Department of EnglishEarly British Literature

Recent Undergraduate Courses in Early British Literature

ENGL 2323: British Literature I: The Battle of the Sexes, 449-1800

Dr. Brian McFadden, Fall 2025

This course will teach the basics of reading texts critically, writing examinations and essays, citation and research, and the examination of early English literature and culture. The question driving this course: while men often appear to dominate medieval and early modern culture, how have women asserted and reasserted themselves as authors and as human beings in that time? We will discuss such texts and authors as Beowulf, Judith, The Husband's Message and The Wife's Lament, Dream of the Rood, the lais of Marie de France, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich, and Shakespeare, as well as various shorter lyric poems and prose pieces by both male and female authors through the 18th century; we will see that what is often depicted as a battle for control yields in fact reveals many cases where the feminine equals or overcomes the masculine, and that the need for some kind of balance and harmony is constantly demanded (if not always achieved).

ENGL 3304: Medieval and Renaissance Drama

Dr. Matthew Hunter, Fall 2025

This course introduces students to some of the major concerns and developments of English drama as it transformed, throughout the early modern period, into the country’s signature form of popular entertainment and cultural reflection. Over the course of the semester, we will use a single genre—tragedy—to track important changes within theatrical production on the early modern stage. By the end of the term, students will be able to appreciate the historical and material conditions underpinning the production of major tragedies from the period. They will also be identify the key concerns and formal features of Renaissance tragedy as a genre. Finally, they will have a deep appreciation for the dramaturgy, the language, and the thematic preoccupations of Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Thomas Kyd, and other important playwrights of the English Renaissance stage.

ENGL 4311: Hafez to Ryōkan: Religious Poetry of Iran, England, Japan

Dr. Ryan Hackenbracht, Fall 2025

This course explores the religious poetry of six major poets from the premodern era: John Donne, Christina Rossetti, Jalāl Rumi, Khājeh Shams-od-Dīn Moḥammad Ḥāfeẓ, Matsuo Bashō, and Taigu Ryōkan. We will ask questions about similarities and differences between poets and religious traditions—such as, how does Herbert’s sense of Christ-like humility compare to Ryōkan’s Buddhist self-emptying? How does Bashō’s enlightenment upon arriving at Shinto shrines compare to Donne’s ruminations on his Good Friday journey? Ultimately, each student will become a masterful reader of premodern poetry, as well as an informed scholar of literary traditions in the global premodern world. We will learn about the sonnet and its Petrarchan genesis, the hokku (haiku) and its renga origins, the Ignatian genre of meditation, and the Japanese custom of travel verse—among other poetic modes and traditions.

ENGL 4321: Studies in Literary Topics: Holidays, Holy-Days, and Holy Smoke! Pilgrimage in the Global Middle Ages

Dr. Julie Nelson Couch, Spring 2025

This course introduces students to the preeminence of pilgrimage—that is, journeying to a holy place to be forgiven or cured, or to conquer—through historical and literary enactments of pilgrims and their excursions in the Middle Ages. People visited, and read about visiting the spaces, where the holy happened—where Jesus was born, where Muhammad destroyed idols, or where miracles occurred. In this course, we will read stories of pilgrims, including Chaucer’s famous Canterbury characters, the violent ‘pilgrimage’ of the crusade romance Richard Coeur de Lion, and the uber-popular travelogue Mandeville’s Travels. We will consider how pilgrimage was both a popular undertaking and a potent metaphor for life’s journey. Through entanglement with the Crusades, pilgrimage also offered a way to articulate desires to explore faraway places and possess power over them. In this upper-level English course students will hone their interpretative skills writing about literature that provides exciting access into past cultures.