The Routledge History of Literature in English. Britain and Ireland. London & New York: Routledge, 2006.
Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
FURTHER BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Abrams, M. H., et. al., gen. ed., The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 2 vols. 7th ed. New York: Norton, 2000.
Alexander, Michael. A History of English Literature. London: Macmillan, 2000.
Barbeito Varela, J. Manuel, El individuo y el mundo moderno. El drama de la identidad en siete clásicos de la literatura británica. Oviedo: Septem, 2004.
Drabble, Margaret, ed. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Ford, Boris, ed. The Pelican Guide to English Literature. 8 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988.
Fowler, Alastair. A History of English Literature: Forms and Kinds from the Middle Ages to the Present. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987.
Rogers, Pat, ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
CB1, CB2, CB3, CB4, CB5
CG3, CG5, CG6, CG7, CG8, CG9, CE5, CE6, CE7, CE8, CE9, CE10
- Diachronic knowledge of the history of English literature.
- Capacity to relate English Literature to its social, cultural and political context.
- Command of critical terminology and of its application to the analysis of cultural and literary texts.
- Competence in the organisation, support and summary of ideas.
- Ability to understand the connotations and the historical sense of words.
- Fluency in essay writing in English with clarity and precision.
- Ability to summarise, take notes, and organise data.
- Students will have theoretical classes (CLASES EXPOSTIVIAS), seminars (SESIONES INTERACTIVAS).
· In the theoretical sessions, the student will be introduced to the ideological, social and literary context of each period.
· The seminars will be devoted to oral or written critical commentaries in which the students are required to participate actively.
- The form of the final exam will serve as a guide for the student and will be used in the continuous evaluation.
- It is compulsory for students to use the VIRTUAL PLATFORM offered by the USC for teaching and studying purposes.
- Final Exam (70%)
- Continuous assessment (30%)
You must get 4 out of 10 points in the final exam to pass. Aspects that will be considered and criteria to be applied:
Participation in the course activities will make it possible to get a good final mark. Every single activity, whether written or oral, individual or in group, will be taken into account and registered in the students' personal file by their tutor.
Attendance to classes is compulsory. Therefore, failing to attend more than three times without due justification will involve failing the subject. We refer students to the Normativa de asistencia á clase nas ensinanzas adaptadas ao Espazo Europeo de Educación Superior (Consello de Goberno da USC do 25 de marzo de 2010).
An adequate command of English and of Galician or Spanish is required. A low level of English will have negative consequences for the final mark.
This system of assessment will apply to both May and June.
The above criteria will apply to those students who must repeat the course.
In the case of students with academic exemption the final exam will count 100%.
Students are encouraged to spend an hour before each class revising the main points dealt with by the teacher in the previous session so as to make sure that they have understood what has been explained in class, to have the possibility of clarifying any doubts they may have and to be able to participate actively in the seminars.
Students will have to read texts that exemplify the theoretical points explained in class for their discussion in the seminars.
The teachers advise their students to devote about 6 hours per week to prepare this subject -reading, activities, revision, etc.
Students are encouraged to attend and participate actively and regularly in class, to revise and to complete their notes weekly, and to work in groups.
Texts must be read and all problems of vocabulary and syntax solved before the class.
More information in the "Guía Docente de la asignatura". Read this carefully; you must be familiar with it and could be asked to show this at any time.
No personal electronic devices are allowed in the classroom. The use of mobile phones will be considered a very serious misdemeanor and involve the subtraction of three points from the final mark.
In the case of fraud, the "Normativa de avaliación do rendemento académico dos estudantes e de revisión de cualificacións” will be applied.
Margarita Estevez Saa
- Department
- English and German Philology
- Area
- English Philology
- Phone
- 881811839
- margarita.estevez.saa [at] usc.es
- Category
- Professor: University Lecturer
Jose Manuel Barbeito Varela
Coordinador/a- Department
- English and German Philology
- Area
- English Philology
- Phone
- 881811893
- jmanuel.barbeito [at] usc.es
- Category
- Professor: University Lecturer
| Monday | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00-10:00 | Grupo /CLE_01 (A-L) | English | C11 |
| 09:00-10:00 | Grupo /CLE_02 (M-Z) | English | C12 |
| Tuesday | |||
| 09:00-10:00 | Grupo /CLE_01 (A-L) | English | C11 |
| 09:00-10:00 | Grupo /CLE_02 (M-Z) | English | C12 |
| Wednesday | |||
| 09:00-10:00 | Grupo /CLIS_03 (M-Q) | English | C10 |
| 09:00-10:00 | Grupo /CLIS_01 (A-F) | English | C12 |
| 10:00-11:00 | Grupo /CLIS_04 (R-Z) | English | C10 |
| 10:00-11:00 | Grupo /CLIS_02 (G-L) | English | C12 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLIS_04 (R-Z) | C10 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLIS_02 (G-L) | C10 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLIS_03 (M-Q) | C10 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLIS_01 (A-F) | C10 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLE_02 (M-Z) | C10 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLE_01 (A-L) | C10 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLE_01 (A-L) | C11 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLIS_04 (R-Z) | C11 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLIS_02 (G-L) | C11 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLIS_03 (M-Q) | C11 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLIS_01 (A-F) | C11 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLE_02 (M-Z) | C11 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLIS_04 (R-Z) | C12 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLIS_02 (G-L) | C12 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLIS_03 (M-Q) | C12 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLE_01 (A-L) | C12 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLIS_01 (A-F) | C12 |
| 05.25.2023 16:00-20:00 | Grupo /CLE_02 (M-Z) | C12 |
| 06.28.2023 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLIS_03 (M-Q) | C11 |
| 06.28.2023 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLIS_01 (A-F) | C11 |
| 06.28.2023 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLE_02 (M-Z) | C11 |
| 06.28.2023 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLIS_04 (R-Z) | C11 |
| 06.28.2023 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLE_01 (A-L) | C11 |
| 06.28.2023 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLIS_02 (G-L) | C11 |
| 06.28.2023 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLE_02 (M-Z) | C12 |
| 06.28.2023 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLE_01 (A-L) | C12 |
| 06.28.2023 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLIS_04 (R-Z) | C12 |
| 06.28.2023 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLIS_02 (G-L) | C12 |
| 06.28.2023 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLIS_03 (M-Q) | C12 |
| 06.28.2023 09:30-13:30 | Grupo /CLIS_01 (A-F) | C12 |