English Courses
ENG-0200 Studies in Poetry
A study of the techniques and types of poetry and how to read
them. The course concentrates on the intricacies of this art form by
examining large quantities of traditional and contemporary verse.
Offered spring semester. 3 credits. This course fulfills the Developing
the Core/Humanities requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General
Education program.
ENG-0201 Studies in Fiction
The techniques and types of fiction taught by close reading and
analysis of a variety of short stories, novels, and film. Studies in
Fiction is a Multicultural Course that predominantly focuses on American
and British texts from the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries. Offered
fall semester. 3 credits. This course fulfills the Developing the
Core/Humanities requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General
Education program.
ENG-0203 The History of the English Language Through Its Literature
The historical development of the English language from Old
English to Modern English studied in itself and through linguistic
analysis of selected passages of poetry and prose through the centuries.
Offered every third year. 3 credits.
ENG-0204 Survey of British Literature — Medieval to 1798
An examination of significant literary works from Beowulf to
early Romanticism. Offered fall semester. 3 credits. This course
fulfills the Developing the Core/Humanities requirement in the
Undergraduate College’s General Education program.
ENG-0205 Survey of British Literature — 1798 to 1920
An
examination of significant literary works from the Romantic poets
through James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. Offered spring semester. 3
credits. This course fulfills the Developing the Core/Humanities
requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General Education program.
ENG-0211 Classical Myth in Literature (in English translation)
A study of the classical themes and figures of mythology traced
through their literary manifestations. Offered every third year. 3
credits.
ENG-0220 The Development of the Novel in English
A study of the novel as a form in English from its
eighteenth-century origins to its nineteenth-century flowering. Offered
every third year. 3 credits. This course fulfills the Developing the
Core/Humanities requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General
Education program.
ENG-0221 The Development of the American Novel
A study of selected American novels from Susannah Rowson’s Charlotte Temple to Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.
3 credits. This course fulfills the Developing the Core/Humanities
requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General Education program.
ENG-0222 Major American Writers to 1890
A survey of Colonial, Romantic, and Regional American writing
with an emphasis on Franklin, Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, Whitman,
Dickinson, Twain, Jewett, and Freeman among others. Offered every third
year. 3 credits. This course fulfills the Developing the
Core/Humanities requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General
Education program.
ENG-0223 Major American Writers, 1890-1940
A
survey of Realism, Naturalism, and Modernism in fiction, especially
James, Gilman, Chopin, Stephen Crane, Robinson, Fitzgerald, and Eliot.
Offered every third year. 3 credits. This course fulfills the Developing
the Core/Humanities requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General
Education program.
ENG-0225 Emerging Modernisms: Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature
A survey of European, American, and English literature that
bridges the modernist and Victorian periods. This class will consider
how authors such as Oscar Wilde, Olive Schreiner, Henry James, and
Gustav Flaubert, among others, build upon literature of the Victorian
period and serve as the foundation for Euro-American modernism. Offered
every third year. 3 credits.
ENG-0226 Introduction to Irish and Anglo-Irish Literature
A
survey of readings in Irish myths (in translation) and in literature by
Irish and Anglo-Irish writers from Swift to Heaney. This class focuses
upon twentieth-century literature and on colonial and postcolonial
experiences. Offered every third year. 3 credits. This course fulfills a
Global Awareness/Culture requirement in the Undergraduate College’s
General Education program.
ENG-0229 Arthurian Literature and Thereafter
The course offers readings from the tradition of King Arthur,
beginning with the Welsh tales from the Mabinogion and continuing
through Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. It then considers contemporary
manifestations of myth and fantasy that build upon the Arthurian
tradition. Offered every third year. 3 credits.
ENG-0230 African-American Literature
A study of novelists, poets, dramatists, and critics who have
enriched and illuminated the American literary experience from the
perspective of African-American artists. Offered every other year. 3
credits. This course fulfills the Multiculturalism and Gender
requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General Education program.
