106-015 Backgrounds to English Literature

Usually 25 points of first year English, see Prerequisites.

This subject examines a range of Classical and Christian works to establish how and why they have been influential in Western literature and thought. Students who complete this subject successfully will have read a representative range of Classical literature (representing epic, mythology, elegy, pastoral, satire, theology, literary theory); will have studied several books of the Bible and been introduced to various schools of interpretation (from Patristic to modern times); and will have investigated the many ways in which Classical and biblical writings have influenced western thought and literature over the past two millennia.

Class participation, and written work totalling 4000 words.

• Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Confessions. Penguin.
• The Bible. (with Apocrypha) OUP/CUP.
• Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy. Bobbs-Merrill or Penguin.
• Horace and Persius, Satires. Penguin.
• Ovid, Metamorphoses. Penguin.
• Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus. Norton.
• Virgil, Eclogues and Georgics. Oxford.
• Virgil, Aeneid. Oxford.
• Aristotle, Horace. Longinus.
• Classical Literary Criticism. Penguin.
• Myths from Mesopatamia. Oxford World's Classics.