Week 1:    Introduction: Why study literature? 

Why study literature?

Charles Dickens’ Hard Times (1854)

Elizabeth Bishop’s “Geography”

John Keats’ “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”

Emily Dickinson’s “The Way I read a Letter's—this—”

Housekeeping & Assigning presentations 

Fiction

Week 2: Plot (Fiction)

William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” 

Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, The Scrivener” 

Week 3: Narration & Point of View (Fiction)

James Joyce’s “Araby”

Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants"

Week 4: Symbol & Theme (Fiction)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow-Wall Paper" (p.307)

Joseph Conrad's "An Outpost of Progress" (1897)

Week 5: Setting (Fiction)

Anton Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog”

Week 6: Character (Fiction)

Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif” (p.131) 

Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” (p.404) 



 

Week 7: Research break (Writing about literture)

Sample Writing: Steven Matview’s “The Importance of Good Setting: How Setting Reflects Emotions in Anton Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog” 

Poetry

Week 8: Sonnets, Shakespeare & Soliloquy

Billy Collin's "Sonnet"

John Donne’s “Batter my heart, three-personed God”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How Do I Love Thee" 

Shakespeare's Sonnets:

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"

Drama:

"Hamlet" soliloquy (1147-48) 

"HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK" from Tales From Shakespeare, by Charles and Mary Lambs (1807)

Week 9: Mid-term Study Break/Essay due 

Week 10: Imagery & Symbols (Poetry)

Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death--” and "Wild Nights--Wild Nights"

Linda Pastan’s “Marks” 

William Blake's "Sick Rose"

Dorothy Parker's "One Perfect Rose"

Robert Burns' "A Red Red Rose"

Week 11: Voices & Setting (Poetry)

Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach”

Li-Young Lee’s “Persimmons” 

William Wordsworth’s “I wandered lonely as a cloud” 

Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"

Week 12: Sound & Stanza (Poetry)

Helen Chasin’s “The Word Plum” 

Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Spring and Fall” 

Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” 

E. E. Cummings’ “l(a”

Week 13: Theme & Tone (Poetry)

Emily Dickinson’s “My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun--” (p.673)

Countee Cullen’s “Yet Do I Marvel” (p.670)

Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” (p.702)

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias” (p.710)

William Carlos Williams’ “This Is Just to Say” (p.558)

Drama 

Week 14: Elements of Drama (I)

Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” 

Week 15: Theme (Drama)

Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun (p.918)”

Week 16: Critical approaches I

Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House”

Week 17: Research Break (Critical approaches II)

Stephanie Ortega's "A Journey of Sisterhood"

Week 18: Final Exam week/Final essay due

N/A

Class participation:15% 

Group Presentation: 15%

Online Assignments:10% 

Term Papers (Mid-term & Final): 60% 

Booth, Alison and Kelly Mays, eds. Norton Introduction to Literature. Portable 12th Edition. Norton, 2020.