Seminar in English Literature, 2nd year, 1st semester

The Long Eighteenth Century (Neoclassicism)

The Puritan Age (roughly 1629-1674/the death of Milton)

1. John Milton Paradise Lost (1667) Page

The biblical sources of the poem (+ Miltons interventions at the level of the story and characters); |1
The heroic poem (characteristics, conventions of the genre);
Main characters and the true heroes of the poem (focus on Satan and Adam & Eve and the role of Christ);
Elements of tragedy in the portrayal of Satan? (Discuss.)
Miltons contribution to English and world literature;
(M.H. Abrams Glossary of Literary Terms: epic; character; hero)

The Augustan Age (1700 1745/50)

2. Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock. An Heroi-Comical Poem (1712, 1714)
The mock-heroic poem(see hand-out for definition);
The conventions of the heroic poem as they appear in Popes poem (see hand-out);
The protagonists ironic portraits;
The battle of the sexes theme;
Style (poetic diction, the heroic couplet)
(M.H. Abrams Glossary of Literary Terms: Enlightenment; neoclassic; neoclassic poetic diction; mock-heroic;
heroic couplet; epic; hero; wit, humour; satire)

3. Daniel Defoe The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719)
The realistic novel of adventures the realism of the novel (see seminar pack);
The theme of survival (physical and psychological);
Robinson Crusoe as a representative of early 18th century English middle-class (Robinsons social,
economic and religious background); interpretation of the father-son discussion at the beginning of the
novel.
Individualism (capitalism);
Robinsons relationship with Friday (a postcolonial reading)
Narrative technique (see use of first person narrative);
Style.
(M.H. Abrams Glossary of Literary Terms: novel; character; literature of fact; realism)

4. Jonathan Swift Gullivers Travels (1726)

Prose satire (check definitions for satire and allegory);
Targets for satire in each book;
The relationship between physical distortions and morality;
Means of achieving satire (check each of the four books);
Book IV (dystopia; Gulliver as persona for Swift);
Narrative technique;
Style (check Book II).
(M.H. Abrams Glossary of Literary Terms: novel; character; allegory; satire; irony)

The Age of Johnson (1745/50-1798)

