Courses

How does literature matter? What use is figurative language? What truth can literature offer? This course teaches students how literary texts produce meaning through genre and form. Through frequent analytical writing assignments based on the readings, the course helps students learn to present complex arguments with clarity, logic, and persuasive style.

Devoted to improving the student's writing through frequent revisions. Intensive work during the semester concentrates on the student's own writing, which is examined in class and in conference with the instructor.Class size limited to 12 students.

The study of poetry is central to the study of literature, since it is in poetry that the power of language-play is at its most intense. This course investigates how poetry produces emotional and intellectual effects through language, sound, and form. Examining poems from a broad range of writers and periods, students will hone close reading skills as they engage with the devices poets use to prompt imaginative work in their readers. All sections will be writing-intensive, using the drafting process to develop and refine literary analysis and ultimately to present it in the form of persuasive critical arguments. The course is required for English majors, who are encouraged to take it as early as possible to prepare for more advanced literary study.

An introductory course in the study of the form and technique of poetry. As readers of literature we study how a work of art and an artist's vision are pieced together; as aspiring writers of literature we come to have a hands-on understanding of how a poem is created. Emphasis is on the intensive reading of modern and contemporary poems, though the assignments are creative. Class size limited to 12 students.

An introductory course in the study of the varied forms and techniques of fiction and non-fiction. Emphasis is on the intensive reading and writing of various prose forms. Lectures on form, language and finding material for inspiration. Class size limited to 12 students.

A study of selected major works of British Literature. Non-majors only.

A study of selected major works of American Literature. Non-majors only.

Intensive reading and writing of expository essays to develop the student's authorial voice and style. Students for whom English is a second language or who come from a diverse or multicultural background will receive special help in some sections; consult the instructor. Permission of instructor required. Class size limited to 12.

Focuses on the study and practice of various types of writing about scientific phenomena; considers fundamental questions about the relationship between scientific and humanistic modes of inquiry. One unit.

Covers the fundamentals of screenwriting (format, characterization, narrative arcs) through original creative work and close reading of example screenplays. Students will adapt a literary work to learn form, as well as draft, workshop, and revise their own scripts. Class size limited to 12. Permission of instructor required.

This course examines the development of British literature from its beginnings to 1720, presenting at least six common texts while developing the close reading skills initiated at the introductory level of the major. Authors include Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope and Defoe. Should be taken after Poetry & Poetics and before any 300-level course.

This course examines the development of American literature from its beginnings to the present, presenting at least six common texts while developing the close reading skills initiated at the introductory level of the major. Authors include Poe, Douglass, Dickinson, Whitman, Faulkner, Morrison, and Alvarez. One of two courses that can fulfill the English major Touchstones 2 requirement. Should be taken after Poetry & Poetics and before any 300-level course.

This course examines the development of British literature from 1720 to the present, presenting at least six common texts while developing the close reading skills initiated at the introductory level of the major. Authors include Wordsworth, Coleridge, Dickens, T.S. Eliot, Woolf, Beckett and Ishiguro. One of two courses that fulfill the Touchstones 2 requirement. Should be taken after Poetry & Poetics and before any 300-level course.

From the Greeks onward, ekphrasis, or the practice of writing vivid description about art, has provided an excellent foundation for the development of imaginative writing in all genres. In this unique creative writing course, students will work in a museum setting to produce ekphrastic responses to artworks in several genres. They will try their hand at poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, engaging their creativity as they learn the basic craft issues specific to each genre. No experience in creative writing or knowledge of visual art is required -- all students are welcome. This course will challenge your creativity and enlarge your understanding of both creative writing and visual art, but it will be rigorously playful, taking advantage of the creative environment of the Worcester Art Museum. Open to English majors and non-majors; no previous creative writing knowledge required;  class size limited to 12.

For students who have taken any introductory creative writing course. A more advanced course on the reading and writing of poems with emphasis on prosody, writing in closed and open forms, and writing various types of poems. Lecture and workshop format with more attention to student writing. Class size limited to 12.

For students who have taken any introductory creative writing course. A more advanced course on the reading and writing of the short story with emphasis on refining the skills learned in the introductory course. Workshop format with lectures and readings. Class size limited to 12.

