Reading Lists for M

Reading Lists for M.A. Exam, Plan I

The reading lists for Plan I are designed to develop students' general knowledge of the history and diversity of literatures in English, encouraging a broad, structured understanding of the discipline while allowing candidates the opportunity for considerable choice to accommodate their individual interests. While acknowledging literary-historical traditions as an important ground of knowledge, Plan I attends to the variety of individual preferences, the increasing diversity of canonical texts, and the changing nature of literary canonicity. This plan should benefit both students pursuing a terminal M.A. degree and those going on for the Ph.D.

Procedure

From the 186 selections on the list, you should choose 62 as the basis for the Plan I M.A. Exam, including the required number of selections from each area on the list. For the number of selections required in each area, see the table below and the instructions included with the lists. In the process of developing a final individualized list you should consult closely with your advisors and committee.

MA Reading List, Plan I

Field / Total number of selections / Required number of selections to be chosen by student
Medieval / 8 / 5
Renaissance/Early Modern / 15 / 9
Early American / 23 / 3-6*
The Long 18th Century / 14 / 6
19th Century American / 23 / 5-10**
19th Century British / 23 / 5-10**
20th Century American / 40 / 10-15***
20th Century British / 21 / 5-10***
World Literature / 19 / 4
Totals / 186 / 62-65*

*Students may choose up to 6 Early American selections, but must choose a minimum of 3. The total number of selections will vary accordingly.

**In the case of 19th-Century American and British lists, a total of 15 selections are required, including a minimum of 5 from each category. Thus, for example, students could choose 5 British and 10 American, 10 British and 5 American, 7 British and 8 American, and so on.

***In the case of 20th-Century American and British lists, a total of 20 texts are required, including at least 5 British selections and at least 10 American ones. Thus, for example, students could choose 10 American and 10 British, 15 American and 5 British, or 12 American and 8 British, and so on.

Medieval Literature

Choose four of the following eight selections.

An asterisk (*) indicates required reading

1. * Old English Narrative and Lyric Poetry

Beowulf (translations acceptable)

“The Wanderer,” “The Seafarer,” “The Dream of the Rood,” “The Wife’s Lament “The Battle of Maldon” (translations acceptable)

2. * Chaucer, Geoffrey (1340?-1400).The Canterbury Tales (Larry D. Benson, ed. The Riverside Chaucer [Boston, 1987])

General Prologue, Knight’s Tale, Miller’s Tale, Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, Clerk’s Tale, Merchant’s Tale, Franklin’s Tale, Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale, Prioress’s Tale, Nun’s Priest’s Tale

3. Chaucer, Geoffrey.Troilus and Criseyde (Larry D. Benson, ed. The Riverside Chaucer [Boston, 1987])

4. Verse Romance

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1375-1400) (R. A. Waldron and Malcolm Andrew, eds., The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript, York Medieval Texts [Berkeley, Calif., 1979]; Marie Borroff, trans. [New York, 1967])

5. Allegory and Mysticism

Pearl (R. A. Waldron and Malcolm Andrew, eds., The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript, York Medieval Texts [Berkeley, Calif., 1979]; Marie Borroff, trans. [New York, 1977])

Piers Plowman (“B” or “C” Text): Prologue and Passus 1-7 (E. Talbot Donaldson, trans., Piers Plowman, An Alliterative Verse Translation [New York, 1990] is a satisfactory translation of the “B” Text.)

Julian of Norwich, A Revelation of Love (Marion Glasscoe, ed., rev. ed. [Exeter, 1993])

6. Lyrics (esp. in R. L. Stevick, ed., One Hundred Middle English Lyrics, rev. ed. [Urbana, Ill., 1994], and Maxwell S. Luria and Richard L. Hoffman, eds., Middle EnglishLyrics, Norton Critical Edition [New York, 1974])

“Myrie songen the monkes binne Ely”

“Myrie it is while sumer ilast,”

“Foweles in the frith,”

“Sumer is icumen in,”

“Lenten is comen with love to toun,”

“I sing of a maiden,”

“Now goth sonne under wod,”

“As I me rod this ender day/by grene wod,”

“As I me rod this ender day/on my pleyinge,” and others from a standard collection.

