English literature preparation
Welcome to English Literature and English Literature and Creative Writing!
Semester overview
The academic year at Surrey is divided into two semesters. In each semester of eleven weeks (the first runs from the end of September to December) you’ll be taking four modules.
As an English Literature student in your first semester you’ll be taking:
- Literary Histories I
- Thinking like a Critic I
- Understanding the Novel
- Understanding Stage and Screen.
As an English Literature and Creative Writing student in your first semester you’ll be taking:
- Literary Histories I
- Introduction to Creative Writing
- Thinking like a Critic I
- And either ‘Understanding the Novel’ or 'Understanding Stage and Screen.’
Reading lists by module
Below are the reading lists, but we should emphasize that there is no pressure or necessity to read all (or indeed any) of the texts before you arrive. Once you are here, of course, you’ll also have access to texts via the Library and online library resources. What might be a place to start with is reading some of the longer texts i.e. novels, if you want to get ahead: Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko, for instance, or some of the novels from the novel module if you intend on taking it.
We hope this is helpful – and there are some books and pieces of writing which look exciting here! Do feel free to contact Dr Gabriele Lazzari if you have any questions about English Literature, and Dr Liz Bahs for enquiries about the English Literature with Creative Writing programme – and we look forward to welcoming you here at Surrey in person soon!
Literary Histories I
These texts can be found in the Norton Anthology of English Literature, but we would stress that most of the texts can be found for free online and there is absolutely no need for you to read them in advance of the semester.
Medieval texts
- Marie de France, Milun; Lanval; Chevrefoil
- Sir Orfeo
- Geoffrey Chaucer, The Miller’s Tale.
Early modern texts
- Walter Raleigh: ‘The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd’; ‘What is our life?’; ‘[Sir Walter Raleigh to His Son]’; ‘The Lie’; ‘Farewell, false love’; ‘Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay’; ‘Nature, that washed her hands in milk’; ‘[The Author’s Epitaph, Made by Himself]’
- Mary Wroth: The Countess of Mongomery’s Urania’, From ‘The First Book’; Song (‘Love what art thou? A vain though’); ‘Pamphilia to Amphilanthus’; 1; 16; 25; 28; 39; 40; 64; 68; 74; From ‘A Crown of Sonnets Dedicated to Love’; 77; 103
- William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale.
Restoration and the eighteenth century texts
- Aphra Behn, Oronooko
- Alexander Pope: The Rape of the Lock; Jonathan Swift, The Lady’s Dressing Room; Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 'The Reasons That Induced Dr. Swift to Write a Poem Called the Lady's Dressing Room'
- Samuel Richardson, Pamela (selected letters will be identified in advance of the seminar).
Introduction to creative writing
Understanding creativity
Natalie Goldberg (2010): Writing Down the Bones: Chapters titled 'Man Eats Car'; 'Writing is Not a McDonald's Hamburger'' and 'Baking a Cake.'
Language, meaning, and clarity
Peter Elbow (1998): Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process. Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 2 'Freewriting' (13-19) and Chapters at the start of Section 6 including 'Power in Writing (Intro)', 'Writing and Voice' (279-313).
Poetics
Strand, M. and Eavan Boland (2000). The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. New York/London: Norton. Chapter: “The Stanza” (136-155).
Ted Hughes (2008). Poetry in the Making: A Handbook for Writing and Teaching. London: Faber & Faber. Chapters: “Capturing Animals”; “Writing About People”; “Learning to Think.”
Introducing poetic forms: the sonnet
Furniss, T. and Michael Bath (1996). Reading Poetry: An Introduction. Harlow: Pearson. Chapter: “The Sonnet” (355-384) from Don Patterson, 101 Sonnets from Shakespeare to Heaney (2002). (pdf of this will be on SurreyLearn).
Narrative elements
David Lodge (1992) The Art of Fiction: illustrated from classic and modern texts. London: Penguin. Chapters: “Beginning” (3-8); “Point of View” (25-29); “Defamiliarization” (52-55); “The Sense of Place” (56-60); “Introducing a Character” (66-69); “Showing and Telling” (121-124); “Telling in Different Voices” (125-129), “Narrative Structure” (215-218).