For students who have taken any introductory creative writing course. A more advanced course on the reading and writing of essays with emphasis on the structural composition of longer, more investigative pieces. Class size limited to 12.

This course centers literature by writers whose identities have marked them as historically other to a predominantly white European body of works, including African American, Asian American, Indigenous, and Latinx authors, among others. Through our reading, discussion, and student research, our class will consider how literature influences and responds to complex conversations about race, ethnicity, nationality, and identity. Together we will ask what brings together multi-ethnic literature as a field, as well as how variations across authors, content, and form resist easy categorization. Alongside discussion of major and lesser-known works of multi-ethnic literature, we will contextualize our reading with the crucial role of activism in the development of this field and of ethnic studies programs. Our class will bridge the fields history and contemporary moment through multi-ethnic U.S. writers reflections of their roles in education and publishing today via trends like #OwnVoices and the We Need Diverse Books organization. We will examine these concepts through and with attention to various forms, including but not limited to comics, creative nonfiction, novels, poetry, and short stories, from multiple genres.

What can you learn from the worlds literatures for your own creative writing? In this course, you will read contemporary literature (prose) in translation to learn about writing craft for your own fiction. You will write and workshop your own stories; if you have another language you wish to use for creative work, you have the option to do so and to present a literary translation for workshop. As globalization transforms our worldincluding its literary cultureby reading beyond English language literature your perspective of what fiction can be is enlarged. You will likely discover writing techniques from other cultures that are less common in English to apply to your own creative work. Reading assignments include translated literatures, about 60% to 65% from Asian languages the other 35% to 40% from Western languages, along with examples from less-translated Asian languages. Written assignments include creative work and critical essays responding to and comparing the reading assignments and a reflective journal; a final portfolio of writing is required.

A study of the flowering of the Romance genre in late medieval England. Exploration of Continental and Middle Eastern origins; focus on popular subject matters of Romance in England, including Robin Hood and King Arthur.

A reading and critical discussion of the complete Middle English text of The Canterbury Tales and selected minor poems.

An exploration of gender and sexuality in the Middle Ages in popular works of Arthurian romance, warrior epic, and saint's life, as well as in letters and trial records. The course also draws on classical, medieval and modern gender theory relevant to topics under discussion, such as virginity, homosexuality, chivalry, and romantic love.

The novel is a literary genre that has unique capacities to represent the modern world, in all its complexity. This course explores how novels from around the globe have done so from 1945 to the present, a period of profound historical transformation, when processes of modernization, decolonization, and global interconnection remade the world to an extent that is perhaps unique in human history. During this period, English came into its own as a global literary language, animating new traditions from Africa to Asia, the Caribbean to the Pacific and making the novel in English a powerful medium for rendering diverse experiences of contemporary life. Examining major works by writers such as Chinua Achebe, Jean Rhys, and Arundhati Roy, this course will help students become better readers of the contemporary novel and the world at large.

This course explores the literature of Renaissance England through its fascination with romance. Knights, dragons, magic, adventure, fair queens and foul seductresses, even a werewolf all fill the pages, stages, and entertainments of the day. The course will consider how such excesses came to have value in an age that privileged classical learning and Reformed faith. Readings include texts by Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Webster, Nashe, Jonson, Bacon, Wroth, and more.

A study of the golden age of English Renaissance literature. The course explores how imaginative texts helped create the Virgin Queen, courtly culture, the cosmopolitan city of London, the English nation, and the New World. Readings include works by Sidney, Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne, Harriot, Nashe, and Elizabeth Tudor herself.

A study of Milton's early poems, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes, and selections from the prose.

As we continue to move into the twenty-first century, how will we ensure that everyone can enjoy nature in peaceful, safe, and healthy ways? This course aims to broaden students' understanding of the literary history informing these questions. "Georgic and Pastoral" asks students to consider poetry that explores the relationship between the human being and the natural world. As pastoral and georgic modes move through the late antique, medieval, early modern, and modern periods, they differ from one another in fairly consistent ways: pastoral poetry usually focuses on the lives of shepherds and rural deities living in a peaceful, natural space. Georgic poetry, on the other hand, takes up the subject of work, and tends to retain its didactic tone. Both modes, however, use these fundamental premises to engage with larger questions about human life and culture: who has the right to access land? Who has the right to evict someone else? What are the dangers of all-consuming love? What can the process of cultivation help us understand about creativity, humility, and perseverance?