7. Middle English Drama: Morality and Mystery (Cycle) Plays (Except as noted below, they appear in David Bevington, ed., Medieval Drama [Boston, 1975])

Everyman

Second Shepherd’s Play (Wakefield), and TWO of the following:

Abraham and Isaac (Brome, possibly from a cycle; in A. C. Cawley, ed., Everyman andMedieval Miracle Plays, [New York, 1959]; also in Norman Davis, ed., Non-Cycle Playsand Fragments, Early English Text Society, Supplementary Series 1, 1970)

Noah (Wakefield)

The Shepherds (York Chandlers)

The Crucifixion (York Pinners and Painters)

8. Sir Thomas Malory (d. 1471), selections from Le Morte d’Arthur (Preferred edition: E. Vinaver, ed., The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, 3rd ed., rev. P. J. C. Field, 3 vols. [Oxford, 1990]; Library call number PR2041 .V5 1990. The Vinaver/Field text is from London, British Library, MS Add. 59678, usually known as the “Winchester Manuscript”; Caxton’s widely available text is also acceptable.)

“Merlin” Section I (= Caxton, Book I)

“The Book of Sir Tristram de Lyones” Section XIV: Launcelot and Elaine (= Caxton, Bk XI, XII, Chaps. 1-10)

“The Tale of the Sankgreal” (= Caxton, Bks XIII-XVII)

“The Book of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere” (= Caxton, Bks XVIII-XIX

“The Most Piteous Tale of the Morte Arthur Saunz Guerdon” (=Caxton, Bks XX-XXI)

Renaissance/Early Modern British Literature

Choose 9 of the following 15 selections.

Shakespeare’s plays and Milton’s Paradise Lost are required. For selections from clusters, please confer with Renaissance/Early Modern faculty and your committee.

An asterisk (*) indicates required reading

1. Edmund Spenser (c.1552-1599): Books I and III of The Faerie Queen (1590); and Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), selected speeches.

2. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586): The Defence of Poesie (1595)

3. Christopher Marlowe (1564-93), Edward II ; Dr. Faustus

4. * Shakespeare (1564-1616): 6 plays ( include at least one play from each of the following genres: comedy, tragedy, history, romance)

5. Ben Jonson (1572-1637), Volpone (1607)

6. Amelia Lanyer (1569-1645) Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611)

7. Elizabeth Cary (1585-1618), The Tragedy of Mariam (1613)

8. John Webster (1578-1630s?): The Duchess of Malfi (1623)

9. Sonnet cluster: selected sonnets from Mary Wroth (1586-1640), Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86), and Shakespeare (1564-1616)

10. Lyric Cluster: selected poems by John Donne (1572-1631), Gertrude More (1604-1633), George Herbert (1593-1633), and Richard Crashaw (c.1613-1649)

11. “Querelle des Femmes” Cluster: Joseph Swetnam (fl. 1615-119), Jane Anger (fl. 1588), Rachel Speght (fl. 1597-after 1621)

12. Transvestism Cluster: Middleton and Dekker, The Roaring Girl (1611); Hic Mulier/Haec Vir (1620)

13. Colonial Cluster: selections from Sir Walter Raleigh (c.1554-1618), The Discoveryof Guiana (1596); Edmund Spenser (1552-99) View of the State of Ireland (1633); Aphra Behn (1640-89), Oroonoko (1688)

14. “Tolerance” Cluster: Milton, Areopagitica (1644); Anne Askew (1521-46), Examinations (1546-47); and selections from Gerrard Winstanley (1609-52)

15. *John Milton (1608-74), Paradise Lost (1674)

The Long 18th Century (British)

Choose 6 of the following 14 selections. For selections from clusters, confer with faculty in the field and your committee.

