English Courses

HE111 & 112 Rhetoric and Introduction to Literature I & II (3-0-3 & 3-0-3). Stresses the writing of rhetorically effective and grammatically correct expository prose. During the first semester students read essays, short stories and plays, and they write brief essays. During the second semester students read novels and poetry and write longer essays. HE111 Prereq: None & HE112 Prereq: HE111. [fall, spring]

200-Level Courses: General Description

The literary content of courses on this level is eclectic. These courses offer wide surveys of materials from different cultures, historical periods, literary types and issues. In each course substantial practice in writing is to be expected. If a term paper is required, prior to the submission of such a paper there will also be several essays or written exercises to test and evaluate the student's writing competence. There are no prerequisites for any course in the 200 group. They may be taken at any class level, including the fourth-class year.

HE217 Western Literature I (3-0-3). A balanced survey of the Western literary tradition and its backgrounds, from the ancient Greeks through the Renaissance. Readings will include classical Greek and Roman epic, drama and philosophy (typically Plato and Aristotle); selections from the Old and New Testaments; medieval poetry, drama and philosophy (especially Dante and/or Chaucer); and Renaissance poetry, non-Shakespearean drama and prose. [fall, spring]

HE218 Western Literature II (3-0-3). A balanced survey of the Western literary tradition and its backgrounds, from the Enlightenment through Romanticism to the various reactions to Romanticism beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, most notably realism, naturalism and modernism and its aftermath. [fall, spring]

HE222 The Bible and Literature (3-0-3). The Bible and its influence on European and American literature. Emphasis will be placed on modern biblical literary-critical methodology and on the symbolic richness of derivative literature from Dante to Nikos Kazantzakis. [spring]

HE224 Literature and Science (3-0-3). The interrelationships among science, technology and literature since the Renaissance. The impact of science on literature and the implications of science as reflected in literary responses. [fall]

HE240 American Black Literature (3-0-3). Provides a survey of representative American black literature. Major figures including Toomer, Hughes, Wright, Ellison, Baldwin, Baraka, Brooks, Hayden and Morrison are stressed. The genres of short fiction, poetry, drama and the novel are covered. [spring]

HE250 Literature of the Sea (3-0-3). Study of the principal genres of the literature of the sea (epic, novel, short fiction and poetry). Emphasis on literary qualities, human relationships with the sea and problems of command. [spring, summer]

HE260 Literature of War (3-0-3). A multi-genre survey of war and its consequences as represented in classic and contemporary literature with an emphasis on such issues as individual responsibility, societal values, military culture, and the ways in which literary expression voices and shapes the collective memory of experience and history. [fall, summer]

300-Level Courses: General Description

These courses build on the foundations of literary analysis, comprehension and writing acquired in HE111-112. The HE301-306 series goes more deeply into each of the basic literary types; the HE313-333 series approaches literature in its historical and cultural dimensions while focusing on a limited historical period; the HE343-344 series offers extensive practice in a variety of writing forms. All courses have a writing requirement intended to further the student's opportunity to improve skills. Prerequisites for all 300-level courses are HE111-112.

HE301 Patterns in Drama (3-0-3). Reading, viewing and analysis of a variety of dramatic experiences for the purpose of exploring the relationships among language, action and form. [fall, spring]

HE302 Forms of Poetry (3-0-3). An examination of the variety of techniques by which language is shaped into poetry. The focus is on analytic methods for understanding poetry. [fall, spring, summer]

HE306 Types of Fiction (3-0-3). Ideas and issues of fiction, with particular emphasis on the conventions, techniques, forms and innovations of the novel and short story. [fall, spring]

HE307 Topics in Film and Literature (3-0-3). A study of American, European and world films in conjunction with literary products related to them. [fall, spring, summer]

HE313 Chaucer and His Age (3-0-3). The literary and philosophical traditions within which Chaucer and his contemporaries worked. Readings in Chaucer's works, the Gawain poet and others, including early and late medieval writers from England and the continent. [fall]

HE314 The Renaissance Mind (3-0-3). Literature and thought of the period bracketed by the two great English epics, Spenser's Faerie Queene and Milton's Paradise Lost. The course includes a continental perspective, with readings from such authors as Machiavelli, Rabelais, Cervantes, Montaigne and Castiglione. [spring]

HE315 Satire and Sensibility in the Age of Reason (3-0-3). The literature of the Enlightenment (1660-1780). Readings from the prose and poetry of Dryden, Swift, Pope, Addison and Steele, Johnson and Boswell as well as selected novels and such continental writers as Voltaire. [fall]

HE317 The Romantic Vision (3-0-3). Concentrates on how writers from 1798 to 1837 responded to the growth of industrialism, religious skepticism, nationalism and a host of other problems associated with modern life. Readings in representative works of the Romantic period. Readings from such continental writers as Goethe and Novalis may be included. [spring]

