University of Delaware
Graduate Catalog 1996-1997
College of Arts and Science
Department of English
Course Descriptions
ENGL 600 Methods of Research 3
Research methods and problem-solving strategies in literary and cultural
studies.
ENGL 604 Poetry Writing Workshop 3
Intensive practice in verse composition. Group discussions and
individual conferences. Wide reference to professional poems as models.
Emphasis on student competence in traditional prosody as well as
exploring freer forms.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated once for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 621 Medieval Literature and Culture 3
Survey course will study medieval culture and ideas as expressed in
literature (e.g., Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, The Divine Comedy)
and/or in history, philosophy, etc. (e.g., Boethius, Augustine, Thomas
Aquinas), and topics (e.g., orality and literacy, epic and romance,
genres).
RESTRICTIONS: For graduate students with little or no medieval
literature and culture background.
ENGL 625 Studies in the Renaissance 3
Survey course, intended primarily for students with no previous
experience of the period. A wide selection of authors will be studied
(e.g., More, Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Donne, Herbert, Marvell,
Jonson, Webster, Middleton, the Cavalier poets, Marvell, Milton); some
of Shakespeare's works may also be included.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated once for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 627 Seventeenth-Century Literature 3
This survey course covers representative examples of prose, poetry, and
drama from Jacobean comedies, tragedies, and masques to the satire,
burlesque, and mannnered literature of the Restoration. Points of focus
are the counsels and propositions of Francis Bacon and his followers;
developments in lyrical, narrative, descriptive, and meditative poetry
of Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, Marvell and Milton; classicism from Jonson
to Cowley and Dryden; romance and prose fiction.
ENGL 631 Eighteenth-Century Literature 3
Variable content. Course topics may include (but are not restricted to)
general survey (i.e., selected poetry, drama, fiction), genre survey,
gender studies (e.g., women writers), or thematic issues (e g.,
literature and politics).
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated once for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 634 Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature 3
Survey of the Romatic and/or Victorian literature.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated once for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 636 Twentieth-Century Literature 3
Broadly focused to include multiple genres and/or movements (e.g., turn-
of-the-century realism, war poets, modernism, postmodern drama) from
before and after World War II. May include American, European and post-
colonial, in addition to British literature.
ENGL 639 Studies in Modern/Contemporary Literature 3
Variable content. Study of selected poetry, prose, and drama of the
twentieth century, with an emphasis on the major texts of English and
American literature during the period. Some attention given to other
literary traditions and writings.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 641 American Literature: Period Studies 3
Historical survey of American literature of the Colonial Romantic period
or the Realistics period, emphasizing "canonical" works of major writers
along with selected "non-canonical" writings.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 651 Irish Literature: Period Studies 3
Variable content. Study of a set of Irish writers related by genre or
period, set in historical and political contexts.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 671 Studies in Fiction 3
Special topics in the novel and short story. Topics may emphasize an
author or authors, a type or types of fiction, a period or theme.
Variable content.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 672 Studies in the Drama 3
Special topics in an author or authors, a type or types of drama, a
period or theme. Variable content.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 673 Studies in Poetry 3
Special topics in a poet or poets, a type or movement, a period or
theme. Variable content.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 677 The Structure of English 3
See EDST677 for course description.
ENGL 680 Seminar 3
ENGL 684 Literary Theory and Criticism 3
Introduction to some of the leading problems in contemporary literary
theory, with some attention to their historical precedents.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated once for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 685 Cultural Theory and Criticism 3
A topical introduction to cultural theory, emphasizing in different
terms such varied topics as semiotics, deconstructionism, feminism, post-
colonial and third-world studies, and problems of representation and
signification in literary and non-literary texts.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated once for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 688 Teaching Composition 3
Study of current composition theory, with emphasis on the relationship
between theory and classroom practices.
ENGL 694 History of the English Language 3
Development of Modern English, with emphasis on changes in sounds,
inflections, spelling, and vocabulary. Attention also given to usage,
dialects, attitudes toward language, and cultural history.
