Course Descriptions
THE WRITING PROGRAM
REQUIRED LITERATURE COURSES
ELECTIVES AND SPECIAL COURSES
The Writing Program
Cm001 Essential Writing I (no credit)
Emphasis on basic sentence patterns, paragraphing, and organization of ideas through pre-writing. Three class meetings weekly.
Cm003 Essential Writing II (no credit)
Further emphasis on preparation for essay writing. Attention to idiom, sentence patterns, and organization.
Cm104-115 Introduction to English Composition, I and II (6)
Instruction and practice in writing and reading English prose, with special emphasis upon individual development. The course progresses from personal experience to critical writing and research, and includes individual instruction and mandatory laboratory work (in CALL) in English grammar, spelling, and sentence structure. Special use is made of peer group discussion and other non-traditional teaching techniques. All students must take and pass a Proficiency Examination at the end of Cm104 and Cm115.
Cm106-117 Introduction to English Composition, I and II (6)
Instruction and practice in writing English prose, with special emphasis upon individual development. The course progresses from personal experience to critical writing and research, and includes instruction in English grammar, spelling, and sentence structure. Special use is made of peer group discussion and other nontraditional teaching techniques. All students must take and pass a Proficiency Examination at the end of Cm106 and Cm117.
Cm108-119 Introduction to English Composition, I and II (6)
Instruction and practice in writing English prose, reading in contemporary expository prose, and the practice of spoken English in regular classroom conversations. This course is intended to enrich the students’ vocabulary and command of English idioms, to increase their proficiency in spoken English, to teach them how to write good English prose, to develop critical thinking and research skills, and to provide them with classroom instruction and mandatory laboratory work (in CALL) to improve their pronunciation, grammar, and spelling. All students must take and pass a Proficiency Examination at the end of Cm108 and Cm119.
Cm050-051 The Spoken Word, I and II (no credit)
This course is designed to give students whose first language is not English practice in English conversation so that, with the help of the instructor, they can increase their vocabularies and command of English idioms, correct their accents, and gain a confident fluency in speaking English. Readings in short contemporary essays are assigned for use in the practice of English pronunciation, as sources for the acquisition of new words and idioms, and for the purpose of providing material for group conversations. Required of all students placed in the FE program.
CM120 Introduction to English Composition
Instruction and practice in the art of writing expository prose and the methods of writing research papers.Readingsin short prose pieces and essays by distinguished writers. All written work, including examinations, tests the students' ability to write clearly and with understanding on what they have read. Emphasis is on objectivity, accuracy, clarity of expression, logical organization, and the elimination of grammatical and mechanical errors.
REQUIRED LITERATURE COURSES
EL123 The Forms of Literature: Poetry and Drama
Designed to initiate and develop understanding and appreciation of the nature, properties, and traditions of poetry and drama; and to stimulate critical interest in these literary forms by establishing standards of judgment and evaluation. Prerequisite: Cm120 or its equivalent.
EL134 The Forms of Literature: Fiction
Designed to initiate and develop understanding and appreciation of the nature, properties, and traditions of prose fiction; and to stimulate critical interest in this literary form by establishing standards of judgment and evaluation. Prerequisite: Cm120 or its equivalent.
EL201 Survey of English Literature, I
A study of major literary works in English from the Old English Period to the latter part of the eighteenth century chosen for the purpose of illustrating the forms, themes, modes, and temper of the past. Required of all English majors. Prerequisites: El123-134.
EL202 Survey of English Literature, II
A study of major works of English literature from the latter part of the eighteenth century to the present chosen for the purpose of illustrating the forms, themes, modes, and temper of the modern experience. Required of all English majors. Prerequisites: El123-134.
ELECTIVES AND SPECIAL COURSES
Unless otherwise noted, EL123-134 are the prerequisites for the courses listed in this section.
