Although the text is designed to look like an actual book, the Table of Contents is composed of hyperlinks that will take you to each introductory section and then to each text. The three parts of the text are organized into the following units:

Part 4—The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Unit I: The Age of Reason

Unit II: The Near East and Asia

Part 5—The Long Nineteenth Century

Unit I Romanticism

Unit II Realism

Part 6—The Twentieth Century and Contemporary Literature

Unit I Modernism

Unit II Postcolonial Literature

Unit III Contemporary Literature

Texts from a variety of genres and cultures are included in each unit. Additionally, each selection or collection includes a brief introduction about the author and text(s), and each includes 3 – 5 discussion questions. Texts in the public domain--those published or translated before 1923--are replicated here. Texts published or translated after 1923 are not yet available in the public domain. In those cases, we have provided a link to a stable site that includes the text. Thus, in Part 6, most of the texts are accessible in the form of links to outside sites. In every case, we have attempted to connect to the most stable links available.

Subject focuses on fiction, drama, and poetry and possibly films inspired by these topics mostly of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. What is Britain now? Its metropolises are increasingly multicultural. Its hold over its distant colonies is a thing of the past. Its sway within the global political arena is weak. Its command over Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland is broken or threatened. What have novelists made of all this? What are they writing as the old empire fades away and as new social and political formations emerge? These are the questions that will concern us in this course.

Subject focuses on fiction, drama, and poetry and possibly films inspired by these topics mostly of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

Subject focuses on fiction, drama, and poetry and possibly films inspired by these topics mostly of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. This semester, Contemporary Literature (21L.488) deals with Irish literature, a subject broad and deep. To achieve a manageable volume of study, the course focuses primarily on poetry and prose, at drama's expense, and on living writers, at the expense of their predecessors. Each class session follows a discussion format, often with students assigned to lead-off or summarize the day's topic.

In this class we will focus on the connections between urban exploration and reading, attending to such shared concerns as pacing, legibility, transgression, attention and distraction, tracing and retracing, and memory. This idea of re-reading cities will be both a theme centering our discussions and a guiding principle of the course design, as we continuously loop back, returning to haunt texts we left behind earlier in the semester.

Chapter 1: Introduction: What Is Literary Theory and Why Should I Care?
Chapter 2: Writing about Form: Developing the Foundations of Close Reading
Chapter 3: Writing about Character and Motivation: Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism
Chapter 4: Writing about Gender and Sexuality: Applying Feminist and Gender Criticism
Chapter 5: Writing about Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Identity
Chapter 6: Writing about Readers: Applying Reader-Response Theory
Chapter 7: Writing about History and Culture from a New Historical Perspective
Chapter 8: Writing about the Natural World
Chapter 9: Reading and Writing in the Digital Age
Chapter 10: Appendix A: Peer Review Sheets

This course seeks to develop a nuanced understanding of the scope of cultural and literary expression in the late 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. It attends to broad socio-historical happenings, from the birth of modernism in the late 19th century to the post-modern moment. In addition to literary modernism, the course will also take a brief look at the cultural production of modernism in art, music, architecture, cinema, philosophy, and drama. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to: Define the terms modernism and modernity and explain the similarities and differences between these terms using specific works to illustrate comparison and contrast; List and explain the importance of a variety of social, cultural, and historical developments leading up to and occurring during the modern period; Cite and analyze the meaning of primary works of literature, poetry, art, music, architecture, cinema, philosophy and drama to illustrate the principle characteristics of modernism; Compare and contrast the literatures of both France and England from the start of the modern era (i.e., the turn of the twentieth century); Explain the impact of the Great War upon the development and expression of a variety of literary and artistic forms and especially on poetry in a number of genres; Describe the aftermath of World War I and its variety of effects upon literature and art and especially upon the poetry of T.S. Eliot and the novels of Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway; Define High Modernism and give examples of the tenets, ideals, and even the contradictions and self-contradictions of this movement in history and literature (and especially in both its Irish and British contexts); Define the terms postmodernism and deconstruction as well as the phrase Magical Realism and identify the most important characteristics of the movements, fields, theories, and texts associated with these terms; Explain the premises of postcolonial literature and literary theory and identify, describe, compare, and contrast postcolonial texts from range of national origins. (English Literature 204)