A look at playwrights who are often dwarfed by Shakespeare, but who legitimately competed with him for that greatness. Other topics will include early modern notions of rivalry and collaboration, as well as the increasingtension between governing authorities and the theatre. One unit.

A one-semester survey of the major works of Shakespeare, focusing on individual texts as representative of the stages in his dramatic development, with some discussion of Shakespearean stage techniques.

An examination of theological and philosophical issues in Shakespeare's plays, with emphasis on tragedies. There will be additional readings from a number of sources, including the Bible, Luther, Montaigne, and major Shakespearean critics.

A close examination of the novel as formal prose narrative. Novels by Defoe, Fielding, Richardson, Smollet, the Gothic novelists, Sterne, and Austen are considered in detail with collateral readings.

A study of the development of 18th-century English poetry from the canonical Augustans-Dryden, Pope, Swift, Anne Finch, and Lady Montagu - through the mid-century and later work of Gray, Collins, the Wartons, Smart, Cowper, Charlotte Smith, Joanna Baillie, and Anna Seward, ending with Blake's lyrics.

The course will focus on a variety of 18th-century prose, dramatic, and verse satires, including works by Defoe, Swift, Pope, and others. Special attention will be given to modes of satire (burlesque, parody, travesty, mock epic, etc.) as well as to the objectives of satire (amendment, punishment).

A survey of English drama from Dryden to Sheridan, including heroic drama, Restoration comedy, sentimental developments of the 18th century, and the re-emergence of laughing comedy.

A study of the major writers of the Romantic movement -- Edmund Burke, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth, Coleridge, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Byron, Keats, Hazlitt, Lamb, and De Quincey. One unit.

A study of novels, poetry, and prose writings by women writing during and after the Romantic Movement - Frances Burney, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and others. One unit.

A study of the British poetry and poetic theory composed during Queen Victoria's reign (1837 - 1901). Authors treated may include Alfred Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, D. G. Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Matthew Arnold, and Gerard Manly Hopkins.

A close examination of the British novel in the 19th century, including novels by Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontes, George Eliot, and Hardy.

A study of the evolution of contemporary American non-fiction narrative, which traces its roots to the 19th-century writing of Emerson and Thoreau.

A study of the development of cultural contact between Native Americans and Europeans, the Puritan experiment, and the founding of the nation from 1600 - 1830.

We will study Thoreau's works and their legacy today. The first half of the semester will focus on Thoreau's most influential texts from the more literary (his wonderful Journals, Walden, and Civil Disobedience), to the more scientific (Dispersion of Seeds and his land and river surveys). The second half of the course will explore how people use Thoreau's ideas today including the Tiny House movement, and the writings of Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, Barbara Kingsolver, and more recent examples. To contrast Thoreau's own non-survivalist approach to nature, we will read Christopher MacCandless's experiment in Alaska as reported by Jon Krakauer in Into the Wild. To inscribe Thoreau more deeply in our own experience, we will make several field trips to Thoreau sites (up to 3 required, beyond that the trips are optional). We will read from Walden at Walden Pond, from his Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers while we canoe the Concord River, and perhaps hike Mt. Wachusett after reading Thoreau's A Walk to Wachusett.

A study of the rise of variant expressions of realism, its evolution into naturalism, the revival of local color and the flowering of regionalism, all in response to the changing American scene through immigration, segregation, business, technology and other forces between the Civil War and World War I.

A study of various genres in which 19th-century women engaged restrictive definitions of a woman's sphere. Authors treated may include Davis, Child, Stowe, Alcott, Dickinson, Phelps, and Wharton.

A survey of how the Civil War and Reconstruction periods have been described in American literature, from both the northern and southern perspective. Possible works include selected Civil War poetry and speeches, Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage, Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, and Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain.

