ENGLT 319

Introduction to English Epic Poetry

This course involves a study of English Epic poetry, literature too long and too complex to be covered in traditional English literature survey courses. This course reviews the conventions of epic poetry (with a focus on the works by Homer and Virgil), explains the typical structure, devices, and concerns of the epic, and studies the particular development of the English epic with analysis of epic poetry by Spenser, Milton, and Wordsworth (or any other English work of literature that could be considered an epic like Beowulf or Tennyson's Idylls of the King). Additionally, this course involves a cursory study of the lives of the poets and of their times to understand themes in their respective works, ultimately to put their poems in an historical context and to recognize their influences on literature and on the world as a whole and to appreciate these poems individually as works of art.

Units: 3.0

Hours: 54 hours LEC