EL304 Medieval English Literature
Survey of the Old English period (499- 1066), covering selected prose and poetry, including Beowulf, and the Middle English period (1066-1485), surveying the works of Chaucer, Langland, the Gawain poet, Malory and others. (Group 1)
EL305 Chaucer
Analysis of the Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, and several of the minor poems. (Group 1)
EL311 The Renaissance: Major Texts
English prose and poetry from the late fifteenth to the early seventeenth century by such writers as Malory, More, Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Donne, and Jonson. (Group 2)
EL313 Renaissance Drama
A reading and analysis of a variety of Renaissance plays from the continent, including Spain, Ital and Portugal. (Group 2)
EL 314 Major Elizabethean & Jacobean Dramatists
A close study of the more important plays of Marlowe, Jonson, Webster, and Middleton. (Group 2) Pre-Req EL 134
El315 Shakespeare
A critical appreciation of Shakespeare’s principal tragedies, representative comedies, and histories. (Group 2)
EL321 Seventeenth-Century English Literature
Prose and non-dramatic poetry from Jonson to Milton. (Group 3)
EL325 Milton
The major and minor poetry of Milton; his more important prose works. (Group 3)
EL326 Eighteenth-Century English Literature
The prose and poetry of the Enlightenment, from Dryden to Blake. (Group 3)
EL327 Eighteenth-Century English Novel
A study of the development of the novel from Richardson to Austen. (Group 3)
EL328 Swift, Pope, and Johnson
A study of the works of three of the major eighteenth-century English writers who helped shape the values and vision of their period. (Group 3)
EL331 English Romanticism
An exploration of major trends in English Romanticism with particular attention to the question of why the writers of this era had such an explosive effect on the course of English literature. This will be done primarily through an examination of the poetry of the era especially that of Blake, Burns, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, and Shelley) and of a Romantic novel (Frankenstein). We will also discuss the ltierature with reference to major social and cultural issues of the era, such as the French Revolution, Women's Rights, the Napoleonic Warss, class and sexual redefinition, and the internationalization of English . (Group 4)
EL334 Victorian Prose and Poetry
Victorian literature from 1832-1901. The major figures: poets, essayists, novelists. (Group 4)
EL335 Victorian Life and Literature
A study of art, education, history, religion, and science in the literature of the Victorian era. (Group 4)
EL 336 Ideas and Social Problems in Victorian Literature
A study of art, history, religion, and science in the literature and Victorian era (Group 4) Pre-Req EL 134
EL345 Gothic Fiction
The gothic mode in fiction has been popular for over two centuries. We will explore stories, movies, both British and American, that reflect basic elements of the genre. We will look at early examples, predating and including Edgar Allen Poe, as well as contemporary versions.
EL347 The American Novel before 1900
Selected novels by such writers as Brockden Brown, Cooper, Hawthorne, Melville, and Twain. (Group 4)
EL348 American Literature to 1870
The major writers and movements to 1870, with emphasis on "the American dream of fulfillment." (Group 4)
EL351 American Literature from 1870
The major writers and movements from 1870, with emphasis on "the American dream of fulfillment." (Group 5)
El353 The American Short Story
A study of selected nineteenth and twentieth-century American short story masterpieces. (Group 5)
EL356 Modern American Poetry
A study of the lives and works of selected American poets, including Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and Sylvia Plath. (Group 5)
EL357 The American Novel Since 1900
Selected novels by such writers as Howells, James, Dreiser, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Updike, Roth, and Oates. (Group 5)
EL358 Contemporary Literature
Significant American writers (poets, novelists, short story writers, and playwrights) from the 1960’s to the present. (Group 5)
EL363 Modern British Novelists
Selected novels of Conrad, Forster, Lawrence, Woolf, Waugh, and Greene. The short stories of Joyce. (Group 5)
EL367 Modern Drama
In investigating major plays of the modern period – realistic, naturalistic, expressionist, and absurdist – students will have to consider the values these playwrights embody in their work. (Group 5)
EL 368 Modernist and Post-Modernist Fiction
EL369 Seminar in Joyce’s Ulysses Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are first quickly read, and then all the episodes of Ulysses are studied and discussed in a seminar setting at the rate of one or two episodes a week. (Group 5)
EL390 Special Projects in English
Special or independent work arranged with departmental permission and supervision.
EL402 Literary Theory
This course explores developments in literary theory from classical times to the present, including Plato, Aristotle, Dryden, Johnson, Coleridge, Wilde, Pater, Lacan, and Foucault. Students will apply literary theories to works of literature. (Not to be offered in 2003- 04.)
EL403 Great Books
A study of some texts fundamental to the Western literary tradition and to a liberal education. Designed to provide a background in intellectual history, to provoke a reconsideration of basic values, and to train the mind. Writers include Homer, Plato, St. Augustine, Machiavelli, Cervantes, Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky.
EL404 Crime and Punishment in Literature
A study of the theme of crime and its subsequent punishment as presented in various literary genres.
EL407 Tragedy and Comedy
A study of representative comedies and tragedies drawn from four great periods of drama: Ancient Greece, Renaissance, Restoration, and Modern.
EL410 Arthurian Legend
A survey of the origins and growth of the legends of King Arthur, concentrating on texts from the Middle Ages, especially Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, with some attention to modern retellings as well.
El414 The Historical Novel
The treatment of the past in a number of English, American, and continental novels of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The special problems of the exercise of the historical imagination within the formal demands of the novel.
EL/ED416 Children’s Literature
An examination of fiction written for children, including classic and modern stories. Students will read traditional literature, picture books and genre texts including realism, history and fantasy. The publishing of children’s books and book choices for the classroom considered. (Check with the English Department; not always cross-listed with English).
EL417 Detective Fiction
A study of major British and American writers of detective fiction from Collins and Anna Katherine Greene through the Golden Age to contemporary subgenres.
EL418 British Poetry
Major poets and trends from the sixteenth century to the early twentieth.
EL421 Fiction and Film
The coures provides an introductory understanding of film, of the novel, and of the ways they interrelate. (This course is sometimes cross-listed with Communications)
EL493 Film Noir: The Dark Side of American Film
An introduction to this American Film genre with reference to its origins in European films and painting of the 1920’s and 1930’s, and in American hard-boiled detective fiction of the 1930’s, as well as to its significance to the development of Hollywood film and its implications about American culture of the 1940’s.
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