| Introduction to Literature | First Year | This course introduces students to the three main genres of literature: verse (poetry), prose (fiction), and drama (plays). The course will offer examples of short poems, stories, and plays. Students will be prepared to distinguish between these genres. The course introduces concepts such as metaphor and irony, concepts which will ultimately help students in their understanding of different literary texts. The course’s discussions will focus on the close reading and analysis of short verse and prose texts. |
| History of English Literature | Second Year | This course traces the history of English literature starting from the Anglo-Saxon’ time up until the modern era. It examines how the writing of poetry, drama and prose fiction evolved and how the different literary movements as well as the associated English cultural, historical, political, and geographical contexts influence the nature and purpose of literature in England. The course covers the history of verse, drama, and prose in the era of Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Ann Radcliffe, Jane Austen, and Virginia Woolf, to name a few. Students are expected to differentiate between the features of each age and the characteristics of its literature. |
| Short Story | Second Year | This course introduces students to the basic characteristics of short story that make it different from other prose forms (parable, novel, and novella). Students will read eight short stories written during different periods of time by writers from different nations. These stories present different issues from various perspectives. The course will discuss these stories by relating them to their historical contexts. Students will be prepared to distinguish between the modes of representations and characteristics of the stories. They will ultimately understand the technical and thematic development of the form. |
| Listening and Speaking | First Year | This course aims to help students augment and reinforce their listening and conversational skills. This is achieved through providing the students with audio examples of daily conversations (listening training and speaking activities). The course pays attention to idioms, pronunciation, stress, rhythm, conversational syntax, speech activities and puzzles. The students will use standard English grammar and they will learn how to effectively communicate in English. Students will recognise the influence of practice on the development of listening and conversation. |
| Poetry I | Third Year | This course introduces students to poems from different periods (the classical, the romantic, the modern, and the postmodern). Students will learn to interpret the poems based on their kinds (narrative, dramatic, or lyric), forms (rime, and meter), and contexts. Students will be also trained to differentiate between the stanzas' kinds so they understand poems other than the ones examined in class. Through the close reading but also the integration of structural and cultural contexts students should demonstrate their critical understanding of the chosen texts in both oral discussions and written examinations. |
| Drama I | Third Year | This course investigates a classical play (Antigone) and a modern one (Death of a Salesman). Students are introduced to concepts such as ‘tragic hero’, ‘hamartia’, ‘chorus’, the definition and the elements of tragedy (by considering Aristotle’s Poetics). Students are expected to analyze the plays based on their textual elements as well as cultural contexts. The course addresses the difference between the classical, the Shakespearean, and the modern drama. Students are expected to differentiate between the features of these kinds of plays, and to develop a view on how to read plays from different periods. |
| Drama II | Fourth Year | This course investigates modern plays from America and Britain of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Students are expected to analyse different plays (such as The Scottsboro, Limited; Waiting for Godot; The Glass Menagerie) based on their textual elements as well as cultural contexts. The course addresses contexts such as WWII and the ‘theatre of the absurd’, and the students are encouraged to examine the plays through these angles and other ones. <br> |
| Novel I | Second Year | This course introduces students to novels from the nineteenth century. Students will learn to identify key elements (such as theme, plot, characterisation, and the points of view) in each each chosen novel. Students will be also trained to contextualise the chosen novels within their years of publication, aiming to widen their understanding the chosen texts. Through the close reading but also the integration of historical and cultural contexts students should demonstrate their critical understanding of the chosen novels in both oral discussions and written examinations. |
| World Literature | Fourth Year | The course examines significant and representative works of world literature from the classical and the modern time. Students will gain understanding of the concept/genre ‘World Literature’. Students will comprehend the relations between ‘world literature’, ‘comparative’ and ‘national’ literature. Students are expected to analyze the selected literary ‘masterpieces’ by the close reading but also the integration of historical and cultural contexts. <br> |
| Comparative Literature | Fourth Year | This course introduces students to the French and the American schools of comparative literature. The course will offer two novels from different cultures (one is American and one is French), and the students will be prepared to compare these texts, their contexts, philosophies, styles, and contents. The course will ultimately help students understand how literary texts could parallel, influence, or respond to similar works composed in the same period yet in a different language. The course’s discussions will focus on the close reading and analysis of the selected novels based on the landmarks of the key schools of comparative literature. <br> |