ENG-0245 Classical Poetry and Prose (in English translation)
Classical
Poetry and Prose will trace what might be called the classical
sensibility through a study of Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles,
Aristophanes, some Aristotle, Pindar, Horace, Cicero, Seneca, and Ovid.
It will spend most of its time in antiquity and then move on to
Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, some Dryden and Pope, Dr. Johnson, James’ Washington Square, and Pieper’s Leisure, The Basis of Culture. Offered every third year. 3 credits.
ENG-0259 Classical Drama
A study of classical drama in relation to Greek and Roman
cultures in works by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes,
Plautus, Terence, and Seneca. Offered every third year. 3 credits.
ENG-0270 Social Justice in Modern and Contemporary Literature
In Social Justice and Contemporary Literature, students will
explore literary representations of some of the most challenging and
important cultural, historical, and moral issues of our time. Students
will study and debate the role of literature in recording and
challenging issues in social justice, as well as tensions surrounding
inequalities due to race, class, gender, citizenship, war, genocide
(post) colonialism, and/or environmental concerns. The thematic focus
will vary. Prerequisite: WRT-0110 or equivalent. Offered spring
semester. 3 credits.
ENG-0280 Literature and the Environment: The American Experience
Students will understand the importance of landscape and
environment in America from the nineteenth century to the present in
three ways: analysis of a variety of literary texts and films from
Walden to An Inconvenient Truth and King Corn;
research on significant authors and events related to environmental
issues from John Muir and the ultimate creation of the National Parks
System to Rachel Carson and the reversal of the national pesticide
policy; and participation in one or more activities/field trips to area
locations such as the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Protection and
Bartram Gardens. 3 credits. This course fulfills the Sustainability
requirement in the Undergraduate College's General Education program.
ENG-0302 Shakespeare
A close and comprehensive study of the artistry and continuing
vitality of William Shakespeare through the consideration of his
literature, literary celebrity, modern and contemporary interpretations,
and marketing through performance and film. Cross-listed as THE-0302.
No prerequisite. Offered every other year. 3 credits.
ENG-0304 Medieval Literature
The course focuses on readings from the so-called “Middle Ages”
from Boethius to Chaucer. Includes a component on the translation of Old
English. No prerequisite. Offered every third year. 3 credits.
ENG-0306 The Renaissance Lyric
A close reading
of major lyric poets of the sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries
such as Spenser, Sidney, Daniel, and Jonson. No prerequisite. Offered
every third year. 3 credits.
ENG-0307 The Renaissance Epic
A close study of model epics by Ariosto, Tasso, Spenser, and Milton. No Prerequisite. Offered every third year. 3 credits.
ENG-0308 Renaissance Prose
The course focuses on prose fiction and non-fiction of the Early Modern period from Moore’s Utopia through the prose works of Milton. No prerequisite. Offered every third year. 3 credits.
ENG-0310 Chaucer
A reading of the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde with some attention to the minor poems. No prerequisite. Offered every other year. 3 credits.
ENG-0316 Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Poetry, Prose, and Drama
A study of works by Dryden, Swift, Pope, Defoe, Fielding,
Addison, Johnson, Boswell, Goldsmith, and Grey. Students consider the
moral, religious, historical, and aesthetic concerns of the Restoration
and early-eighteenth century. No prerequisite. Offered every third year.
3 credits.
ENG-0317 The Romantic Sensibility
An examination of the romantic inclination and sensibility in
English literature as manifested in the works of Blake, Wordsworth,
Austen, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Tennyson, Yeats, and Evelyn
Waugh. The period covered extends from the late eighteenth century to
the mid-twentieth century. No prerequisite. Offered every third year. 3
credits.
ENG-0319 Romantic Poets
An examination of the
major works of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and Byron.
No prerequisite. Offered every other year. 3 credits.
ENG-0322 The Victorian View
An examination of the major British authors, focusing on poetry,
prose, drama, and novels. Carlyle, Newman, Tennyson, Browning, Dickens,
Arnold, Ruskin, Pater, Wilde, Hopkins and others will be studied
against the intellectual and social background of the period, 1830-1901.
No prerequisite. 3 credits.
