Course Title: History of British Literature

Course Duration: 14 weeks, 3 hours per week

Overall Goal: To explore the major movements in British literature, examining how they reflect cultural shifts, philosophical changes, and societal challenges from the Romantic period to the present day.

Weekly Plan of the Course

Week 1: The Foundations of British Romanticism

Topics: Enlightenment vs. Romanticism; Blake as a transitional figure; early Romantic ideals. Suggested Readings: The Tyger and The Lamb by William Blake, Preface to Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge.

Discussion Questions: What marks the shift from Enlightenment to Romanticism? How do Blake’s poems reflect the dual nature of humanity?

Week 2: First-Generation Romantics: Wordsworth & Coleridge

Topics: Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s contributions to Romantic poetry, the power of nature, imagination, memory, and the supernatural; contrast in their poetic visions.

Suggested Readings: Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey by Wordsworth and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge.

Discussion Questions: How do Wordsworth’s ideas of nature challenge traditional views of poetry? How does Coleridge blend the supernatural with realism?

Week 3: Second-Generation Romantics: Byron, Shelley & Keats

Topics: The Byronic hero, revolutionary spirit, aesthetic beauty, and mortality.

Suggested Readings: She Walks in Beauty by Byron, Ode to the West Wind by Shelley, Ode to a Nightingale by Keats.

Discussion Questions: What defines the Byronic hero, and how does he challenge societal norms? How does Shelley use nature as a force of revolution?

Week 4: Romantic Gothic and the Rise of the Novel

Topics: Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights; gothic aesthetics and social critique. Suggested Readings: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.

Discussion Questions: How does Frankenstein critique Enlightenment ideals? In what ways do the Brontë sisters challenge Victorian gender roles?

Week 5: Victorian Poetry: Moral Dilemmas and Social Reflection

Topics: Tennyson and Browning; dramatic monologues and poetic meditations on change.

Suggested Readings: Ulysses and The Lady of Shalott by Tennyson, My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover by Browning.

Discussion Questions: How does Tennyson’s Ulysses reflect Victorian ideals of perseverance and self-reliance? What psychological complexities emerge in Browning’s dramatic monologues?

Week 6: Realism and Social Critique in Victorian Fiction

Topics: Dickens and Eliot; industrialism, gender, and class struggle.

Suggested Readings: Hard Times by Charles Dickens, Middlemarch by George Eliot. Discussion Questions: How does Dickens portray industrial hardships in Hard Times? In what ways does Eliot critique Victorian gender roles?

Week 7: Aestheticism and Decadence

Topics: Oscar Wilde’s philosophy; The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Suggested Readings: The Picture of Dorian Grey and The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.

Discussion Questions: How does Wilde use Dorian Grey to challenge Victorian hypocrisy?

What role does aestheticism play in the moral dilemmas presented in Wilde’s works?

Week 8: Modernist Breakthrough: Innovation and Anxiety

Topics: Hopkins and H.G. Wells; poetic experimentation and early science fiction.

Suggested Readings: God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Time Machine by H.G.

Wells.

Discussion Questions: How does Hopkins’ poetry break from traditional forms? How does Wells’ The Time Machine challenge concepts of time, technology, and progress?

Week 9: Stream of Consciousness in Joyce and Woolf

Topics: Interior monologue, subjectivity, and fragmentation in Portrait and Mrs. Dalloway. Suggested Readings: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.

Discussion Questions: How do Joyce and Woolf use stream of consciousness to explore modern identity? How do their works reflect the fragmented nature of the self?

Week 10: T.S. Eliot and the Crisis of Modern Meaning

Topics: Alienation, fragmentation, and existential disillusionment in modernist poetry. Suggested Readings: The Waste Land and Prufrock; alienation, collapse of coherence, and cultural despair.

Discussion Questions: How does Eliot depict the crisis of meaning in modern life? In what ways does The Waste Land reflect the fragmented nature of the modern world?

Week 11: Postmodernism and Narrative Disruption

Topics: Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman; metafiction, historiography, and irony.

Suggested Readings: The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles.

Discussion Questions: How does Fowles' novel play with historical and narrative conventions?

What makes it a quintessential postmodern text?

Week 12: Feminism and Postcolonialism in British Literature

Topics: Lessing and Byatt; identity, memory, gender, and post-imperial discourse.

Suggested Readings: The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, Possession by A.S. Byatt.

 Discussion Questions: How do Lessing and Byatt address the complexities of gender and colonial history in their works? How do their characters navigate social and historical forces?

Week 13: Contemporary British Literature and Globalization

Topics: Don DeLillo and beyond; media, identity, and hybridity in the global age.

Suggested Readings: White Noise by Don DeLillo.

Discussion Questions: How does DeLillo critique the effects of media and consumer culture on identity? In what ways does globalisation influence the characters’ lives?

Week 14: The Future of British Literature

Topics: Speculative fiction, digital narratives, and emerging voices; contemporary themes and forms.

Suggested Readings: Selected contemporary short stories or essays.

Discussion Questions: What are the emerging themes in contemporary British literature? How do current issues shape the literature of today?