ENG 1018 Introduction to Neoclassical and Romantic British Literature
This course introduces students to major authors and the dominant genres of British literature in the Neoclassical (ca. 1660 - 1785) and Romantic (ca. 1785 - 1835) periods. Students will read literary works that shed light on what literature was understood to be in these two periods, what purposes it was believed to serve, who wrote it, how it was shared and read, and how it was received. Authors may include the novelists and prose fiction writers Defoe, Swift, Johnson, and Mary Shelley, the dramatist John Gay, and the poets Pope, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats. Attention will also be paid to visual artists Hogarth and Turner. This course is designed to develop students' fundamental college-level skills in critically analyzing and writing about literature, culminating in the writing and revision of an argumentative, analytical essay.