The period between the Renaissance and the Modern Era are referred to as the long 18th and 19th centuries, meaning that they span from around 1680-1830 and 1775-1910 - a time in which so many literary movements and cultural changes took place. In this course, the student will examine these formative cultural and literary developments such as the Enlightenment and Restoration Literature; the Rise of the Novel; Romanticism; and the Victorian Period. The student will identify and contextualize the principal characteristics of each of these movements/developments by reading representative texts. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to: identify the major literary trends of the 18th and 19th century, from Restoration comedy and satires through Victorian poetry and prose; outline the major developments in philosophical thought during the Enlightenment and identify these strains of thought in works like Voltarie's Candide; identify the factors that led to the rise of the novel as a literary form; identify the specific traits that characterize early sentimental, Gothic, and picaresque novel; describe the political factors that led to the popularity of Romanticism; describe the shift in thought that led to the split between Romanticism and Enlightenment; identify the themes, conventions, and tropes of Romantic poetry; define and explain the significance of the term/concept of ĺÎĺĺĺŤthe Romantic imagination; define the political, social, and economic factors that led to the surge in popular Victorian fiction; explain the significance of poetic experimentation in the 19th century works of writers like Tennyson, Hopkins, and Browning. (English Literature 203)

At the outset of the 16th century, Europeans tended to dismiss English literature as inferior to continental literary traditions; the educated Englishman was obliged to travel to the continent and speak in other languages in order to culture himself. By the end of the Renaissance, however, some of the greatest works in the English language from Shakespeare's dramas to Thomas More's Utopia had been written. In this course, the student will read and examine these works, situating them within their socio-historical and literary contexts, while attempting to determine how the art of English language and letters came into its own during this dynamic period. (English Literature 202)

Course Review: Cultural and Literary Expressions in the 18th and 19th Centuries Reviewed  by Joyce Cottonham, Southern University in Shreveport, LAhttps://legacy.saylor.org/engl203/Intro/  

The Digital American Literature Anthology is a free, online textbook that surveys American literature from its beginnings to the early twentieth century. It is available in multiple digital formats, though specifically designed for tablets, laptops, and e-readers. The textbook has links to unit introductions, and multiple supplemental online resources.

In this course, the student will consider Dante's literature for its stylistic and thematic contributions to the body of Medieval and Italian literature, as well as for its inventive appraisal of Christianity. First, the student will examine the context of Dante's life and works, followed by taking a look at some of Dante's shorter works. Then, the student will devote the majority of the course to the study of Dante's masterpiece,The Divine Comedy. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to: summarize Dante's philosophy on the use of language in literature; identify Dante's attitude towards the relationship between Church and State based on readings from his essays; complete an autobiographical reading of Dante's work, with attention to the influence that specific romantic, political, and religious aspects of his life had on his texts; define important terms related to the study of Dante's work specifically, the poetic devices on which he relied most frequently; identify the structural aspects of The Divine Comedy, and in particular discuss the importance of the overarching circular structure of the text; point to the major biblical, historical, and literary allusions in The Divine Comedy and discuss the significance of these references; perform a cogent reading of the important symbols in Dante's texts (i.e. the presence of light, fire, and roses); critically discuss the key themes in Dante's writings, such as the narrator as pilgrim, divine judgment, and the physical reality of hell. (English Literature 409)

The Russian text of "The Death of Ivan Ilich" is presented for study in various formats: accompanied by an English translation; fully glossed, with explanatory and interpretive annotations; and supplemented by introductory remarks and an extensive bibliography.

In this lecture, Professor Paul Fry examines trends in African-American criticism through the lens of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Toni Morrison. A brief history of African-American literature and criticism is undertaken, and the relationship of both to feminist theory is explicated. The problems in cultural and identity studies of essentialism, “the identity queue,” expropriation, and biology are surveyed, with particular attention paid to the work of Michael Cooke and Morrison’s reading of Huckleberry Finn. At the lecture’s conclusion, the tense relationship between African-American studies and New Critical assumptions are explored with reference to Robert Penn Warren’s poem, “Pondy Woods.”

This is a review of Lawrence, Amy. Echo and Narcissus: Women's Voices in Classical Hollywood Cinema. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  c1991 1991. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft2x0nb1hx/https://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=1012746completed by Alyson Blythe, Assistant Professor of English/Humanities Coordinator at Fletcher Technical Community College. 

An examination of eighteenth-century English writers in their historical context. Authors vary but all address issues of capitalism and class mobility; romantic love and the re-definition of femininity and masculinity; the beginnings of mass culture; colonialism and international travel.

