ENGL 336 A: English Literature: Early Twentieth Century

This class will focus on the relationship between literature and social change in England during the first three decades of the twentieth-century, which included the struggle for women's suffrage, the First World War, and the Depression. The poems, short stories, and novels that we will be studying this quarter reflect-- both in style and content--the conflicts, discoveries, and social/psychological theories that were current during this period. We will consider the relationship between "modernism" and modernity, the implications of Freudianism for literature, the impact of war and its aftermath, and other topics relevant to our reading. Readings for the class will include novels by E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, and Elizabeth Bowen; short stories by Katherine Mansfield and D.H. Lawrence; and poetry of the First World War by Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg and others.