Provides a basic skills course designed to equip students to handle the English major. Emphasizes critical writing and the acquisition of basic techniques and vocabulary of literary criticism through ...

Of the character sketches that the English satirist Samuel Butler wrote in the mid-seventeenth century—among them “A Degenerate Noble,” “A Huffing Courtier,” “A Small Poet,” and “A Romance Writer”—the ...

J onathan Kramnick’s book Criticism and Truth is more modest than its title suggests. Essentially an apologia for the nuts-and-bolts work of literary studies, it is best described not as “ambitious” — ...

I WANT to talk about the historical interpretation of literature — that is, about the interpretation of literature in its social, economic, and political aspects. To begin with, it will be worth while ...

This class will consider more than a dozen answers to this age-old question, what’s literature and what’s it good for? We will begin by asking why Plato banished poets from his ideal republic, why ...

After the so-called “end of the great narratives” – according to someone synonymous with the sunset of modernity – the theoretical frameworks founded on the concept of totality have given way to a ...

I studied literature in college before pursing a graduate career in comparative literature. We learned to adopt formalist theory while evaluating various texts: poetry, novels, and short stories. It ...

The Department of English Language and Literature aims to teach all students to write and speak well and to read skillfully, thoughtfully and with pleasure. We offer many courses that stress literary ...

We are accepting Fall 2026 applications for our Ph.D. programs. We plan to resume M.A. and MFA admissions in Fall 2027 The BA-MA, MA, and PhD degree programs in English and American Literature enable ...