It is difficult to understate the scope of influence that eighteenth-century English literature and culture have had on the modern Western world. An era characterized as an "Age of Reason," a "Neo-Classical Age," and as, simply, "The Enlightenment," the "long" 18th century saw an explosion in literature and a radical redefinition of its possibilities, aims, and purposes in shaping individual--as well as collective--minds, morals, and manners. Students will analyze poetry, essays, newspaper articles, plays, and novels. This literature will be explored with an eye to understanding the central concerns of the period: the idea of a rational universe, the threat of disorder, social mobility, and increasingly conflicting opinions about whether reason or emotion best shapes human society.

This course will explore 18th-century Europe's fascinating desire for and belief in personal and collective human "enlightenment," a lingering idea that continues to shape the human experience to this day. The 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant described the principal motto of enlightenment thus: "Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own reason." Students will investigate the meaning of the term "enlightenment" and try to ascertain how it has participated in shaping the literary tradition. They will examine how it has influenced real and imaginary private and public spaces, prompted secular, religious, and philosophical debates over morality and ethics, and inspired "globalization"-- the spread of culture and values -- in its varied historical, and current, forms.

This course presents English literature from about 1550 to the beginning of the seventeenth century, an era often referred to as "the golden age of English literature."  The intention of the course is to provide an appreciation of the intellectual, cultural, and social milieu of the Renaissance.  Students will enrich their knowledge about European and English Renaissance art, architecture, music, exploration, science, political figures, and religious movements.

This course continues the study of English literature in the Renaissance and focuses on the time period from about 1600 to 1660, the continuation of the era often referred to as "the golden age of English literature."  The intention of this course is to provide an appreciation of the intellectual, cultural, and social milieu of the Renaissance.    The study of seventeenth-century literature will include a detailed examination of Milton's magnificent Paradise Lost, the finest epic in English literature, and the examination of selected metaphysical poets such as John Donne, who revolted against the conventions of earlier Renaissance poets.

The backbone of this course is the study of the work of the six great British romantic poets, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, and Byron. Careful attention will be paid to the short lyric poems, and we will read parts of the longer narrative poems. Students will be encouraged to explore the common ideas which emerge in these poets, and the differing ideas of "Romanticism" which are present. The prose of some of these authors will also be examined. Finally, the course will include the study of two novels, by Jane Austen and Mary Shelley.

The purpose of this course is to make students conversant with the literature of the Victorian period (1837 - 1901). We will read novels, poetry, and non-fictional prose. One theme of the course will be the role of this period as a transition between the romantic period and the beginnings of modernism in the 1890s. Some of the intellectual currents we will study are the spread of evangelical Christianity, the influence of utilitarianism, and the effects of scientific reasoning on the interpretation of the Bible. Special attention will be paid to the new roles and freedoms which developed for women during this period, and the way in which issues of social classes enter into the literature of the period.

In this course, students will study selected poems, short stories, novels and plays of representative modern British writers - Hardy, Housman, Kipling, Conrad, Yeats, Shaw, Owen, Forster, Woolf, Lawrence, Joyce, Eliot, Auden, Thomas, Reed, Huxley, Orwell - and assess how they have grappled with a variety of themes: the pros and cons of empire-building, the evils of colonialism, the pain of exile, the anguish of alienation, the quest for identity, the struggle for freedom, the lust for money and power, the love for life and God. Students will be expected to scrutinize the writers and their works historically and critically.

Characteristics: This course is to be offered conjointly by the Department of French Studies and the Department of English; it is to be team-taught by two professors, one from each of the departments. It will focus on comparisons of important aesthetic and cultural movements.

Through analyses of representative texts in French and English, this course will familiarise students with important aesthetic concepts of the second half of the 19th Century, enabling them to trace connections and divergences between the two cultures. At the end of the course, the students will not only be able to describe the interactions between the writers of the two worlds, but also to apprehend the differences in the understanding of aesthetic movements on either side of the Channel.

In this course, students will study selected poems, short stories, novels and plays of representative post-modern British writers - Greene, Burgess, le Carré, Pinter, Stoppard, Larkin, Gordimer, Hughes, Heaney, Walcott - and assess how they struggle and come to terms with various socio-political events and issues: the loss of empire, the Cold War, the emergence of a new `world order', the imminence of dystopia, the exploration of space, the advance of science and technology. Students will be expected to scrutinize the writers and their works historically and critically.

This course is designed to introduce students to the early literature of England before 1500, commonly called Old and Middle English literature.  The course begins with an outline history of the development of the English language from Old and Middle English to the modern period. Students will then read the heroic epic Beowulf, a great warrior adventure story, followed by such works as the "Battle of Maldon," "The Wanderer," "The Seafarer," Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur. Students in this course will learn that English Medieval literature remains highly readable, entertaining, and relevant to today's concerns.

In this course, which deals with Old and Middle English literature, students will study a variety of early English literary works written between 650 and 1500. They will be introduced to the earliest extant poetry in the English language from the seventh century to the tenth century. Students will be introduced to genres as diverse as chronicles and courtly romances, lyrics, ballads, religious allegory, animal moral fables, Biblical and moral drama. Great universal works such as the moral drama Everyman are still popular on the stage today. Students will study in detail the Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer, who is still recognized as one of the greatest storytellers in the English language.

Through a survey of English-Canadian fiction and poetry from the beginnings to the 1960s, including aboriginal artists, this course attempts to identify shared perspectives, attitudes, ideas, and techniques characteristic of our own distinctive literature. The writers and filmmakers under study invite us to reflect on who we are, where we came from and where we are going, as well as on the relationship between the nation's character and its landscape. We survey both the blessings and the challenges posed by the diversity of our rich multicultural mosaic.

