200-level / Introductory courses

Prerequisite: None

Open only to students not registered in English Major and Minor programs.

Description: English 200 is a historical survey of nondramatic English literature from Old English up to and including the eighteenth-century writer Swift, highlighting major texts, authors, and shifts in literary thought, with attention to relevant cultural factors.

Covering around 1000 years of literary history in 13 weeks, this necessarily fast-moving course provides fundamental grounding for understanding the cross-currents, influences, and intertextual relationships involved in the development of nondramatic English literature. Accordingly, English 200 focuses on premodern English nondramatic authors, texts, and genres that have had a major literary and cultural impact: Beowulf, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Spenser’s Faerie Queene, a range of Renaissance sonnets, lyrics by Donne and Marvell, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Pope’s Rape of the Lock, and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. The course thus provides knowledge of English epic, the formerly major narrative genre; its parodic inversion mock-epic; early modern lyric; satire; and other literary forms. It further deals with a wide range of cultural, social, and intellectual contexts relevant to these texts. By examining two representative expressions of Renaissance and Enlightenment esthetics, Sidney’s Defence of Poesy and Pope’s Essay on Criticism, it defines prior concepts of literature, how they differed, and how they contrast with our own. Using Mary Wroth and Aphra Behn as exemplars, it further addresses the origins and development of English female literary authorship.

The genres, authors, and longer texts covered in this course–such as Beowulf, the Canterbury Tales and its particular sections studied (the General Prologue, the Wife’s and Miller’s Prologues and Tales), a portion of The Faerie Queene, Sidney’s Defence, Books I to IV of Paradise Lost, Pope’s Essay on Criticism and Rape of the Lock, and parts I and IV of Gulliver’s Travels--are thus quite standard for such surveys throughout the English-speaking world.

If you decide to register in an English Literature Major or Minor after taking this course, English 200 will serve in lieu of English 202, in your English program requirements.

Texts: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 1, 7th or later editions (available at the Word bookstore, 469 Milton Street); Colin Norman, Writing Essays (pamphlet, available at the McGill bookstore); Course Reader (available at the Word bookstore)

Evaluation: Final exam, 40%; term paper, 50%; 10% conference attendance and participation.

Average Enrollment: 180 students

Format: Lectures, conferences, discussion

Description: This course will familiarize students with the development of English poetry, drama and prose from the medieval period to the 18C. We will strike a balance between studying a series of major works, including Beowulf, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Spenser’s Faerie Queen, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, and attending to influential examples of shorter poetic and prose forms. ENGL 202 is a required course for, and therefore intended for, students in English Department’s major and minor programs.

Texts: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 1, 7th or later edition.

Evaluation: Midterm exam 25%; Essay 35%; Final exam 30%; Conference participation 10%

Format: Lecture and discussion sections

Average Enrollment: 180 students.

Please note: this course is intended for Faculty of Arts or Faculty of Science Students in a Major or Minor Program in literature in the Department of English. Not open to students in other Faculties.

Prerequisite: English 202. Not open to students who have taken English 201, the non-Departmental Survey of English Literature.

Description: This course offers a survey of English Literature from the years following the French Revolution to the early twentieth century, with particular emphasis on poetry. We will pay close attention to the constructs of Romanticism, Victorianism, and Modernism that have traditionally governed the periodization and study of literature covered by this course.

Texts:

• The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. II - Will include selections from Wollstonecraft, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, Robert Browning, Arnold, Ruskin, Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Wilde, Yeats, Shaw, T.S. Eliot, Joyce, Orwell, Woolf.
• Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
• Charles Dickens, Hard Times
• Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Evaluation: 2 essays (5-6 pp.), final examination, conference participation.

Prerequisites: none; this course is designed for students outside the English Department – those pursuing a major or minor in English should take ENGL 315

Description: This course provides an introduction to the drama of William Shakespeare by covering a selection of plays chosen from the various genres represented in his canon (comedy, history, tragedy, romance). As well as the themes and concerns of the works, we will study issues such as Shakespeare’s language, his use of sources, and the historical, cultural and political context in which he wrote. Since Shakespeare’s drama was written to be performed, we will explore early modern stage practices and will also examine the subsequent performance history of the plays up to the present day on both stage and screen.

