The History of English Literature II

Teacher(s)

Bragard Véronique;

Language

English

Prerequisites

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Main themes

This course offers a chronological and critical survey of English literature from the 18th to the 21st century. It examines and illustrates the main literary movements and genres of this period and places them in their socio-cultural contexts.

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	At the end of the course, students should be able to show insight into the distinctive features of major literary movements and genres. They should be able to situate them in their socio-cultural and historical contexts. Students will become familiar with important literary figures and canonical works of the historical period that is studied. They will be expected to know how to read and interpret some key texts.

Content

Starting with Percival Everett’s 2025 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel James as a rewriting of Twain’s Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of the fugitive slave Jim, this course analyses canonical texts and their rewritings, that is texts that offer re-interpretations and new contextualisations of established narratives. What are the motivations for rewriting major canonical texts? What is added, deleted, expanded upon? This course introduces students to relevant theories while connecting this trend to the dominant literary movements of the 19th & 20th & 21st century and their rewriting techniques: from the Victorian to the modernist period, and from postmodern to post- postmodern writers. After an introduction to Victorian times and an in-depth analysis of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), it examines postcolonial fiction via an analysis of Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, the famous prequel and response to Jane Eyre. The second module focuses on Wuthering Heights and Caryl Phillips’ polyphonic The Lost Child as a text that foregrounds ongoing cycles of racial discrimination. A third module explores Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, one of the most frequently rewritten texts in English literature, paying special attention to its comics/graphic novel adaptations. The last section contrasts modernism and postmodernism via a comparison between Virginia Woolf's modernist novel Mrs Dalloway (1925) and Michael Cunningham's postmodern rewriting The Hours (1998) as well as recent African-American responses.

Teaching methods

Lectures; PowerPoint presentations, films, required reading, course notes.
Students prepare readings and questions prior to class time to facilitate discussion. They attend workshops (8 hours) to discuss the novels covered in class as well as their personal assignments (2).

Evaluation methods

Oral exam (with one written question) based on the lectures and the required readings. To take the exam, students will have submitted and corrected 2 assignments and one video (shown in class).

Bibliography

Portofolio de lectures (syllabus disponible à la DUC); 3 romans (DUC)

Teaching materials

• syllabus disponible à la DUC

Faculty or entity

> ELAL