5. Henry Fielding - The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling (1949)

The comic epic in prose -- Fieldings theory of the novel;
Structure (plot construction);
Characters (types, names, interrelationships)
Realism; satire;
Contribution to the novel genre and style.
(M.H. Abrams Glossary of Literary Terms: novel; character; satire; irony)
Bibliography (selective)
Greenblat, Stephen (gen. ed.) The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Eighth Edition. Vol. 1. W.W. Norton
& Company, New York/London, 2006 (1962).
Abrams, M.H.
Baker, Ernest A.
Baker, Arthur E.
Battestin, Martin C. (ed)
Booth, Wayne C.
Brown, J. R., Harris B. (eds.) Restoration Theatre, Edward Arnold (Publishers), 1965.
Calin, Vera
Calinescu, Matei
Camden, Carroll (ed.)
Church, Richard
Clark, Donald B.
Clifford, James (ed.)
Danielson, Dennis (ed.)
Dobranski, S.B., Rumrich, J. (eds.) Milton and Heresy, Cambridge UP, 1998.
Dobre, Bonamy
Elliot, Robert C. (ed.)
Ellis, Frank (ed.)
Erskine-Hill, H.
Fluchre, Henri
Forster, E.M.
Highet, Gilbert
Israel, Jonathan I.
Kelsall, M. M.
Levitchi, Leon
Macsiniuc, Cornelia
Munteanu, Romul
Munteanu, Romul
Nicolescu, A.
Olteanu, Tudor
Plumb, J. H.
Preda, Ioan A. (coord.)
Richetti, John
Sanders, Andrew
Sutherland, James
Tillotson, Geoffrey
Van Ghent, Dorothy
A Glossary of Literary Terms, Fort Worth, 1999.
Page
The History of the English Novel, vols. 3-6
Milton. Modern Essays in Criticism, New York, 1965
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th
Tom Jones. 20 Century Interpretations. A Collection of Critical Essays.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall, 1968.
The Rhetoric of Fiction, Chicago UP, 1983.
Omisiunea elocventa, Ed. Enciclopedica, Bucuresti, 1973.
Clasicismul European, Ed. Enciclopedica Romana, Bucuresti, 1971.
Restoration and Eighteenth Century Literature, University of Chicago Press,
1963. (available online at:
http://ia600502.us.archive.org/8/items/restorationandei007279mbp/restorationande
i007279mbp.pdf)
The Growth of the English Novel, Methuen, London, 1961. (available online at:
http://ia600204.us.archive.org/12/items/growthoftheengli002212mbp/growthofthe
engli002212mbp.pdf)
Alexander Pope, Twayne, New York, 1967.
Eighteenth-Century English Literature: Modern Essays in Criticism, Oxford UP,
1969
The Cambridge Companion to Milton, Cambridge, 1999.
John Dryden, Longmans Green& Co, London, 1966.
Twentieth Century Interpretations of Moll Flanders. Prentice Hall, New Jersey.
1970.
Twentieth Century Interpretations of Robinson Crusoe, Prentice Hall, New
Jersey, 1969.
Jonathan Swift. Gullivers Travels, Cambridge UP. 1993.
Laurence Sterne: From Tristram to Yorick. Oxford UP, Oxford, 1960.
Aspects of the Novel, Edward Arnold, London. 1937.
The Anatomy of Satire. Princeton, New Jersey. 1972 (1961)
Enlightenment Contested. Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of
Man 1670-1752. Oxford UP, 2006.
Congreve, the Way of the World. London: Edward Arnold. 1981.
Istoria literaturii engleze si americane, Cluj-Napoca, vols. 1, 2 (1984, 1995,
respectively)
The English Eighteenth Century. The Novel in Its Beginnings, Suceava, 2003
Literatura europeana in epoca luminilor, Ed. Enciclopedica Romana, Bucuresti,
1971
Clasicism si baroc in cultura europeana in secolul al XVII-lea, Ed. Univers,
Bucuresti, 1981.
Istoria civilizatiei britanice, Institutul European, Iasi, 2001, vol. 2
Morfologia romanului european in secolul al XVIII-lea, Ed. Univers, Bucuresti,
1974.
England in the Eighteenth Century. (The Pelican History of England). Penguin
Books, London, 1990 (1950).
English Life and Civilization. The Renaissance and the Restoration Period, Ed.
didactica si pedagogica, Bucuresti, 1983
The English Novel in History: 1700-1780, Routledge, New York, 1999.
The Short Oxford History of English Literature, Oxford UP, 1994
The Oxford History of English Literature. Restoration Literature. 1660-1700.
Dryden, Bunyan, and Pepys. Oxford UP, 1990 (1969).
On the Poetry of Pope, Oxford UP, 1967.
The English Novel, Form and Function, New York, 1961.
Varey, Simon Space and the Eighteenth Century English Novel, Cambridge UP, 1990.
Ward, W. & Wallery, R. (eds.) The Cambridge History of English Literature, Cambridge, 1964, vols. 7,8,9.
Watt, Jan The Rise of the Novel (Studies on Defoe, Richardson and Fielding), University
of California Press, 1963.
Weinbrot, H.D. Britannias Issue. The Rise of British Literature from Dryden to Ossian,
Cambridge, 1993.
Zamfirescu, I. Istoria universala a teatrului, Bucuresti, 1968.
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Interesting websites:
http://www.luminarium.org/ useful information on the authors, their work and some critical essays written by
specialist or students
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/
http://www.paradiselost.org/ (New Arts Library web page) the full poem (annotated) and additional information
on Milton, the sources for his poem and various illustrations

Interesting documentaries:
Monarchy. Oliver Cromwell, the King Killer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAtsyMGeRS4 )
Monarchy. The Return of the King (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGF_63w9hh8 )
Monarchy. The Glorious Revolution (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m0VG01w6lU)
Kings and Queens of England series episode 5: The Georgians
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2mDgYQS7ZA )
Music of the English Restoration (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dtsDPaG3GQ)