Texts: The Necessary Shakespeare, ed. David Bevington, 3rd edition

Evaluation (tentative): conference participation 10%; midterm exam (short essay) 20%; film essay 30%; final exam 40%

Format: lecture, conferences, discussion

Prerequisite: None.

Description: A survey of American literature from its beginnings to the Civil War (1860). While we may begin with early writing—Native Americans, explorers, and Puritans, for example—the main emphasis is on literature from the first half of the 19th century: authors such as Irving, Douglass, and Stowe, with a special focus on the major writers of the “American Renaissance”--Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, Poe, Hawthorne, Whitman, and Dickinson. Particular attention will be paid to representative American themes, forms, and literary techniques. No attempt will be made to cover all major writers or writings.

Texts:

• Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography and Other Writings
• The Norton Anthology of American Literature: 8th edition, Vol. B (1820-1865).

Evaluation (Tentative): 20% mid-term exam; 25% essay; 15% conference participation; 40% final exam. (All evaluation—on exams as well as essays—tests abilities in literary-critical writing and analysis; none involves short-answer or multiple-choice exams graded by computer.)

Format: Lectures and discussion sections.

Average Enrollment: 200 students.

Prerequisites: None, but prior knowledge of modern and contemporary American literature will be helpful.

Description: This introductory course dives into the diverse, discordant, and often dystopian world of American fiction published since 1990. Our readings will lead us into discussions of plot, theme, biography, and genre, but they will also help us begin to zero-in on some of the major flashpoints in American culture over the last twenty years. We will look for the ways these novels express critical issues of our time, such as the increase in income inequality, ecological devastation, the Right’s dominance in American politics, enduring questions about racial and ethnic identity, and the commodification of art. In addition to these weighty social and cultural issues, our novelists also ask us to think about human interconnectedness and love, the changing role of the artist, and the all-too-common dysfunctionality of families. In addition to the primary literature, the course’s lectures will engage theoretical and historical texts, which will aid in framing recent American fiction within ongoing debates over its politics, literary status, and audience.

Texts: (tentative)

• Butler, Octavia: Parable of the Sower (1993)
• DeLillo, Don: Mao II (1991)
• Diaz, Junot: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)
• Didion, Joan: The Last Thing He Wanted (1997)
• Ellis, Bret Easton: The Informers (1994)
• Krauss, Nicole: The History of Love (2005)
• McCarthy, Cormac: The Road (2006)
• Roth, Philip: The Human Stain (2000)

Evaluation (Tentative): Participation (10%), Three exams (30%, 30%, 30%)

Format: Lectures.

Average Enrollment: 180 students.

Description: This course is an introduction to Canadian literature in English and provides a survey of key episodes in Canadian literary history: settlement literature, Confederation-era poetry, early twentieth-century satire, modern and modernist poetry, and modern realist fiction. Charting evolving perceptions of Canadian identity in poetry and three prose works, we will be attentive to the historical and literary contexts of this writing. Such attention will lead us to consider some of the following issues: the concept of “tradition” in Canadian writing, the politics and literary movements of several definitive historical eras, and the ever-changing idea of “Canadian identity.” Using close readings of both texts and contexts, our analysis will focus on the formal techniques, writing philosophies, and ideological positions of the authors. The evaluation for this course is tentative, but it will likely involve weekly conferences (or, tutorials) for the majority of semester; your teaching assistants will evaluate your participation in these discussion-based conference sections. In addition, you will be asked to produce two written assignments—assignment sheets will be provided on the first day of class—and do short reading comprehension quizzes.

