The Movement of English Literature

This a very brief survey course of the whole of literature in English. In each session we consider the characteristics of each period (the emergence of Anglo-­‐Saxon writing from the literature of antiquity; the Middle Ages; the Renaissance; the Georgian epoch; Romanticism; the Victorians; High Modernism; postmodernism and our own day); and then concentrate on two or three short extracts from the greatest writers of the period. The module will give students an introduction to the entire canon, and should be of use to those thinking of studying, not only literature, but history, or any humanity or social science, at a British university.