This course examines Poe's contribution as editor and critic; as pioneer of short fiction and science fiction; as inventor of the detective story; as author of strange and powerful poems; and as master of horror. It surveys recurrent topics such as doubleness, death, and insoluble mystery in Poe's poems, essays, tales, and novel, within the broader context of 19th-century American culture.

American Immigrant Narratives traces the development of the genre across the 20th century. While outlining and theorizing the tropes, settings, and expectations of this genre, we will keep an eye towards how particular authors make use of the genre to respond to or explore U.S. racial and social discourses concerning immigration in play at the time. We will focus on authors from various literary traditions, such as Mary Antin, Cristina García, and Gish Jen, while blending in work from popular culture, such as Mark Waid's Superman: Birthright, Lin Manuel-Miranda's Hamilton, and James Mangold's 2017 film Logan.

A close analysis of the development of American poetry from the early 20th century up to the contemporary period, including such poets as Pound, Eliot, Williams, Crane, Frost, Stevens, Bishop, and others.

A study of the emergence of Modernism and other currents in the American novel from 1900 to the contemporary period.

A close study of Eliot's poetry, criticism, and drama, including unpublished and lesser-known writings.

A close study of Joyce's modernist epic novel Ulysses as an experimental narrative; preceded by a close reading of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man or Dubliners.

A study of the prose, poetry, and drama produced in Northern Ireland and the Republic from the last quarter of the 20th century to the present. Writers studied include Boland, Doyle, Friel, Heaney, and Ni Dhomhnaill as well as those less familiar to American readers, and readings are explored in light of relevant contemporary cultural concerns such as sectarianism, gender, the Celtic Tiger, and post-colonial identity.

A study of developments in the British novel from 1900 - 1950, with an emphasis on Modernist texts, through an examination of works by novelists such as Forster, Joyce, Woolf, Lawrence, Rhys, Greene, and Waugh.

This class will consider a variety of Latino/a texts both for their narrative content and their historical context. The term "Latino" (often used interchangeably with "Hispanic") has come to connote a particular American experience for peoples descended from Spanish speaking countries and territories (and sometimes Brazil, depending on who you ask). As you can imagine, this makes the category itself quite broad, with its borders fuzzy and fluctuating. Focusing on work published in the last 50 years, we will examine how each author struggles with their own sense of cultural identity while locating themselves in a fraught U.S. racial landscape.  We will closely examine the narrative content of each text, as well as consider how the role of genre shapes each story. Furthermore, we will also consider the role of the specific national histories and their incumbent relationships to gender, race, class, religion, war, and diaspora for each individual text. In doing so, we will keep an eye out for how these texts overlap and diverge along these vectors, always considering what, exactly, is Latino/a literature.

This course will examine works in the African American literary tradition from its beginnings in antebellum poetry and the slave narrative, through the flourishing of the New Negro Movement, to the Black Arts Movement and its influence on the late twentieth century. These works struggle with declarations of personhood, the battle for equality, and most of all, the creation of an African American voice. We will read a wide range of influential African American texts in a variety of genres and situate them in their literary, historical, and/or political contexts.

A study of developments in drama from 1890 to 1960 in England, America, and on the Continent through an examination of selected works of such playwrights as Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw, Pirandello, O'Neill, Brecht, Williams, and Beckett.

Being Modern: The Literature and Thought of ModernityIt seems obvious enough that we live in a modern world. But what does the adjective modern actually mean? Is being modern a choice or an inescapable condition? And what are the specific historical conditions that make life appear modern in the first place? This course will explore these big questions by engaging in depth with the literature of modernism: the experimental, searching movement that transformed writing in English during the first half of the 20th century and continues to shape world literature today. Our specific aim will be to examine literary modernism as a profound and illuminating response to the problem of modernity. Our inquiry will take us from Dublin to Harlem, from England to India and beyond, as we read dazzling works by writers such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Claude McKay, Nella Larsen, and many others.

An investigation of literature by African American authors dating from the 1970's to the present day in the genres of science fiction/fantasy, mystery, memoir, novels exploring gender and sexuality, and cultural theory, with emphasis on the issues of visibility and invisibility as well as the theme of the American Dream. One unit.