Introducing prose forms: the short story
Alison Bell (2001): The Creative Writing Coursebook, Chapter 3 ‘Abstracts’ (44-49) + 1-2 contemporary short stories [tbc] from Jacob Ross (2015) Closure: Contemporary Black British Short Stories. Peepal Tree.
Alice Munro (2014), ‘How I Met My Husband’ in Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You.
Optional further reading
Poetry
Many handouts will be provided in class! If you are hoping to become a deep reader and writer of poetry, we strongly suggest you pick up a copy of either or both of these: The Norton Anthology of Poetry (any edition will do); 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem (edited by Ruth Padel, any edition).
For those hoping to explore the minds of poets and what makes them tick, a fantastic book is the text of manifestos and essays: W.N. Herbert and M. Hollis (2000), Strong Words: modern poets on modern poetry. Bloodaxe Books.
Short stories
We recommend three collections of short stories in particular: Art of the Short Story (2005), an enormous tome filled with interesting and engaging stories and author interviews. Used copies can be found online. For some engaging contemporary stories: Closure: Contemporary Black British Short Stories (2015), and Penguin Book of the Contemporary British Short Story (2019).
Thinking like a Critic I
The critical and theoretical approaches we will explore on this module include formalism, structuralism, psychoanalytic literary theory, Marxist literary theory, and the critical writings produced by figures associated with the Harlem Renaissance. The set text for the module will be Literary Theory: An Anthology, 3rd edition, edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan (Blackwell, 2017). If you would like to get ahead with some reading, useful places to start are:
- Toni Morrison, ‘Playing in the Dark’, in Rivkin and Ryan, pp. 1163–1173
- Viktor Shklovsky, ‘Art as Technique’, in Rivkin and Ryan, pp. 8-14
- Roland Barthes, ‘Mythologies’, in Rivkin and Ryan, pp. 196–204
- Sigmund Freud, ‘Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego’, in Rivkin and Ryan, pp. 615–617
- Karl Marx, ‘The German Ideology’, in Rivkin and Ryan, pp. 730–736.
Theories of reading
Toni Morrison, ‘Playing in the Dark’, in Rivkin and Ryan, pp. 1163–1173.
Structuralism
Ferdinand de Saussure, ‘Course in General Linguistics’, in Rivkin and Ryan, pp. 137–177.
Roland Barthes, ‘Mythologies’, in Rivkin and Ryan, pp. 196–204.
The Harlem Renaissance
Richard Wright (1994 [1937]), ‘Blueprint for Negro Writing’, Within the Circle: An anthology of African American literary criticism from the Harlem Renaissance to the present, pp. 97–106. [PDF provided on SurreyLearn].
Psychoanalytic theory
Sigmund Freud, ‘Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego’, in Rivkin and Ryan, pp. 615–617.
Lisa Hinrichsen, ‘Trauma Studies and the Literature of the US South’, in Rivkin and Ryan, pp. 636–649.
Psychoanalytic theory in context
Viewing: Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Masks (Isaac Julien, 1997; 71 minutes).
Marxism
Karl Marx, ‘The German Ideology’, in Rivkin and Ryan, pp. 730–736.
Walter Benjamin, ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’, in Rivkin and Ryan, pp. 736–744.
Reading power
Louis Althusser, Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatuses, in Rivkin and Ryan, pp. 768–777.
Biopower
Michel Foucault, Right of Death and Power Over Life, in Rivkin and Ryan, pp. 778–791.
Disability as narrative form
David T Mitchell & Sharon L Snyder, Chapter 2: ‘Narrative Prosthesis and the Materiality of Metaphor’, Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press), pp. 47–64.
Understanding stage and screen
On this module we will be reading the playtexts and watching film adaptations of:
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
- Shelagh Delaney, A Taste of Honey
- Bola Agbaje, Gone Too Far!
Understanding the novel
The primary texts on this module are:
- Eliza Haywood, Fantomina
- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
- Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
- Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway
- Muriel Spark, The Drivers Seat
- Kazuo Ishiguro, the Remains of the Day.