This course introduces English majors and others to the history and current practices of literary criticism. The course uses a variety of literary texts for testing out and exploring each method. Its positioning as a first-year course and prerequisite for certain upper-level, non-general education English courses allows the latter to build on a body of assumed critical knowledge.

Formal Criticism of Aphra Behn’s The Rover
Formal Criticism of Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Psychological Criticism of Thomas Gray’s “Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat"
Role Reversal in Thomas Hardy’s “The Distracted Preacher"

Behn, Aphra. Oroonoko, The Rover and Other Works.
Bishop, Elizabeth. Selected letters, poems.
Gray, Thomas. Selected Poems.
Guerin, William et. al. The Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature.
Hardy, Thomas. "The Fiddler of the Reels” and Other Stories.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown” and Other Short Stories.
Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior.
London, Jack. “To Build a Fire” (1902), “To Build a Fire” (1908)
Moore, Marianne. Selected letters, poems.
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye.
Oates, Joyce Carol. “Whare Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”
Shakespeare, William. Comedy of Errors.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula.
World War One British Poets: Brooke, Owen, Sassoon, Rosenberg and Others.

"Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat" (online text)
"The Distracted Preacher" (online text)