This course will examine contemporary African American drama and highlight long-running traditions in the genre as well as revisions and sequels to some of its most canonical plays. Through the plays, additional readings, and performances, we will explore questions of slang, dialect, and accent; how history is presented and challenged on stage; the relationship between social justice and drama; debates about colorblind versus color-conscious casting; and audience reception.

A survey of representative Asian American literature from early twentieth-century immigrant narratives to contemporary writings. Examines Asian American literary production and its main literary themes.

Rather than provide a survey of environmental literature, this course will explore how various literary texts imagine a relation (or non-relation) between the human being and the non-human world. We will consider works from multiple genres and time periods alongside longstanding and recent theoretical approaches to the question of nature. How do imaginative writers represent the place of the human being in the larger, "natural" world? Do their texts have an ethical or political valence? What kind of local and global environments do they represent, or attempt to bring into being? What place does human labor, or human indolence, have in shaping the world? What role does the animal take in human imagining? Assignments are designed to help students frame these and other questions for themselves while attending closely to questions of literary form.

Explores award-winning British and American literature of the new millennium in an attempt to take the pulse of what's going on in our most contemporary literature. Texts are read in the contexts of late 20th-century literary and theoretical movements such as: postmodernism, post-colonialism, gender studies, and multiculturalism.

Course explores a variety of American ethnic authors' engagement with religion in the context of racial strife, uplift, and hierarchy in the United States. As we shall see, many of these authors will be drawn to the power of Christianity for a variety of reasons, not all of them spiritual. Some will seek the potential for cross-ethnic communities brought together by mutual circumstance as a strategy for assimilating into the larger body politic, or simply as a way to sculpt their own racial identities. Still others confront Christianity as a way to confront a U.S. racialized society as a whole and critique their place within it. There will be, of course, even other fraught relationships between the individual, Christianity, and related hegemonic forces. Our task will be to examine these confrontations and how they intersect with related issues concerning sexuality, gender, class, revolution, and many others. The questions we will consistently pursue throughout the class will address what value these authors find in Christianity and what cultural adversities challenge their faith, as well as what these narratives offer us as a community of faith.

A consideration of rhetorical theory in the classical texts of Plato and Aristotle, an analysis of some famous examples of persuasive eloquence, and the student's own exercise of persuasive speech on subjects of public concern.

Built upon but departing from the identity-based approach of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) Studies, Queer Theory critically investigates cultural normativities related to sexuality, sex, and gender. This highly theoretical course will introduce students to the foundational thinkers of the field, including Foucault, Sedgwick, and Butler. We will also consider literary works that enact queer theory.

An examination of major directions in 20th-century feminist literary theory, with study of works by writers such as Charlotte Bronte, Chopin, Gilman, Woolf, Atwood, and Morrison. Theory may address such issues as gendered reading and writing, representation of the body and sexuality, gender/race/class, feminism and ideology.

An investigation of how people learn to write, and how they can be helped to write better. Topics include individual composing processes, academic discourse constraints, and cultural influences on writing. This by-permission course is required for all students who wish to become peer tutors in the Holy Cross Writer's Workshop.

An advanced multi-genre workshop. Only those who have completed at least one introductory-level and one intermediate-level creative writing course will be considered. Specialization in one genre and completion of the creative writing concentration are both recommended. Permission of the instructor required.

This course explores histories, theories, and cultures of rhetoric in and beyond the Western world. Possible topics include Queer Rhetorics, Digital Writing, Rhetoric and Gender, Native American/Indigenous Rhetorics, Transgender Rhetorics, Multimodal Rhetoric, and American Political Rhetoric.

This course explores the theory and practice of composition. Students will explore writing in a variety of contexts from academic to professional with a particular focus on digital and multimodal composition.

This course examines the trajectories of Toni Morrison's literary career, including books from her early, middle and late stages, as well as some of her own literary and cultural criticism. This course is an opportunity to engage in depth with a single author and to gain a deeper understanding of Morrison's style, form, and representations of American communities and histories.

