English Literature II - Prof. Elisa Lima Abrantes - elisa.abrantes2012@gmail.

com

Tentative Syllabus

March

13-15 No presential classes due to “Semana de Integração.” Students should read the
introductory text to the course, “The Seventeenth century,” from the Norton
Anthology of English Literature (NAEL) and watch the 13:10- minute video
“England’s 17th century” and answer the proposed questions, which will be used for
our class discussion on March 20th.

20- John Donne’s biography and poems: Good Morrow, Song, The Flea, A
Valediction: Forbidding Mourning (NAEL)
22- Home activity: Ben Jonson’s biography and play Volpone (NAEL)
27- Volpone - answer proposed questions
29- Class discussion on Volpone

April

03 - John Milton’s biography + Paradise Lost Book 1 (NAEL)

05 - Paradise Lost Book 1 (NAEL)
10 - Paradise Lost Book 2 (NAEL)
12 - Paradise Lost Book 2 (NAEL)
17 - Paradise Lost Book 3 (NAEL)
19 - Paradise Lost Book 3(NAEL)
24 - Restoration and 18th century England (NAEL)
26 - Alexander Pope's biography and An Essay on Criticism (NAEL)

May

01- Holiday
03- Eighteenth-century literature (NAEL) + The Rise of the Novel (chapters 1-2)
08- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
10- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
15- Test I
17- The Romantic period (NAEL)
22- Romantic poetry - Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge (selected poems) (NAEL
Vol 2)
24- Romantic poetry - Shelley, Keats and Byron (selected poems) (NAEL, Vol 2)
29- The Gothic and the development of a mass readership (NAEL Vol 2) + Mary
Shelley + excerpt of The Last Man (NAEL Vol 2)
31- The Victorian Age (NAEL Vol 2)

June

05- Elizabeth Gaskell’s “Old Nurse’s story” + Charles Dickens’s “A visit to

Newgate” (NAEL Vol 2)
07- Empire and national identity (NAEL Vol 2)
12- Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (NAEL Vol 2)
14- Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (NAEL Vol 2)
19- The 20th century and after (NAEL Vol 2)
21- Modernist Manifestos + Ezra Pound (NAEL Vol 2)
26- James Joyce’s bio (NAEL Vol 2) + The Dead
28- Test II

July

03 - Optional test (all course content)

Bibliography

ABRAMS, M.H (ed). The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol 1. W.W.
Norton and Company: New York, 1979.

GREENBLATT, S. (ed). The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol 2. W.W.

Norton and Company: New York, 2006.

WATT, Ian. The Rise of the Novel. Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS: Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1957.