1. John Dryden (1631-1700), Absalom and Achitophel, MacFlecknoe, All for Love

2. Daniel Defoe (1660?-1731), Moll Flanders or Robinson Crusoe

3. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Gulliver’s Travels

4. Alexander Pope (1688-1744), The Rape of the Lock, “The Essay on Criticism,” The Dunciad Book IV

5. Restoration and 18th c. Drama (choose 4): Aphra Behn (1640-89), The Rover; William Congreve (1670-1729), The Way of the World; George Etherege (1634?-1691?), The Man of Mode; Oliver Goldsmith (1730?-74), She Stoops to Conquer; Thomas Otway, Venice Preserv’d; Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), The School for Scandal; William Wycherley (1640-1716), The Country Wife

6. Women in Dialogue: selected poems, short stories, and nonfictional prose excerpts by Katherine Philips, Aphra Behn (164?-1689), Mary Astell, Anne Finch, Eliza Haywood, Mary Wortley Montagu, Mary Wollestonecraft (1759-97), Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743-1825)

7. Samuel Richardson (1689-1761), Clarissa or Pamela

8. Henry Fielding (1707-54), Joseph Andrews or Tom Jones

9. Samuel Johnson (1709-84), Rasselas, “Pope” from Lives of the Poets, “The Vanity of Human Wishes

10. Oliver Goldsmith (1730?-74), The Vicar of Wakefield, “The Deserted Village”

11. Poetry of Sensibility: selections from Edward Young (1683-1765), James Thomson (1700- 48), Thomas Gray (1716-71) William Collins (1721-59), William Cowper (1731-1800)

12. Slavery and Revolution: selected poems and nonfictional prose excerpts

SLAVERY:

1) Raymond Harris: Scriptural Researches on the licitness of the Slave Trade, shewing its conformity with the principles of natural and revealed religion (1788)

2) Ignatius Sancho: from The Letters of the late Ignatius Sancho (1782)

3) Ottabah Cugoano (aka John Stuart): Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species (1787)

4) Olaudah Equiano: from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African,Written by Himself (1789)

5) Samuel Johnson: “A Brief to Free a Slave” (1777/1792)

6) William Cowper: “The Negro’s Complaint”(1788)

7) Hannah More: “Slavery, A Poem” (1788)

8) Robert Southey: Sonnet Sequence [6 sonnets]: “On the Slave Trade” (1791/1794)

9) Edmund Burke: “Sketch of a Negro Code” (1792)

REVOLUTION:

1) Richard Price: from “A Discourse on the Love of Our Country” (1789)

2) Edmund Burke: from Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

3) Mary Wollestonecraft: from A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1790)

4) Thomas Paine: from Rights of Man (1791)

5) William Blake: “A Song of Liberty” (1792)

13. Laurence Sterne (1713-68), Tristram Shandy

14. Frances Burney (1752-1840), Evelina

Early American Literature

Choose between 3 and 6 selections of the following 23 selections.

1.Book of Exodus (authorized King James edition)

2. Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), Journal of the First Voyage to America (1492-93)

3. Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca (1490?-1556?), La Relación

4. Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590), The Broken Spears: The Aztec History of theConquest (Leon-Portilla edition)

5. Pedro de Castañeda (1510?-1570?), Narrative of the Expedition of Coronado

6. Samuel de Champlain (1570?-1635), Voyages of 1615

7. John Smith (1580-1631), General Historie of Virginia

8. John Winthrop (1588-1649), A Modell of Christian Charity

9. William Bradford (1590-1657), Of Plymouth Plantation

10. Thomas Shepard (1604?-1649), The Autobiography

11. Anne Bradstreet, (1612?-1672), selected poems (from either the Norton or Heath)

12. Mary Rowlandson (1636?-1711), The Sovereignty and Goodness of God(A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson)

13. Edward Taylor (1642?-1729), selected poems (from either Norton or Heath)

14. Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651?-1695), “Villancico VI from Santa Catarina”

15. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), pick two of the following: “Images of Divine Things,” “A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God,” “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

16. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), The Autobiography

17. Samson Occom (1723-1792), “A Short Narrative of My Life”

18. J. Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur (1735-1813), from Letters from an American Farmer: “Letters 1-3" and “Letters 9-12.”

19. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Notes on the State of Virginia

20. Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797), The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

21. Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784), selected poems (from Norton or Heath)

22. Royall Tyler (1757-1826), The Contrast

23. Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810), Edgar Huntly or Arthur Mervyn (choose one)

19th Century British Literature

You will be responsible for a total of fifteen selections from nineteenth-century British and American Literature. You may divide these in a variety of ways, but you must choose at least five selections from each category

Choose between 5 and 10 of the following 22 selections.

