An Introduction to British and American Literature

Name: An Introduction to British and American Literature
Rating: 4.5 (226 reviews)

Prepare for any literature course or standardized test with confidence!

Created bySteve Lynn

Last updated 1/2021

English

What you'll learn

Free downloadable Kindle books and other reading material (poetry, dramas, and novels)
Improve your knowledge and grades on standardized testing with history or literature content, such as GCSE, SAT, ACT, and TOEFL.
Get the necessary background to feel confident in undgraduate literature courses
"Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides." C. S. Lewis
Learn important literary terms and concepts that will allow your appreciation of reading to grow, and even deepen your uderstanding of movies and music.
Broaden your mind and increase your understanding of humanity and what it means to be human and part of society.
Gain understanding and appreciation for British and American literature (novels, plays, short stories, and poetry) from 16th century to the 20th century

Course content

12 sections • 81 lectures • 11h 2m total length

The History of Drama10:07
The history of drama from early Greek drama until the 16th century
Drama and what comprises it
Download a glossary of literary terms used throughout the course
Elizabethan Drama11:41
Elizabethan stages and theaters unique look
The first English Tragedy (No, it's not Marlowe's or Shakespeare's)
An introduction to Christopher Marlowe
Tamburlaine the Great
William Shakespeare5:57
Shakespeare's history
Publication of plays' order
Elizabethan Drama Quiz
Hamlet: A Synopsis of the Play3:33
An in-depth summary of Shakespeare's great tragedy Hamlet
Hamlet: An Anlaysis of the Play18:30
A full analysis of each act and how the play fits into the mold of a drama as well as a tragedy as discussed in the previous section The History of Drama.
Hamlet's Soliloquies4:59
2 soliloquies delivered by Hamlet and a basic translation into modern English
Hamlet Quiz

Jacobean Literature: Poetry and Prose11:34
James I and how he continued to fund the Arts after Queen Elizabeth I
Poetry and prose and what makes each distinct
An introduction to the Petrarchan sonnet and what makes it unique
Francis Bacon and the start of literary prose
John Dryden's essays on poetry
John Bunyan's allegorical writings
Puritanism and the English Civil War10:50
Puritanism
The Three English Civil Wars
Charles I and II
Eleven Years' Tyranny
Oliver Cromwell
Metaphysical Poetry7:56
An introduction to the metaphysical poetry, what it is, and how it differed from classical poetry
Jacobean Literature Quiz
Metaphysical Poets: John Donne8:10
Background on John Donne
An analysis of "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"
George Herbert5:12
Background on George Herbert
Analysis of Herberts poem "Death"
Andrew Marvell7:03
Background on Andrew Marvell
Analysis of Marvell's poem "To His Coy Mistress"
John Milton7:41
Background on John Milton
Analysis of Milton's poem "When I Consider How My Light is Spent"
Metaphysical Poets Quiz

The Restoration and Glorious Revolution5:50
Background to the Restoration of Charles II and the Glorious Revolution
The Novel7:29
How the novel became an important part of literature
The precursors to the novel and why they are not considered novels
Early Novelists: Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding11:29
Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe
Samuel Richardson's Pamela and Clarissa Harlowe
Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones
The Paper War and Tobias Smollett
The Rise of the Novel Quiz
English Satire: John Dryden & Alexander Pope5:42
The early satire of John Dryden and Alexander Pope
Pope's "The Rape fo the Lock"
Jonathan Swift & Gulliver's Travels10:19
An introduction to Jonathan Swift and "A Tale of a Tub"
A brief summary of the four books of Gulliver's Travels
Swift's "A Modest Proposal"7:39
An introduction to "A Modest Proposal" and why it was written
An overview of Horatian and Juvenalian satire
Satire Quiz

Colonialism & John Smith7:17
Colonialism and the adventurer John Smith influence on the emergence of an American genre of literature
John Smith's A General History
Frontier fiction and tall tales
Pilgrim Writers10:16
The fate of Puritans who left England
Puritan beliefs that influenced the culture and writing in America
Early American Puritan poets: Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor
Prolific Puritan writer Cotton Mather, who wrote about the Salam Witch Trials
The Revolutionary Period Writers7:29
The Revolutionary Period's creation of a distinct form of colonial literature
Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson's "The Declaration of Independence"
The Connecticut Wits: John Trumbull, Joel Barlow, and Royall Tayler
The Emergence of American Literature Quiz
The Knickerbocker Era: Washington Irving14:05
An introduction to the development of American literature
The Knickerbocker Era in New York and the development of the American novel
The life and works of Washington Irving
Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle"
Frontier Fiction: James Fenimore Cooper9:46
The life and works of James Fenimore Cooper
The first American novel
Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans
Early American Literature Quiz

The Westward Expansion4:13
The westward expansion of the American frontier and the Second Great Awakening in American religion
Transcendentalism: Ralph Waldo Emerson10:05
An introduction to transcendentalism and the literature it created
Background to Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Individualism, and the Oversoul
"Self-Reliance"
Emerson and American Poetry
Analysis of Emerson's poem "Hymn: Sung at the Completion of the Concord Monument, April 19, 1836"
Transcendentalism: Henry David Thoreau7:44
Background to Henry David Thoreau
An introduction to Thoreau's “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”
Thoreau's publication of the American masterpiece Walden
Anti-Transcendentalism: Nathaniel Hawthorne4:54
Background to Nathaniel Hawthorne
Hawthorne's philosophy against Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism Quiz
Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter7:58
A summary of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
A discussion on the meaning behind The Scarlet Letter
Herman Melville5:23
Melville's journey to becoming a literary legend
A discussion on Moby Dick and Captain Ahab
Edgar Allan Poe6:17
An introduction to Poe's life
A summary of Poe's writing theories
Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado"4:45
A summary of Poe's classic short story "The Cask of Amontillado"
A discussion on "The Cask of Amontillado" as an example of Poe's theory on "the unity of effect"
Poe's "The Raven"7:11
A discussion on Poe's classic poem "The Raven" as an example of Poe's creative method published as the essay “The Philosophy of Composition”
The Three Greats of the New England Renaissance Quiz