ENGL 802 Studies in Old and Middle English 3
A study of the English language either from before 1100 or between 1100
and 1400 with selected readings in Old or Middle English Poetry and
prose.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated once for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 804 Studies in Medieval Literature and Culture 3
Variable content. Intensive study of literature and language in Old
English or Middle English, with attention to history and culture. Recent
course titles: Chaucer, Beowulf, The Gawain-Poet, The Age of Langland,
The Romance.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated once for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 806 Studies in Renaissance Literature 3
Focuses on one or two authors (e.g., Shakespeare or Spenser), on genres
(e.g., narrative verse and prose, the lyric, drama) or on specific
periods (Elizabethan, Jacobean, the Civil War).
ENGL 815 Studies in Seventeenth-Century Literature 3
Research seminars on writers (Donne and Jonson; Bacon, Browne, Hobbes,
and Locke; the Fletchers, Cowley, and Milton); genres (classical,
metaphysical, and neo-classical poetry; Jacobean, Caroline, and
Restoration drama); or topics and themes (empiricism; skepticism; gender
and society; literature of the civil wars; puritan culture).
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated once for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 820 Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature 3
Variable content. Possible course topics include: The Restoration
Theatre; English Neoclassicism; The Rise of the Novel; individual
writers or groups of writers; applications of theory.
ENGL 830 Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature 3
Seminar in Romantic and/or Victorian literature with emphasis on
selected writers, genres, and/or topics. Possible course topics: women
and nature poetry; Dickens; religious doubt; the provincial novel.
ENGL 840 Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature 3
Variable content. Concentrated study of an aspect of Twentieth-Century
British, European, American and/or post-colonial literatures. Possible
focuses: a genre, a set of writers, cultural issues (e.g., gender, race,
the Holocaust, aesthetics vs. politics).
ENGL 844 Seminar: Special Topics in American Literature 3
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 846 Seminar: Special Topics in English Literature 3
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 848 Special Topics in Comparative Literature 3
Variable content. Possible course topics include: Existential
literature, The Avant-Garde, and Literature and Aesthetics.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated once for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 850 Studies in Colonial American Literature 3
Variable content: e.g., New England Puritanism, Southern Colonial
Literature, and Major Early American Authors.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 852 Seminar: American Realism and Naturalism 3
Classic works by Clemens, James, Crane, Chopin, Dreiser, Stein, and
Wharton, with focus (1) on the practice of theory and aesthetic
assumptions of current criticism and (2) on labels for the period
(Realism, Naturalism) as formulations from specific literary texts
(including some expurgated texts).
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 853 Modern/Postmodern American Literature 3
Variable content. Modern American Novelists (Fitzgerald, Hemingway,
Faulkner); modern and postmodern American novelists (Fitzgerald,
Hemingway, Faulkner, Bellow, Barth, Heller, Morrison, Pynchon);
modernist poetry (Pound, Eliot, Stevens). Drama of the Absurd.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 868 Research 3
ENGL 869 Master's Thesis 1-6
ENGL 884 Studies in Literary and Cultural Theory 3
Close examination of a single topic or a closely related group of topics
(e.g., psychoanalysis and interpretation, genre theory, literary
historiography, feminist critique) in textual study.
PREREQ: ENGL684 or 685.
RESTRICTIONS: May be repeated for credit when topics vary.
ENGL 890 Studies in Linguistics 3
See LING890 for course description.
ENGL 964 Pre-Candidacy Study 3-12 PF
Research and readings in preparation of dissertation topic and/or
qualifying examinations for doctoral students before admission to
candidacy but after completion of all required course work.
RESTRICTIONS: Not open to students who have been admitted to candidacy.
ENGL 969 Doctoral Dissertation 1-12 PF
UNIV 895 Master's Sustaining: Non-Thesis 0 PF
UNIV 899 Master's Sustaining: Thesis 0 PF
UNIV 999 Doctoral Sustaining 0 PF