English IV(British Literature) Schedule

Lillian Sims Pisgah High School 2014-2015

Course Description:
English IV is a survey of British Literature throughout history. This course is designed to ensure that
students have collegiate- and professional- level writing, reading, communication, and reasoning skills,
along with a well-rounded understanding of the history and major literary movements of English.

Unit 1: Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Worlds 5 weeks (Aug. 11-Sept. 12)
Context, part I:
Guiding questions (20-21)
Background reading (23-27, 38)
Oedipus story
Worldwide mythology
Primary readings, part I: What Makes a Hero?
From the Iliad*, Achilles vs. Hector (81-87) (1 class)
Beowulf in 7 sections (40-70)
o Context Prezi with poetic interpretation
Context, part II:
Background readings on medieval world, chivalry (30-33, 36) (movies)
Story of Arthur (248-260*)
Primary readings, part II: The Growth of Society
Ballads
o Barbara Allan (218-219)
o Robin Hood (220-223)
The Canterbury Tales*(1.5weeks)
o Prologue (144-166)
o Pardoners Tale (170-180)
o Wife of Baths Tale (184-196)

Unit 2A: Renaissance 3 weeks (Sept 15.-Oct. 3)
Context, part I: History and Short Poetry
Guiding questions (292-3)
Background reading (295-311)
Elizabethan worldview; great chain of being
King James Bible translation
Paradise Lost (502)
Sonnet style; common poetry topics
Primary readings, part I:
Light? poets:
o Marlowes Passionate Shepherd (314)
o Raleighs Nymphs Reply (316)
o Herricks To the Virgins (534)
o Marvells To His Coy Mistress (532-3)
Dark? poets:
o Jonsons On My First Son (526)
o Donnes Valediction (518-9), Sonnet #10 (521), & Meditation 17 (522)
o Petrarchs #292 (337)
Shakespeares sonnets
o Shakespeares #18, #130, #29, #116 (326-330)

Unit 2B: Renaissance Macbeth 6+ weeks (Oct. 8-Nov. 21)
Context, part II: Drama and Prose
Background on Macbeth (340-346)
Macbeth & Hamlet** (4-5 weeks)
Primary readings, part II:
Macbeth (349-431)
o Act 1 (351-66; 15 p.)
o Act 2 (368-380, 12 p.)
o Act 3 (382-398, 17 p.)
o Act 4 (400-416, 16 p.)
o Act 5 (418-431, 13 p.)
Speeches from Hamlet
Cavendishs Orations (472-475)
Elizabeths speech (448)
From Mores Utopia (446)
From Machiavellis The Prince (454-8)

Unit 3: Enlightenment (1660-1798) 3 weeks (December)

Context:
Guiding questions (560-1)
Background reading (563-576)
Satire
Primary readings:
Selections from Pepys
o Fire of London (584-5)
o Domestic affairs (586-7)
Addison on marriage (604)
Wollstonecraft (720-726)
Behns On Loving Two Equally (702)
Defoes Journal (594-8)
Grays Elegy (692-697)
Swift:
o A Modest Proposal (622-31)
o From Gullivers Travels (636-646, 647-653)

Unit 4: Romantics 2 weeks (Jan. 5-16)
Context:
Guiding questions (752-3)
Background reading (755-767)
Frankenstein
Primary readings:
Poems on loving nature/people:
o Blakes The Tyger (774)
o Byrons When We Two Parted (852-3)
o E.B. Brownings Sonnet 43 (954)
o Burns To a Mouse/To A Louse (784-788)
o P.B. Shelleys To a Skylark (870)
o Coleridges Rime of the Ancient Mariner (814-834)
Poems on history/power/fear of the future:
o Wordsworths Bridge/ The World Is.. (806-7)
o P.B. Shelleys Ozymandias/England 1819 (862, 871)
o Keats Ode to a Grecian Urn (884-5)

Unit 5: Victorian Age 6.5 weeks (Jan. 20-Mar.5)
Context:
Guiding questions (912-3)
Background reading (915-925)
History clips
Primary readings:
Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest
o Chekhovs The Darling (1016-1026)
o E. Bronte Remembrance (956-7)
o Excerpts from The Merchant of Venice
Death poems:
o Tennysons: Ulysses/In Memoriam/Crossing the Bar (936-941)
o Arnolds Dover Beach
o Housmans To an Athlete/When I Was One-and-Twenty (1062, 1064)
o Hardys Digging (1072-3)

Unit 6: War Writers 3 weeks (Mar. 17-Apr. 13)
Context:
Background reading (1101-1112)
Primary readings:
Wiesels Night (class copies)
Huxleys Words and Behavior (1266-1276)
Orwells Shooting an Elephant (1252-1259)
Bowens The Demon Lover (1230-1236)
Excerpts from Achebes Things Fall Apart
War poems by Sassoon, Brooke, & Yeats (1244-7)
Owens Dulce Et Decorum Est (online)

Unit 7: Into the Next Age: Modern Writing & Cinema 3 weeks (Apr.14-May 1)
Context:
Eliots The Naming of Cats (1123)
Spielbergs Schindlers List
Primary readings:
Audens The Unknown Citizen (1178-9)
o Eliots ending to The Hollow Men (1122)
o Yeats Sailing to Byzantium (1192)
o Smiths Not Waving but Drowning (1314)
Yeats When You are Old (1196)