1. William Blake (1757-1827), Songs of Innocence and Experience, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”

2. William Wordsworth (1770-1850), selected poems and Preface to the1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads)

3. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), selected poems

4. Jane Austen (1775-1817), Pride and Prejudice or Emma

5. George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824), selected poems

6. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), selected poems

7. John Keats (1795-1821), selected poems

8. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851), Frankenstein

9. Romantic Women Writers: selections from Charlotte Smith (1749-1806), Mary Robinson (1758-1800), Joanna Baillie (1762-1851), Felicia Hemans (1793-1835), Letitita Landon (1802-38)

10. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61) , selected poems

11. Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92), selected poems

12. William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63), Vanity Fair

13. Robert Browning (1812-89), selected poems

14. Charles Dickens (1812-70), choose one: Bleak House or David Copperfield or Dombey and Son or Great Expectations

15. Charlotte Bronte (1816-55), Jane Eyre

16. Emily Bronte (1818-48), Wuthering Heights

17. George Eliot(1819-80), Middlemarch or The Mill on the Floss

18. Thomas Hardy(1840-1928), Jude the Obscure or Tess of the D/Urbervilles, selected poems

19. The Pre-Raphaelites and associates: selections fromD.G. Rossetti(1828-82),Christina Rossetti(1830-94),William Morris(1834-96),Algernon Charles Swinburne(1837-1909)

20. Gerard Manley Hopkins(1844-89), selected poems

21. Victorian Prose Writers(choose 3 authors): selections fromMatthew Arnold(1822-88),Thomas Carlyle(1795-1881),Charles Darwin(1809-82),John HenryNewman(1801-90),John Stuart Mill(1806-1873),Walter Pater(1839-94),John Ruskin(1819-1900), Oscar Wilde(1854-1900)

22. Sensationalist Fiction:(choose 2): Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone;Sir AruthurConan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes;H. Ryder Haggard, King Solomon’s Mines;Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Bram Stoker, Dracula;H.G.Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau;Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

19th Century American Literature

Choose between 5 and 10 of the following 23 selections.

1. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), The Pioneers

2. Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880), Hobomok

3. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), “Nature,” “The American Scholar,” “The Over-Soul,” “The Poet,” “Experience,” “Fate,” “The Rhodora,” “Circles.”

4. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), The Scarlet Letter

5. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), “My Kinsman, Major Molineaux,” “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” “Young Goodman Brown,” “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “The Artist of the Beautiful,” “The Old Manse.”

6. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and “The Purloined Letter.”

7. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), The Minister’s Wooing

8. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), Walden

9. Frederick Douglass (1818?-1895), The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself

10. Walt Whitman (1819-1892):

–From the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass: “Song of Myself.”

–Also required (any edition is fine): The “Calamus” sequence, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” “Song of the Open Road,” “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” “As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life,” “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”

11. Herman Melville (1819-1891), Moby Dick

12. Herman Melville (1819-1891), “Benito Cereno,” “Bartleby,” “Encantadas,” “The Bell Tower,” “Hawthorne and His Mosses”

13. Harriet E. Wilson (1827?-1863?), Our Nig

14. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), Final Harvest

15. Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), Little Women

16. María Amparo Ruiz de Burton (1832-1895), Who Would Have Thought It?

17. Mark Twain (1835-1910), Huckleberry Finn

18. Henry James (1843-1916), The Portrait of a Lady

19. Henry James (1843-1916), “Daisy Miller,” “The Figure in the Carpet,” “The Turn of the Screw”

20. Kate Chopin (1850-1904), The Awakening

21. Frank Norris (1870-1902), McTeague

22. Stephen Crane (1871-1900): Student may choose any five Crane stories.

23. Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945), Sister Carrie

20th Century British Literature

You will be responsible for a total of twenty-one selections from twentieth-century British and American Literature. You may divide these in a variety of ways, but you must choose at least five selections from British Literature, and at least ten selections from American.

