ENGL 287 Early British Literary Traditions

One of the three introductory courses for the major this course is an introduction to reading early literature in English from Beowolf to the late 17th century. We?ll develop our capacities to hear feel and understand the language of some of the greatest and most influential writers in English and we?ll explore a set of analytic concepts and strategies for interpreting their difficult works. Topics we will consider include: genre and form; allusion and influence; rhetoric and truth; metaphor and allegory; narrative and memory; gender and sexuality; race and power.