ENG-0330 British Women Writers I: 1660 to 1880
A study of the ways in which female writers contributed to the
development of literary texts, periodicals, and newspapers of the period
from 1660 until 1880. Prevailing views of and toward women as well as
woman-artists will be examined against larger cultural and social
issues. Representative authors include Behn, Wollstonecraft, Austen, D.
Wordsworth, the Brontes, Barret Browning, C. Rossetti, and G. Elliot.
Prerequisite: ENG-0204 or ENG-0205 or permission of instructor. 3
credits.
ENG-0343 The Eighteenth-Century British Novel
An examination of the development of the novel in the eighteenth
century as seen through major novelists (Richardson, Fielding, Sterne)
and some of their successors. No prerequisite. Offered every third year.
3 credits.
ENG-0344 The Nineteenth-Century British Novel
A reading of the novels of Walter Scott, Charlotte Bronte, Emily
Bronte, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, William Thackeray, Anthony
Trollope, and Thomas Hardy. No prerequisite. Offered every third year. 3
credits.
ENG-0350 Modern Poetry
A treatment of major American and British poems with attention
to contemporary work. No prerequisite. Offered every third year. 3
credits.
ENG-0355 Modern British Literature
An
examination of modernism and modernity in British literature, focusing
upon innovations in fiction, film, media, and technology. This class
considers novels, short stories, essays, poetry, and periodicals. No
prerequisite. Offered every other year. 3 credits.
ENG-0359 Modern American Literature
A survey of
American writing between the wars, especially considering the works of
Frost, Cummings, Stevens, Williams, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner.
No prerequisite. Offered every third year. 3 credits.
ENG-0360 Contemporary Literature
This course considers British, American, and Postcolonial
literature and films from 1950 through today. The texts are selected in
relation to readings in contemporary literary theory and culture. No
prerequisite. Offered every third year. 3 credits.
ENG-0363 Literature in the Global Market Place for Teachers
A broad survey of world literatures, this course will include
contemporary works of fiction and non-fiction, focusing on young adult
literature taught at the middle and high school levels. Each class will
include a grammar, punctuation, and usage lesson. No prerequisite.
Offered spring semester dependent upon students seeking teacher
certification in English. 3 credits.
ENG-0365 Modern Criticism
A study of critical theories since 1965 with an emphasis on
structuralism and deconstruction. No prerequisite. Offered every third
year. 3 credits.
ENG-0370 Critical Approaches to Literature and Culture
This course is designed to be an introduction to advanced
literary and cultural studies and research; it is thus intended for
students majoring in English, Communication, and related disciplines.
Students will analyze a variety of critical, historical, and theoretical
perspectives; they will thus develop sophisticated research,
analytical, and writing skills to use in future upper-level English
courses. Prerequisites: ENG-204 and ENG-205, or permission of
instructor. This course is offered every other fall semester. 3 credits.
ENG-0410 Independent Study
A student pursues a
particular literary subject by agreement with a faculty member. No
prerequisite. Offered as needed. 1 to 3 credits.
ENG-0412 Seminar: Special Topics in Literature
An intensive study of an author or topic (Austen, Dickens,
Joyce, Lawrence, Wharton, Wilde, Victorian Women), using a seminar
format in which students present and defend papers. No prerequisite.
Offered every year (These courses will be offered on a rotational basis, as needed.) 1 or 3 credits.
ENG-0420 Internship
A student pursues a particular work experience by agreement with
a faculty member. No prerequisite. Offered as needed. 1 to 3 credits.
ENG-490 Senior English Seminar
A study of
fundamental texts in literary theory from Plato and Aristotle through
the early twentieth century. The course also serves as a forum for
seniors to develop their senior thesis and to review questions for the
English comprehensive exam. Prerequisite: Senior English major status.
Offered spring semester. 3 credits.
WRL-0310 Masterpieces of World Literature
A study of major literary works from the ancient Greeks to the
modern Europeans. No prerequisite. 3 credits. This course fulfills a
Global Awareness/Culture requirement in the Undergraduate College’s
General Education program.