HE318 Modern British Literature (3-0-3). The literature of Great Britain and Ireland of the past hundred years. The novels of Hardy, Conrad, Joyce, Lawrence, Golding and Lessing; the plays of Shaw, Synge, O'Casey and Pinter; the poetry of Yeats, Eliot, Auden and Dylan Thomas. [spring]

HE319 The Victorian Frame of Mind (3-0-3). A study of the literature of England written during the last seven decades of the 19th century. Emphasis on writings that deal with the growth of religious skepticism, the rise of the middle class, general education and the increasing dehumanization of the individual in a society caught up in a new wave of scientific discovery and technological progress. Readings from representative figures such as Dickens, George Eliot, Hardy, Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Ruskin, Carlyle and Darwin. [fall]

HE326 Literature of the American Dream, 1620-1860 (3-0-3). A survey of American literature from the time of the Pilgrims to the outbreak of the Civil War. Emphasis is on the relationship between the emerging culture and literature. [fall]

HE328 America's Literary Coming of Age (1860-1920) (3-0-3). A study of American literature from the Civil War to the development of the United States as a major industrial and military political power after World War I. Focus is on the American writer's response to his or her own culture and to that of the broadening world. [spring]

HE329 Modern American Literature: The 20th-Century Challenge (3-0-3). A study of American literature from 1910 to 1945 with emphasis on the writer's interpretation of the complexities of 20th-century life. [fall]

HE330 Contemporary American Literature: World War II to the Present (3-0-3). Concentrates on responses of contemporary writers to the idiosyncratic problems and themes of the post-World War II era such as the nuclear age, computer technology, television, the Vietnam experience, racial questions, the debasement of the language and environmental issues. [spring]

HE333 Shakespeare and His Contemporaries (3-0-3). A study of Elizabethan and Jacobean ideas and attitudes through the investigation of a representative sample of Shakespeare's tragedies, histories and comedies as well as a few plays by contemporaries of Shakespeare. [fall, spring]

HE343 Creative Writing (3-0-3). After completing initial problem-solving exercises in prose, poetry and drama, students embark upon an approved project of their own design. Criticism of students' work is accomplished through classroom workshops and individual conferences with the instructor. [fall, spring]

HE344 Professional Writing (3-0-3). Designed for students interested in advanced methods of preparing writing and presenting articles and reports. After initial study and analysis of the form and style in a wide variety of prose writing and practice in various prose forms, students will design and present independent projects. [fall, spring]

HE360 Special Topics in Literature (3-0-3). An open-topics literature course. Topics vary from semester to semester and include such offerings as myth and fantasy, literature of American minorities, science fiction and images of women in literature. [fall, spring]

400-Level Courses: General Description

The HE400 series allows students and English department faculty members with special expertise to pursue together an intensive study of a restricted literary subject. Emphasis in each course will be upon extensive and intensive reading in a limited body of material, techniques of research and the development of independent critical judgment. Prerequisites for these courses are at least one 300-level English course and permission of the chair.

HE442 Introduction to Literary Criticism (3-0-3). The theory and practice of literary criticism. Concentrates on what critical approaches can yield to the reader in the way of deeper understanding and satisfaction from the work of art. Required of all honors English majors. [fall]

HE461 Studies in a Literary Period (3-0-3). In-depth study of a limited period in literary history. For example: Pope and his literary contemporaries, the beginnings of Romanticism, the American Renaissance (1830-1860) and the 1920s in American literature. [fall, spring]

HE462 Studies in a Literary Problem (3-0-3). Cutting across traditional divisions of nationality, historical period or genre, the materials of this course will be selected to focus on some timeless problem of literature and the human existence it reflects. For example, myth and symbol in literature, literature and science, the concept of the hero. [fall, spring]

HE463 Studies in Literary Figures (3-0-3). Extensive reading in the works, biography and criticism of major figures in world literature. Among those studied are Milton, Wordsworth, Dickens, Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Melville, Twain, Faulkner, Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann. No more than three such writers will be considered in any one semester. [fall]

HE467 Studies in a Literary Genre (3-0-3). Study in a special genre. For example, the epic, the autobiographical novel, science fiction, imagist poetry. [spring]

HE506 Seminar in Arts and Literature (3-2-4). This interdisciplinary course introduces students to Western art and music, showing how the arts in any age reflect the corresponding philosophical and scientific theories and mirror the ideals and realities of their representative cultures. [fall]

HE507 Advanced Topics (3-2-4). This course for English honors students offers concentrated exploration of individual literary masterpieces or issues. [spring]

Office of the Academic Dean & Provost Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Frederic I. Davis Comments to: fid@nadn.navy.mil

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