Choose 5 to 10 of the following 21 selections:

1. Conrad, Joseph (1857-1924), “Preface” to Nigger of the Narcissus and either Lord Jim or Heart of Darkness

2. Shaw, G.B. (1856-1950), Two plays from: Heartbreak House, Misalliance, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Pygmalion

3. Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939), selected poems (NAMCP, selection to be determined)

4. Kipling, Rudyard (1865-1936), Kim

5. Ford, Ford Madox (1873-1939), The Good Soldier

6. Forster, E.M. (1879-1970), Passage to India or Howard’s End

7. Joyce, James (1882-1941), Ulysses, or both Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners

8. Woolf, Virginia (1882-1941), To the Lighthouse or Mrs. Dalloway or Orlando

9. Lawrence, D.H. (1885-1930), Sons and Lovers or Lady Chatterley’s Lover

10. World War I Poets: Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918) (NAMCP)

11. Waugh, Evelyn (1903-1966), Handful of Dust or Brideshead Revisited

12. Greene, Graham (1904-1991), Brighton Rock or The Heart of the Matter

13. Beckett, Samuel (1906-1989), Waiting for Godot

14. Auden, W.H. (1907-1973), selected poems (Norton Anthology of Modern andContemporary Poetry)

15. Spark, Muriel (1918-), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie or Memento Mori

16. Larkin, Philip (1922-1985), selected poems (NAMCP) or Heaney (1939-), selected poems (NAMCP)

17. Fowles, John (1926-), The French Lieutenant’s Woman

18. Pinter, Harold (1930-), The Caretaker and Old Times

19. Carter, Angela (1940-1992), Burning Your Boats or Jeanette Winterson (1959-), Sexing the Cherry

20. Swift, Graham (1949-), Waterland

21. Smith, Zadie (1975-), White Teeth or Hanif Kureshi (1954-), My Beautiful Laundrette

20th Century American Literature and Film

Choose 10 to 15 of the following 40 selections:

1. James, Henry (1843-1916), The Ambassadors or The Golden Bowl or The Wings of the Dove

2. Wharton, Edith (1862-1937), The House of Mirth or The Age of Innocence

3. duBois, W.E.B. (1868-1963), The Souls of Black Folk

4. Cather, Willa (1873-1947), The Professor’s House or My Antonia or Death Comes to the Archbishop

5. Stein, Gertrude (1874-1946), The Yale Gertrude Stein

6. Stevens, Wallace (1879-1955), The Palm at the End of the Mind

7. Williams, William Carlos (1883-1963), Paterson and Spring and All, or Selectedpoems and Spring and All

8. Pound, Ezra (1885-1972), selected poems and Cantos

9. H.D. (1886-1961), Selected poems

10. Moore, Marianne (1887-1972), Complete Poems

11. Eliot, T.S. (1888-1965), The Wasteland, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and three essays (one of which must be “Tradition and the Individual Talent”)

12. Cain, James (1892-1977), Double Indemnity or The Postman Always Rings Twice or Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961), The Maltese Falcon

13. Faulkner, William (1892-1962), Absalom! Absalom! or The Sound and The Fury

14. Gold, Michael (1893-1967), Jews Without Money or Henry Roth (1906-1995), Call it Sleep

15. Toomer, Jean (1894-1967), Cane

16. Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1896-1940), The Great Gatsby

17. Hemingway, Ernest (1899-1961), In Our Time or The Sun Also Rises or A Farewell to Arms

18. Nabokov, Vladimir (1899-1977), Lolita or Pale Fire

19. Hurston, Zora Neale (1901?-1960), Their Eyes Were Watching God

20. Welty, Eudora (1909-2001), Delta Wedding

21. Bishop, Elizabeth (1911-1979), Complete poems

22. Ellison, Ralph (1914-1994), Invisible Man

23. Bellow, Saul (1915-), The Adventures of Augie March

24. Mailer, Norman (1923-), Armies of the Night

25. Baldwin, James (1924-1987), Giovanni’s Room

26. Gonzales, Rodolfo, I am Joaquin or Luis Valdez (1940-), Zoot Suit or Jose AntònioVillarreal (1924-), Pocho