Provides a new account of the emergence of Irish gothic fiction in mid-eighteenth century. This book provides a robustly theorised and thoroughly historicised account of the ‘beginnings’ of Irish gothic fiction, maps the theoretical terrain covered by other critics, and puts forward a new history of the emergence of the genre in Ireland. The main argument the book makes is that the Irish gothic should be read in the context of the split in Irish Anglican public opinion that opened in the 1750s, and seen as a fictional instrument of liberal Anglican opinion in a changing political landscape. By providing a fully historicized account of the beginnings of the genre in Ireland, the book also addresses the theoretical controversies that have bedevilled discussion of the Irish gothic in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. The book gives ample space to the critical debate, and rigorously defends a reading of the Irish gothic as an Anglican, Patriot tradition. This reading demonstrates the connections between little-known Irish gothic fictions of the mid-eighteenth century (The Adventures of Miss Sophia Berkley and Longsword), and the Irish gothic tradition more generally, and also the gothic as a genre of global significance. Key Features * Examines gothic texts including Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Charles Robert Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, (Anon), The Adventures of Miss Sophia Berkley and Thomas Leland's Longsword * Provides a rigorous and robust theory of the Irish Gothic * Reads early Irish gothic fully into the political context of mid-eighteenth century Ireland This title was made Open Access by libraries from around the world through Knowledge Unlatched.

Reviews available here: https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/the-emergence-of-irish-gothic-fiction-histories-origins-theories

Provides a new account of the emergence of Irish gothic fiction in mid-eighteenth century. This book provides a robustly theorised and thoroughly historicised account of the ‘beginnings’ of Irish gothic fiction, maps the theoretical terrain covered by other critics, and puts forward a new history of the emergence of the genre in Ireland. The main argument the book makes is that the Irish gothic should be read in the context of the split in Irish Anglican public opinion that opened in the 1750s, and seen as a fictional instrument of liberal Anglican opinion in a changing political landscape. By providing a fully historicized account of the beginnings of the genre in Ireland, the book also addresses the theoretical controversies that have bedevilled discussion of the Irish gothic in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. The book gives ample space to the critical debate, and rigorously defends a reading of the Irish gothic as an Anglican, Patriot tradition. This reading demonstrates the connections between little-known Irish gothic fictions of the mid-eighteenth century (The Adventures of Miss Sophia Berkley and Longsword), and the Irish gothic tradition more generally, and also the gothic as a genre of global significance. Key Features * Examines gothic texts including Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Charles Robert Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, (Anon), The Adventures of Miss Sophia Berkley and Thomas Leland's Longsword * Provides a rigorous and robust theory of the Irish Gothic * Reads early Irish gothic fully into the political context of mid-eighteenth century Ireland This title was made Open Access by libraries from around the world through Knowledge Unlatched.

The Emory Women Writers Resource Project is a collection of edited and unedited texts by women writing from the seventeenth century through the early twentieth century.

A brief history of conflicting ideas about mankind's relation to the natural environment as exemplified in works of poetry, fiction, and discursive argument from ancient times to the present. What is the overall character of the natural world? Is mankind's relation to it one of stewardship and care, or of hostility and exploitation? Readings include Aristotle, The Book of Genesis, Shakespeare, Descartes, Robinson Crusoe, Swift, Rousseau, Wordsworth, Darwin, Thoreau, Faulkner, and Lovelock's Gaia. This subject offers a broad survey of texts (both literary and philosophical) drawn from the Western tradition and selected to trace the growth of ideas about nature and the natural environment of mankind. The term nature in this context has to do with the varying ways in which the physical world has been conceived as the habitation of mankind, a source of imperatives for the collective organization and conduct of human life. In this sense, nature is less the object of complex scientific investigation than the object of individual experience and direct observation. Using the term "nature" in this sense, we can say that modern reference to "the environment" owes much to three ideas about the relation of mankind to nature. In the first of these, which harks back to ancient medical theories and notions about weather, geographical nature was seen as a neutral agency affecting or transforming agent of mankind's character and institutions. In the second, which derives from religious and classical sources in the Western tradition, the earth was designed as a fit environment for mankind or, at the least, as adequately suited for its abode, and civic or political life was taken to be consonant with the natural world. In the third, which also makes its appearance in the ancient world but becomes important only much later, nature and mankind are regarded as antagonists, and one must conquer the other or be subjugated by it.