2010-11 academic year

English Literature (20016)

Degree/study: Degree in Humanities 
Year: 2nd
Term: 1st
Number of ECTS credits: 6 credits
Hours of studi dedication: 150 hours
Teaching language or languages: English
Teaching Staff: Miquel Berga, Maria Antònia Oliver, James McCullough, Anna Asián, Àngels Oliva, Marta Puxan  

1. Presentation of the subject

This subject aims to provide students with basic knowledge on the main periods and authors of English literary tradition. It also aims to teach them how to identify literariness in texts, that is, to appreciate rhetorical devices that shape aesthetics and communication. Students will need to learn terminology to refer to literary and linguistic resources, which they will apply in literary texts description. This subject is also intended to help students to improve their linguistic and discursive skills. They will be asked to read non-simplified English texts, analyse their structure, understand the textual mechanisms used to create meaning and be able to express their ideas about the mentioned texts using textual cohesion and making good use of grammar. The acquisition of this knowledge is intended to develop analytical mind and analytical skills regarding literary works, as well as the capacity to establish connections between a literary text and other texts, which may be literary or not, and between a literary text and other types of artistic forms.

As it is specified in the program of English Literature, which students are given at the beginning of the trimester, these are the learning aims of the subject:

1.   To gain a general insight into the some of the developments in English literature from Anglo-Saxon times to the 20th century.

2.   To enjoy and analyse through close readings significant short texts from each of the main periods.

3.   To become aware of and able to identify the various stages in the evolution of the English language from Old English to contemporary English.

4.   To improve your command of English through the reading of literary texts.

5.   To relate the main trends in English literature to similar developments in other literary traditions and other artistic manifestations.

6.   To read extensively and discuss the work of a contemporary author, Graham Greene's The Quiet American (1955).

 

Attention:  

•1.      Students must read the texts indicated for each unit before the session.

•2.      Students must bring to class the texts indicated for each unit when the unit is being studied.

•3.      Before enrolling in the course, students should know that they are advised to have at least a B1 level (of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) and to have passed the subject "English Language for Humanities" in the first year of the degree.

2. Competences to be attained

General competences

Specific competences
  • Detecting implicit ideological and cultural information in texts.
  • Understanding the connection between literature, history, art and thought.
  • Developing linguistic sensitivity towards the historical, geographical, functional and social varieties of language.
  • Expressing and justifying opinions both in oral and written language.
  • Being able to structure and reproduce the knowledge acquired both in oral and written language.
  • Innovating and being creative in knowledge transmission.
  • Understanding written English well.
  • Synthesising ideas.
  • Identifying main ideas.
  • Being able to communicate in spoken English.
  • Being able to understand spoken English.

7. Written communication skills in English.

8. Teamwork skills.

 

1. Making diagrams of the information learned through reading or listening.

2. Summarising the new knowledge acquired through reading or listening activities.

3. Writing small texts about the most important ideas that have been learned through reading or listening.

4a. Being able to speak English with understandable accent and fluently enough for the listener to understand the message.

4b. Being able to speak English in public without major problems.

 5a. Being able to follow long lectures in English (between 45 and 60 minutes approx.)

 5b. Getting used to different accents, registers and communication contexts in spoken English.

 5c. Being able to take notes while listening to English lectures.

6a. Being able to understand the meaning in complex texts (by identifying text structures, paragraph functions, main ideas, connections between ideas, and so on).

 6b. Knowing the most common features of different genres (poetry, academic prose, articles, among others) and different registers (formal, informal) in English.

 7a. Knowing and applying English rhetorical patterns in academic texts, such as essays.

 7b. Writing well-structured paragraphs using English rhetorical patterns.

 7c. Using good strategies to write texts with textual cohesion and semantic cohesion, including introduction, body, and conclusions.

 8. Teamwork capacity involving decision making in written and oral works.

3. Contents

 

PLENARY SESSIONS

(tentative syllabus: this syllabus may be subject to changes)

 

SEMINAR SESSIONS

 

1.  The Beginnings: Middle English 

TEXT: The Canterbury Tales (The General Prologue, Portrait of the Wife of Bath in the G. Prologue; Prologue to "The Wife of Bath's Tale")

2.  The English Renaissance (First part)

TEXTS: Richard III (excerpt),  As You Like It (excerpt)

3.  The English Renaissance (Second part)

TEXTS: Hamlet, "To Be or Not to Be"

4.  17th C: and the Metaphysical Poets.