Texts (subject to change):

• Eds. Gwendolyn Davies and Carole Gerson. Canadian Poetry from its Beginnings through the First World War
• Stephen Leacock. Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912)
• Susanna Moodie. Roughing It in the Bush (Norton Edition; 1852)
• Sinclair Ross. As for Me and My House (1941)
• Ed. Brian Trehearne. Canadian Poetry 1920 to 1960

Evaluation (subject to change): Short 3pp. Essay (15%), Longer 5-6pp. Essay (30%), Final Exam (30%), Participation (15%), Brief Quizzes (10%)

Format: Lectures, discussion, and conferences

Average Enrollment: 180 students

Description: This course provides a critical introduction to theatre studies, in its branches of dramatic literature, dramatic theory, and theatre history. Our point of departure for this introduction to the field will be plays drawn from the major episodes of world theatre history, beginning with Ancient Greek drama through contemporary Canadian and postcolonial performance, and including the Department of English mainstage show. Through the plays, we will examine what “theatre” is in different periods and places, how it is constituted by the material conditions of performance, codified in dramatic genres, and conceptualized in dramatic theory. NB: This course is introductory in the sense of ‘foundational’; it offers the fundaments to the study of theatre, encasing them in a broad historical narrative about the theatre’s development over time.

“Introduction to Theatre Studies” is divided into units and ordered according to chronology. Each unit is built around a representative play or performance and explores a particular question or issue in theatre studies, for instance, the actor’s body, theories of genre, or women on stage.

Required Text: Available at the McGill Bookstore and on Reserve: Worthen, W.B., ed. The Wadsworth Anthology of Drama 5th Edition. TBA

Required Event: Department of English mainstage play – Moyse Hall Theatre, end of November

Evaluation: Midterm exam (25%); final exam (50%); participation (10%); short essay (15%)

Format: Lecture (2 hours/week) plus discussion sections (1 hour/week)

Prerequisites: Open to Drama and Theatre Majors

Description: The focus of this course is on the actor as communicator, and on those things (material, physical, and textual) which are inescapably central to the theatrical performance.

Texts: TBA

Evaluation: TBA

Format: TBA

Description: This course will introduce students to central theoretical perspectives and concepts in the study of culture. Of each perspective we will ask how it argues culture is formed and how it is lived, negotiated and sometimes resisted. Some of the theoretical formulations we look at are: Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism, race theory, as well as theories of popular culture, consumption and visual culture.

Texts: TBA

Evaluation: (tentative) several short papers on films and fiction; in-class quizzes; final exam; conference participation

Format: Lecture, discussion, conference groups; attendance in class and conference is mandatory

Average Enrollment: 80 students

Prerequisites: The course is limited to majors in Cultural Studies and/or minors in World Cinemas.

Description: This course is designed to prepare students in the Cultural Studies major and/or World Cinemas minor for future film courses at McGill. The course will introduce the student to central concepts in film form and aesthetics, as well as key theories of film production and reception. The main goal of the course is to familiarize the student with analytical tools to investigate and explain how a film generates its multiple effects—in short, to articulate how a film works.

Required Texts:

• David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction (8th or 9th edition)
• Course reader

Required Films:

• The Man With A Movie Camera (U.S.S.R., Dziga Vertov, 1929)
• Exotica (Canada, Atom Egoyan, 1994)
• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Germany, Robert Wiene, 1920)
• Taxi Driver (U.S.A., Martin Scorsese, 1976)
• Breathless (France, Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
• The Conversation (U.S.A., Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (U.S.A., John Ford, 1962)
• Stella Dallas (U.S.A., King Vidor, 1937)
• The Hole (Taiwan, Tsai Ming-Liang, 1998)
• The Thin Blue Line (U.S.A., Errol Morris, 1988)
• Dog Man Star: Prelude (1961), Mothlight (1963), The Wold Shadow (1972), Rage Net (1988), Black Ice (1994) (all U.S.A., Stan Brakhage)
• Scorpio Rising (U.S.A., Kenneth Anger, 1964)
• Meshes of the Afternoon (U.S.A., Maya Deren, 1945)
• Vertigo (U.S.A., Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

Evaluation: TBA

Format: Lecture, TA-led conferences, weekly screenings