Through a survey of English-Canadian fiction and poetry from the 1960s to the present, complemented by recent films, this course endeavours to identify shared perspectives, attitudes, ideas and techniques characteristic of our unique literature. While designated as the complement to ENE351, it is helpful but not necessary to take both courses.  Throughout this course and ENE351, we see our artists engaged in what Northrop Frye describes as closing the gap between an immigrant mentality at odds with this land and an aboriginal sensibility attuned to it.

Characteristics: This course is to be offered conjointly by the Department of French Studies and the Department of English; it is to be team-taught by two professors, one from each of the departments. It will focus on comparisons of important aesthetic and cultural movements.

Through analyses of representative texts in French Canadian and English Canadian literature, this course will familiarise students with important aesthetic concepts in each of what Hugh LacLennen famously labelled “the two solitudes,” enabling students to trace connections and divergences between the two cultures. Specific texts and topics will change year to year but may include canonical writers (such as Roy, Yves Thériault, Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen), and topics such as nationalism, war, economics, religion, gender, and narrative form.

Only offered through the Division of Continuing Studies.

Through a detailed study of French-Canadian texts translated into English, this course focuses on French-Canadian culture and its literature. Students will read, for example, a nineteenth-century novel, a contemporary play, and French Canadian literature from outside Quebec in order to gain an understanding of the unique nature of the literature of French Canada.

Note: Distance Learning computer requirements

Through the study of American literature and writings from the early colonial period to the late 19th century, this course introduces the student to the "idea" of America and to American ideals, from the Puritans' "city on a hill" to the cosmic consciousness of the Transcendentalists. Students will engage with a diverse range of texts that include journal writing, social histories, sermons, speeches, essays, and autobiography, along with representative works of fiction and poetry. A complement to ENE 464B, the course traces two predominant themes in American literature: Puritanism and primitivism.

This course focuses on 20th-century American literature, particularly the short story, poetry, and drama, as well as popular culture: music (from blues & folk to rock & rap) and film. Through lectures and seminars and readings, students will examine the diverse definitions and staying power of the American Dream, themes of gender and racial identity (from slavery to presidency), and the legacy of Puritanism. Two compelling narratives by serving soldiers in the Vietnam and Iraq wars explore the meaning of war and the nature of war stories.

This course looks at the interactions between literature and science from a cultural, historical, and literary perspective. Since it gained its first popular foothold in the early nineteenth century, science and its methods have come to dominate the Western collective consciousness, determining in many ways how we interpret – and how we express – our reality. This preoccupation with science and discovery can be found throughout literature, both as celebration and as critique. Focussing on science’s rise in popular culture, and looking at texts ranging from poetry, fiction, essays, and drama to influential scientific narratives of the period, the course may include discussions of exploration and travel writing, representations of science and scientists in literature, cultural influences of and on scientific discoveries, and the complex intersections between nineteenth-century scientific advancement and literary production.

At the heart of both literature and spirituality, we find the same mysteries and questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What’s it all about?  This course invites you on an exploration of how the world’s literatures and the diverse wisdom teachings and religious traditions through the ages speak to the spiritual within our human condition. Along with exploring a variety of foundational beliefs and expressions of spiritualities East and/or West, this course will examine the spiritual dimension in sacred and secular literature, and the challenges occasioned by the representation and interpretation of literary encounters of a spiritual kind.

This course offers students an opportunity to read both widely and deeply the works of early women writers.  Works will be studied within their historical contexts as well as with a consideration of the history of women as authors in manuscript, coterie publication, and finally print.  There is a significant difference between publishing for fame and publishing for the evolving literary marketplace of the period.  These authors were from different backgrounds, writing in different genres (including poetry, drama, essay and novel) and on a wide variety of subjects.  Their concerns included, as might ours, examinations of the tension between religion and reason, misogyny and the subjection of women, issues of class in a highly stratified society and debates that address the subjection of other peoples through colonization and slavery.

The focus of this course is twentieth- and twenty-first century literature by women.  Students will have the opportunity to read and learn about women in the era that created feminism, and trace that evolution to their own lifetime.  Common ground among the authors will be identified, but so too will divergence and dispute among women who do not, after all, make up one unified community.  Further, by considering the recent past and the contemporary world through the writings of women of many nationalities (including Canadian, Indian, West-Indian, Japanese, Welsh, and others) in poetry, essays, short and long fiction this course is a gathering place for diversity of voice, and of choice.

This course conducts a critical/historical survey of literary works in English composed for, or appropriated by, children.  Selections may vary annually but each year will include both classic and less familiar texts.  The chronological organization will highlight the historical context of the text and enable students to trace shifting ideas about the child and childhood.  Formal literary analysis will be complemented by a variety of critical approaches that will enable the class to explore relevant theoretical issues and to comprehend the cultural and ideological work being done by specific texts.  Offered in alternate years. 

This course examines contemporary literary works in English composed for, or appropriated by, children.  Selections may vary annually but each year will include both classic and less familiar texts.  The focus of contemporary children’s literature in a particular year might be thematic, such as coming-of-age narratives, childhood and war, or the journey, or generic, such as fantasy or young adult fiction.  Formal literary analysis will be complemented by a variety of critical approaches that will enable the class to explore relevant theoretical issues and to comprehend the cultural and ideological work being done by specific texts.