TEXTS: "The Flea"

5.  The Development of the Novel.

TEXTS: Gulliver's Travels, Tom Jones, Tristram Shandy, Pride and Prejudice (excerpts)

6.  Romanticism (1)

TEXTS: "Daffodils", Ozymandias"

7.  Romanticism (2)

TEXTS: Frankenstein

8.  The Victorian age. 

TEXTS: "The Forsyte Saga" (excerpt), Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

9.  A new century, new trends.

Thomas Hardy, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce

 

Session 1 (Week 3)

- Introduction to the seminar sessions and description of assignments

- The English Renaissance cont'd:

TEXT: Sonnet CXXX

 

Session 2 (Week 4)

- The Metaphysical Poets cont'd

TEXT: "Batter my Heart"

- Introduction to Virginia Woolf's The Legacy

 

Sessions 3 to 9 (Weeks 5 to 11)

James Joyce's The Dead

 

 

4. Assessment

  • (50%) Seminars: A seminar paper and other assignments to be handed in to your seminar instructor

  • (50%) Final exam (based on all the texts discussed in both the plenary sessions and the seminar sessions) 

    • 5. Bibliography and teaching resources

    5.1. Basic bibliography

    READING MATERIALS: either buy the "Dossier de Textos" (Literatura Anglesa) at OCÉ or download them from the website: www.upf.edu/materials/fhuma/angles2/ or complementary websites given above. 

    COMPLEMENTARY READINGS: Contexts for each unit can be found in Spanish at Estefania Villalba's Claves para interpretar la literatura inglesa (Alianza, 1999) and in English at Carter, R. & McRae, J. The Routledge History of Literature in English. London: Routledge, 1997. 

    5.2. Complementary bibliography

    Alvarez Amorós, José Antonio (ed.). Historia crítica de la novela inglesa. Salamanca: Almar, 1998.
    Barnard, R. A Short History of English Literature. (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell, 1994.
    Blamires, H. A Short History of English Literature. (2nd. ed.). London: Routledge, 1984.
    Borges, Jorge Luis. Literaturas germánicas medievales. Madrid: Alianza, 1980.
    Bregazzi, Josephine. Shakespeare y el teatro renacentista inglés. Madrid: Alianza, 1999.
    Carter, R. & McRae, J. The Penguin Guide to English Literature: Britain and Ireland. Hardmonsworth: Penguin. 1995.
    Drabble, M. (ed.). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
    Fowler, A. A History of English Literature. Oxford: Blackwell. 1987, 1994.
    Galván, Fernando. Literatura inglesa medieval. Madrid: Alianza, 2001.
    Gower, Roger.  Past into Present. London: Longman, 1990.
    Kermode, F. & Hollander, J. (eds.). The Oxford Anthology of English Literature. (7 vols.). Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1973.
    Oliva, Salvador. Introducció a Shakespeare. Barcelona: Empúries, 2000.
    Sanders, A. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1994.  

    5.3. Teaching resources

    text

    6. Metodology

    text

    7. Planning of activities

    Setmana

    Classe plenària/seminari, continguts,                                          activitats a l'aula

    Dates lliuraments

    Activitats fora de l'aula

    Setmana 1

    Plenàries:  Introducció al curs. Lectura i anàlisi de textos programats. Middle English

     

    Setmana 2

       Plenàries: Lectura i anàlisi de textos programats. Middle English

     

       Seminaris: Lectura i anàlisi de textos programats. English Rennaisance

     

    Setmana 3

      Plenàries: Lectura i anàlisi de textos programats. The English Rennaissance

     

     Seminaris: The English Rennaisance.

     

    Setmana 4

     Plenàries: The English Rennaissance

     

     Seminaris: The Legacy

     

    Setmana 5)

     Plenàries: The Metaphysical Poets

     

     Seminaris: The Legacy

     

    Setmana 6

     Plenàries: Restoration

     

     Seminaris: TheDead

     

    Setmana 7

     Plenàries: The Development of the Novel

     

     Seminaris: TheDead

     

    Setmana 8

    Classe plenària sobre Victorianism and Oscar Wilde

     Sortida de grup al teatre: Per determinar.

     

     Seminaris: TheDead

     

    Setmana 9

     Plenàries: Romanticism

     

     Seminaris: TheDead

     

    Setmana10

      Plenàries: Romanticism

    Seminaris: TheDead

      

    Setmana 11

     

    Setmana 12

     

     Seminaris. Entrega del treball sobre The Dead o The legacy