This semester in English 2201, we covered a lot of (literary) ground. We surveyed some of the fundamental works associated with the British literary canon while exploring some lesser-known works of equal importance to understanding these long, diverse, and multivalent periods of literary history. Below is a short list of some of the texts that students in English 2201 have the opportunity to explore.
Open-Source Textbook
Beginning in Autumn 2020, English 2201 has offered a unique, online textbook. Organized into thematic “bundles,” the new textbook was developed as an alternative to the pricey anthologies that currently flood the market. The book was funded through an ALX/Affordable Learning Grant at OSU, focused on providing students with “an inclusive, guided resource” that disrupts the whiteness and male-dominated character of the English literary canon. Read more about the book and its genesis here, and check out the book itself!
British Literature to 1800: Discover the Past
Pre-Conquest Literature (Origins to 1066)
- The Dream of the Rood
- Pangur Bán
- Exeter Book Riddles
- Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People
- The Wanderer
- The Ruin
- Beowulf
- Judith
- The Life of Euphrosyne
Post-Conquest Literature (1066–1485)
- Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain
- Malory, Morte Darthur
- Marie de France, Lanval
- Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (General Prologue; Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale)
- Julian of Norwich, Revelations
- The Book of Margery Kempe
- Brome, Abraham and Isaac
The Renaissance (1485–1660)
- Spenser, Faerie Queene
- Shakespeare, The Tempest
- Sonnets
- Spenser, “One day I wrote her name upon the strand”
- Shakespeare, “When I do count the clock”
- Donne, “Batter my heart”; “The Flea”; “Death be not proud”; “Meditation 17”; and “Good Friday, 1613”
- Herbert, “Redemption” and “Love”
- Herrick, “To the Virgins”
- Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress”
- Wroth, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus
- and more!
- Milton, Paradise Lost
- Cavendish, “Earth’s Complaint”; “The Hunting of the Hare”; “Nature’s Cook”; and The Blazing World
Restoration & Eighteenth Century (1660–1800)
- Pope, Rape of the Lock
- Johnson, Rambler
- The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
- Letters of Ignatius Sancho
- Haywood, Fantomina
- Burney, Evelina