The department offers two programs leading to the major in English:

This track is designed for students who choose English as a liberal arts major that pre- pares them for a wide range of career options; for students who choose English as their subject area for elementary certification or who wish to earn secondary certification in English; for students who wish to improve their verbal and analytic ability in preparation for a specific career, such as technical writing, business, or law; and for students who intend to pursue graduate study in British or American literature.

A minimum of ten courses is required for Track I. Required courses are ENGL 217; 220; 221; two courses selected from 222, 223, 227; two from 311, 312, 313, 314, and 315; one from 335 and 336; and two electives from among courses numbered 215 and above.

Students who wish to earn secondary teacher certification must complete a minimum of twelve courses in English. Required courses are ENGL 217; 220; 221; 335; 336; 338; two courses from 222, 223, 227; three courses from 311, 312, 313, 314, and 315; and one elective from among courses numbered 215 and above. Required courses outside English are EDUC 200, 446, 447, and 449; PSY 110 and 138; and THEA 100.

Students who intend to pursue graduate study in British or American literature should complete the twelve English courses specified for secondary certification and, as part of that sequence, take ENGL 449, Advanced Criticism, as their English elective.

This track is designed for students who aspire to careers as professional writers, as editors, and as publishers; for students who plan to continue studies in an M.F.A. or M.A. program; or for students who would like to discover their creative potential while pursuing a fundamental liberal arts education.

A minimum of ten courses is required for Track II. Required courses are ENGL 240; two courses selected from 220, 221, 222, 223, 225, and 227; two from 311, 312, 313, 314 and 315; one from 331 or 332; one from 335 and 336; two from 341, 342, 441, and 442 (note prerequisites); and one from 411 or 412.

Students who wish to earn secondary teacher certification must complete a minimum of twelve courses in English. Required courses are ENGL 240, 335, 336, 338; two courses selected from 220, 221, 222, 223, 225, and 227; two from 311, 312, 313, 314, and 315; one from 331 and 332; two from 341, 342, 441, 442 (note prerequisites); and one from 411 and 412; ENGL 217 recommended. Required courses outside English are EDUC 200, 446, 447, and 449; PSY 110 and 138; and THEA 100.

The following course satisfies the cultural diversity requirement: ENGL 334. The following courses, when scheduled as W courses, count toward the writing intensive requirement: ENGL 225, 311, 331, 334, 335, 336, and 420.

The department offers two minors in English:

Literature: Five courses in literature at the 200 level or above, at least three of which must be numbered 300 or above.

Writing: Five courses, four of which are chosen from ENGL 217, 240, 321, 322, and 338; plus one writing-intensive course in literature at the 300 level.

INTRODUCTION TO COLLEGE WRITING

A review of grammar and an introduction to college-level reading and writing. One unit grade of "P" will be assigned when the student has successfully completed all of the work in the course. Required of, and limited to, those who have not been exempted from ENGL 105.

COMPOSITION

Extensive practice in analytical writing. Special emphasis on developing the composing skills needed to articulate and defend a position in various situations requiring the use of written English. Credit may not be earned for both 106 and 107.

HONORS COMPOSITION

Extensive practice in analytical writing. Special emphasis on developing the writing skills of students who have the potential to benefit from advanced work. Placement by examination only. Credit may not be earned for both 106 and 107.

Practice in the methods of close reading and formal analysis. Identification of primary elements and structures of literary representation. Literature chosen for study will vary. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or107, or consent of instructor.

CRITICAL WRITING SEMINAR

An introduction to writing critically about literary texts. Workshop setting offers intensive practice in the writing and critiquing of papers. Designed for beginning students of literature. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor. Not open to juniors or seniors except for newly declared majors or with consent of instructor.

BRITISH LITERATURE I

BRITISH LITERATURE II

Literary movements and authors from the beginnings of Romanticism to the end of the 19th century. Particular emphasis on such writers as Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Browning, Carlyle, Arnold, Hardy, and Yeats. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor.

AMERICAN LITERATURE I

Survey of American literature from the beginning to 1865, with major emphasis on the writers of the Romantic period: Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, and Whitman. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor.

AMERICAN LITERATURE II

Survey of American literature from 1865 to1945 , emphasizing such authors as Twain, James, Crane, Hemingway, Faulkner, Frost, Eliot, Stevens, O’Neill, and Williams. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor.

CLASSICAL LITERATURE

A study, in translation, of Greek and Roman works that have influenced Western writers. Literary forms studied include epic, drama, satire, and love poetry. Writers studied include Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Virgil, Juvenal, Horace, Lucretius, and Ovid. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor.

AMERICAN LITERATURE III

Survey of American literature from 1945 to the present, focusing on such writers as Bellow, O’Connor, Updike, Roth, Morrison, Bishop, Lowell, Ginsberg, and Plath. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor.

INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE WRITING

Workshop discussions, structured exercises, and readings in contemporary literature to provide practice and basic instruction in the writing and evaluation of poetry and fiction. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor.