This course examines the relationship between African American literature and urban spaces in the twentieth century. While the majority of the nineteenth-century African American population lived in the South, by World War I the "Great Migration" northward had begun. How did this shift from rural South to industrial North affect African American literature and culture? How did popular images of plantation living evolve to the point where "urban" is now euphemistic for "black" when we speak of music or fashion? From Miami, to Harlem, Chicago, and Baltimore, the assigned works tackle issues such as segregation and "the ghetto," the alienation of city living, and the influence of "the city" on music, sexuality, art, and crime.

Charles Dickenss novels have been so widely read for almost two hundred years that his name has come to describe any novel with a convoluted plot, urban setting, criminals, coincidences, and comically grotesque characters. This course pairs several of Dickenss novels set in London, like Oliver Twist and Our Mutual Friend, with contemporary descendants such as Zadie Smiths White Teeth and Peter Careys Jack Maggs, as we identify the characteristics of this unique subset of British fiction. Given the length of Victorian novels and the courses focus on nineteenth-century narrative conventions and their legacy, this course satisfies the Group B requirement for the English major.

This course is a survey of 20th and 21st century American drama. Together we will ask: how has theater evolved as a narrative form, an artistic practice, and a forum for examining American society? As we investigate the relationship between language on the page and writing as its staged, we will pursue the possibilities and pleasures, even the dangers, of dramatic form. Dynamics of class, race, gender, and sexuality will be centered in discussion of works by playwrights both classic and contemporary. Fulfills Group C (Marginalized Voices) for the English major.

Irish Literary Activism explores how literature and writers act as effective agents of social and political change. Using modern and contemporary Ireland and Northern Ireland as a case study, the course looks to writers who have influenced culture in meaningful ways. We start by studying the early twentieth-century Irish Literary Revival, thinking about Lady Gregory, W. B. Yeats, J. M. Synge, and others who imagined poetry and drama might help the Irish obtain political independence. Their ideas worked: books and plays and other cultural objects and practices really did inspire the Irish to fight for and ultimately gain their freedom from England. Since partition in 1921, Irish writers have continued to intervene effectively in public culture to make us think harder about terrorism, clerical abuses, financial crimes, feminism, same-sex marriage, xenophobia, racism, disability rights, and abortion, among other momentous social concerns. By looking at new theoretical work on activism in tandem with riveting texts from all literary genres, this course will study books and aesthetic practices that have meaningfully influenced Irish culture by asking citizens to think critically about "real life.

This course will examine fictional explorations of the relationship between humans and non-humans in literature and in film. We will focus on texts that address human relationships with non-human characters, including animals, monsters, aliens, and robots. In doing so, we will explore topics including gender, sexuality, race, class, science, and culture. Well look at narratives in which monsters test humanitys virtue and courage in the chivalric romance poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and its 2021 film adaptation The Green Knight, as well as Colson Whiteheads zombie apocalypse novel, Zone One. Well consider science fiction narratives in which aliens save humanity from itself in Octavia Butlers novel Dawn and the 2016 film Arrival. And well think about our relationship to the animal world in Adam Robertss speculative novel Bête, in which domestic animals are injected with artificial intelligence, and the 2021 folk horror film Lamb, in which a bereaved couple take in an animal-human hybrid. Together, our texts will help us better understand the power of fictional narrative in shaping and changing our attitude to the non-human world, and will sharpen our approach to narrative across multiples genres in literature and film.

Permission of the instructor and/or the department chair ordinarily required for such courses. One unit.

Advanced seminars offer students an opportunity to pursue an ambitious independent project and to take more responsibility for class experience. Recent seminars have included: Tolkien, Dickens, Catholicism in Irish Literature, Transgender Memoir, American Historical Romance, Global Modernism, Graphic Novel, Jane Austen, Shakespeare's Christian Humanism, and Medieval Otherworlds. One unit each semester.

Two semesters' credit, granted at end of second semester. Candidates selected from invited applicants to the English Honors Committee.

Two semesters' credit, granted at end of second semester. Candidates selected from invited applicants to the English Honors Committee. One unit each semester.

English Honors thesis students and College Honors English thesis students. One-half credit, granted at end of second semester.