Eng.(M.A.), Semester - I (Syllabus)

Eng. (M.A.), Semester - I (Syllabus)

Paper 101 & 102: Medieval and Renaissance English Literature (Excluding Shakespeare) These courses propose to study Medieval, Renaissance and Reformation English literature in the context of social, political and religious events that contributed to the formation of early modern culture in England.

Paper 101: Medieval and Renaissance English Literature (Excluding Shakespeare) I

Unit I (Any two)

Geoffrey Chaucer: Prologue to the Canterbury Tales/ The Nun’S Priest’s Tale,

Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Queene BK I, Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, Pearl, Everyman

Unit II (Milton and any two poets)

John Donne: ‘The Flea’, ‘A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’;

Andrew Marvell: ‘The Garden’,

‘An Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland’;

Herbert: ‘The Collar’, ‘The Pearl’;

Mary Wroth: ‘Bee you all pleas'd, your pleasures grieve not me’, ‘No time, no roome, no thought, or writing can give rest’;

Chapman: ‘Bridal Song’, ‘The Shadow of Night’;

Henry Vaughan: ‘The Retreat’ , ‘The Storm’;

John Milton: Paradise Lost BK IV

Paper 102: Medieval and Renaissance English Literature (Excluding Shakespeare) II

Unit I (Any three)

Thomas Kyd: The Spanish Tragedy,

Christopher Marlowe: Doctor Faustus /Tamburlaine,

John Webster: The Duchess of Malfi/The White Devil,

Ben Jonson: Volpone/The Alchemist

Unit II (Any two)

Selections from Pico dellaMirandola’sOration on the Dignity of Man,

John Lyly’s Eupheus,

Philip Sidney’s Arcadia,

Machiavelli’s The Prince,

John Hobbes’s The Leviathan

Paper 103: William Shakespeare I (Plays & Poems)

This paper proposes a study of select tragedies, comedies and sonnets of William Shakespeare with the express intent of making students aware of the enduring importance of Shakespeare in his times and ours.

Unit I (Any three)

King Lear, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra, Richard III

Unit II (Any two plays)

Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, Measure for Measure

Ten sonnets: Sonnet No. 1, 19, 29, 32, 46, 55, 65, 71, 116, 147

Paper 104: William Shakespeare II (Background, Reception & Translation)

This paper will expose the students to Shakespeare’s time and stage and give them an overview of different critical approaches to Shakespeare. It will also map the reception of Shakespeare through translations and adaptations with a particular focus on the Indian context.

Unit I

Shakespeare: Critical Approaches

Neo-classical: Dryden, Dr Johnson, Maurice Morgan

Romantic: Coleridge, Lamb, Thomas De Quincey

Victorian: Carlyle, A.C. Bradley

Modern: Wilson Knight, L.C. Knights, Caroline Spurgeon, E.M.W. Tillyard, S.C. Sengupta Recent Trends: Gender-informed Approach, New Historicist Approach, Cultural Materialist Approach, Postmodernist Approach

Unit II

Shakespeare’s Time and Stage

Shakespeare’s Reception in India (1850-till date): A Brief History

Shakespeare in Films: Romeo and Juliet (Dir. Franco Zeffirelli), Hamlet (Dir. Kenneth Branagh),

Maqbool,Omkara(any one)

Shakespeare in Translations and Adaptations: HurroChunderGhose: BhanumatiChittobilas, GirishGhosh: Macbeth, UtpalDutt: Chaitali Rater Swapno (any one)

Paper 105: Classical Literature and Criticism (European and Indian)

The classical European literature and critical thought course reminds students of the ideological and aesthetic assumptions of British literature and situates such writing within and between European linguistic/cultural traditions.

The course also exposes students to Indic aesthetic traditions, and enables them to appreciate cross-cultural aesthetics. The inclusion of Indic aesthetic texts takes into account the culturally hybrid space within which English operates in India.

Unit I (Any three European and any one Indian text)

Plato: The Republic (Books III & X),

Aristotle: The Poetics,

Horace: Ars Poetica,

Longinus: On the Sublime,

Rasa-Siddhanta with special reference to Bharatmuni’s “On Natya and Rasa:Aesthetic of Dramatic Experience”,

Dhavni-siddhanta with special reference to Anandavardhana’s , “Dhavni: Structure and Meaning”

Vakrokti-Siddhanta with special reference to Kunatak’s “Language of Poetry and Metaphor”

Unit II (Any three)

Homer: The Iliad (Selections),

Virgil: The Aenied (Selections),

Aeschylus: Agamemnon,