Examines the rich heritage of British literature across genre and historical period. Designed for students who want to know more about British literature, its cultural history, and global legacies. Studies the relationship between literary themes, forms, and conventions and the times in which they were produced. Topics may include Renaissance lyrics and drama; Enlightenment satires; the 19th-century novel; and modern and contemporary stories, poems, and film.
Spring 2026
Prereq: none
Units: 3-0-9 HASS-H
Oscar Wilde seems to bridge the gaps: between Ireland and England, between imperium and colony, between the 19th and the 20th centuries, between gender-discrimination and [through a form of martyrdom] gradual acceptance/celebration, between art-as-utilitarian-social-function and art-for art’s-sake. He both wrote the [arguably] funniest play ever in English and, within a couple of years, was tried for “gross indecency” and sent to prison. He is the patron saint of gay identity [he claims to have kissed Walt Whitman… Whitman, never otherwise known for his tact, withheld comment] and was also putatively the model for the characters of Sherlock Holmes [by his friend, the Scottish writer, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Count Dracula [by his friend, the Irish writer, Bram Stoker].
We read texts by Oscar Wilde, Augusta Gregory, W.B. Yeats, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, Henry James, Lewis Carroll, Walt Whitman, Thomas Hardy, A.E. Housman, Gilbert and Sullivan, Tom Stoppard, and others. We read visual images by Wilde’s friends Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, John Singer Sargant, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, James McNeill Whistler, Edward Burne-Jones, Frances Richards, and Aubrey Beardsley. Short papers, several presentations, no final exam. [Pre-1900]