MEDIEVAL LITERATURE

Readings in Old and Middle English poetry and prose from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History to Malory’s Arthurian romance. Study of lyric, narrative, drama, and romance with emphasis on the cultural context from which these forms emerge. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

RENAISSANCE LITERATURE

An examination of themes and literary forms of the Renaissance. Authors studied will include Donne, Marlowe, More, Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, and Surrey. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

Consideration of selected themes, writers, or modes of Restoration and 18th-century literature (1660-1800) with emphasis on the social, political, and intellectual life of that era. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

ROMANTIC LITERATURE

Concentrated study in the writers, texts, and themes of the Romantic period (1789-1832) with emphasis on the social, political, and intellectual life of that era. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

VICTORIAN LITERATURE

Concentrated study in the writers, texts, and themes of the Victorian period (1832-1901) with emphasis on the social, political, and intellectual life of that era. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

A course providing practice in report and technical writing, proposals, and other areas where competence will be expected in the business and scientific worlds. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

A course in which students from all disciplines learn to explore and define themselves through the essay, a form used to express the universal through the particular and the personal. Readings will include essayists from Montaigne to Gould.
Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

20TH-CENTURY FICTION

Examination of the novels and short fiction of such major writers as Conrad, Woolf, Joyce, Faulkner, Fowles, and Nabokov, with special emphasis on the relationship of their works to concepts of modernism. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor.

20TH-CENTURY POETRY

THE NOVEL

An examination primarily of British and American works from the 18th century to the present, focusing on the novel’s ability—since its explosive inception—to redefine its own boundaries. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

WOMEN AND LITERATURE

An examination—literary, social, and historical—of literature by women representing diverse cultures. Each course will examine a particular theme significant to women writers from more than one cultural background. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

CHAUCER

Concentrated study of The Canterbury Tales with emphasis on the variety of medieval narrative genres represented. Chaucer’s Tales will be read in Middle English. The course includes a brief study of language development to Chaucer, a study of Middle English sufficient to comprehend Chaucer, and an examination of the cultural traditions that inform Chaucer’s works. Prerequisites: ENGL 106 or 107 or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

SHAKESPEARE

A study of representative plays in the context of Shakespeare’s life and times. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

LINGUISTICS

An intensive look at the English language, focusing on three grammatical systems (traditional, structural, transformational) to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Attention is also given to larger issues, including language change, the politics of language, the creation of meaning, language acquisition, and dialects. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

POETRY WORKSHOP I

An intermediate workshop focusing on the writing of poetry and methods of analysis. Prerequisite: Grade of B or better in ENGL 240 or consent of instructor.

FICTION WORKSHOP I

An intermediate course in the writing of short fiction in a workshop environment, where the student is trained to hear language at work. Emphasis on characterization and story. Prerequisite: Grade of B or better in ENGL 240 or consent of instructor.

FORM AND THEORY: POETRY

Principles of meter, rhyme, formal structure, and traditional and contemporary poetic forms will be studied through readings, discussion, and exercises. Designed to enhance skills in both practical criticism and in creative writing, this course will pay particular attention to theories concerned with the relationship between form and content in poetry. Prerequisite: ENGL 341 or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

FORM AND THEORY: FICTION

A course that examines philosophical and aesthetic theories of fiction, and the resulting fiction based on those theories. Authors will most likely include Aristotle, Calvino, Gardner, Gass, and Nabokov. Prerequisite: ENGL 342 or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

SELECTED WRITERS

An intensive study of no more than three writers, selected on the basis of student and faculty interest. Possible combinations include: Frost, Hemingway, and Faulkner; O’Connor, Welty, and Porter; Spenser and Milton; Hawthorne, Melville, and Dickens; Woolf, Forster, and Lawrence; Joyce and Yeats.  Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

TOPICS IN LITERATURE

Examination of a literary theme, idea, or movement as it appears in one or more types of literature and as it cuts across various epochs. Possible topics include: American Novelists and Poets of the Jazz Age and Depression; The Bible and Literature; Gothic Tradition in American Literature; Mystery and Detective Fiction; The Hero in Literature. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

POETRY WORKSHOP II

An advanced workshop in the writing of poetry. Students will receive intensive anal- ysis of their own work and acquire experience in evaluating the work of their peers. Prerequisite: ENGL 341.

FICTION WORKSHOP II

An advanced course in the writing of short fiction. Emphasis on the complexities of voice and tone. The student will be encouraged to develop and control his or her individual style and produce publishable fiction. Prerequisite: ENGL 342.

ADVANCED CRITICISM

Reading and discussion in the theory and history of criticism. Examination of both traditional and contemporary ideas about the value and nature of literary expression and its place in human culture generally. Work in the course includes practical as well as theoretical use of the ideas and methods of critical inquiry. Prerequisite: ENGL 106 or 107, or consent of instructor. Alternate years.

INTERNSHIP (See index)

The department provides internships in editing, legal work, publishing, and technical writing.

INDEPENDENT STUDY (See index)

Recent studies include the role of Pennsylvania in the fiction of John O’Hara; the changing image of women in American art and literature (1890-1945); the hard-boiled detective novel; contemporary women writers; and Milton’s use of the Bible in Paradise Lost.