The American Civil War Era & Harriet Beecher Stowe6:48
The background to the start of the American Civil War
Harriet Beecher Stowe as "the little lady who made this big war"
Uncle Tom's Cabin as a polemic work
Walt Whitman9:05
Background on Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass and why it was so controversial
“I Sing the Body Electric”
"Song of Myself"
Whitman's "Drum Taps"6:26
Whitman's Civil War poetry
"Beat! Beat! Drums"
"O Captain! My Captain!"
Emily Dickinson8:30
Background on Emily Dickinson
Dickinson's obsession with death
An analysis of "Because I Could Not Stop For Death"
American Civil War Writers Quiz
The Gilded Age6:59
The Gilded Age and the Era of the Industrialists (Robber Barons)
Mark Twain's The Gilded Age
Local Color Writing: Mark Twain8:14
Background on Mark Twain
Hoax writing
Roughing It
“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”
Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn11:02
A summary of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
A summary of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court6:43
A summary of A Connecticut Yankee in King Author’s Court as an allegory of the Gilded Age
The Gilded Age Quiz

Female Writers & The French Revolution11:33
The unknown female writers of the Romantic Period
The French Revolution and its influence on women writers
Robespierre and the Reign of Terror
The Impact of the French Revolution on England
Mary Wollstonecraft9:09
Background on Wollstonecraft's life
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Helen Maria Williams8:12
Background on Williams's life
Her poem "Edwin and Eltruda"
"Peru: A Poem in Six Cantos"
Letters Written in France
Her ode “The Peace Signed Between the French and the English”
Female Writers and the French Revolution Quiz
Unitarianism3:58
The Dissenters and Unitarianism
John Aikin Sr.
Joseph Priestley
Harriet Martineau11:46
Background on Martineau
Martineau's Society in America
Relationship to Charles Darwin
Her novel Deerbrook
Anna Laetitia Barbauld5:18
Background on Barbauld
Her poem "Eighteen Hundred and Eleven"
Lucy Aikin4:53
Background on Aikin
Her poem "Epistles on Women"
Unitarianism and Women Writers Quiz

The Napoleonic Wars7:53
Background on Napoleon and the Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars influence on the Romantic Period
The Romantic Period4:40
Introduction of the "Big Six" and the two separate poetic schools of thought.
Imagination vs. Reason
William Blake7:30
Background on William Blake
His poems "The Lamb", "The Tyger", and "The Sick Rose"
Symbolism
William Wordsworth8:21
Background on William Wordsworth
Lyrical Ballads and "She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways"
Lucy Gray and "The Lucy Poems"
"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
"A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal"
British Romanticism Quiz
Samuel Taylor Coleridge8:06
Background on S.T.C.
His poem "Kubla Kahn"
His "Epitaph"
Percy Bysshe Shelley7:30
Background on Percy Shelley
His poem "Ozymandias"
John Keats8:43
Background on Keats
His sonnet “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”
"Hyperion", "Sleep and Poetry", and "Endymion"
Lord George Gordon Byron7:16
Background on Lord Byron
The Byronic Hero
“The Sonnet on Chillon”
Byron's scandalous affairs
Romantic Poets Quiz

Gothic Novels10:03
The difference between Gothic Novels and Novels of Purpose
Modern Gothic Novels
A summary of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice13:43
Comedy of Manners
Escapist literature
A summary of Pride and Prejudice
Victorian Novels8:35
The Victorian Age
The background to Victorian novels
The Bronte Sisters
19th Century Novels Quiz
Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights11:29
Background on Emily Brontë
A summary and discussion on Wuthering Heights
Charles Dickens and Great Expectations14:46
Background on Charles Dickens
A summary and discussion on Great Expectations
Victorian Novels Quiz

Anti-Victorianism & Edwardian England4:35
The Education Act and the rise of literacy in Victorian England
Penny Dreadfuls
Edwardian England
World War I
Imagism & Gertruid Stein5:23
A short description of the Imagism Movement
Gertrude Stein
Cubism's influence on literature
Stein's "A Dog" and "A Purse" from Tender Buttons
Post War Literature & Ezra Pound9:49
World War I and II's influence on literature
Background to Ezra Pound's life and his support of fascism
Pound's “In a Station of the Metro” and its analysis
T.S. Eliot12:46
Background of T. S. Eliot's life
Eliot's "The Waste Land" and "Preludes"
Objective Correlative and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
William Carlos Williams4:29
Background on William Carlos Williams
Analysis of "Red Wheel Barrow"
"Paterson"
Archibald MacLeish5:16
Background on Archibald MacLeish
Analysis of "Ars Poetica"
Imagism Quiz

Requirements

Be able to read and understand English as well as have an inquisitive mind

Description

This is a study of literature from the 16th century to the 20th century covering drama, poetry, short stories, and novels.

Who wrote the first English novel? How did Napoleon in France change the way literature was written in England? What is the difference between British literature and American literature? Who is the father of the detective novel (and it isn't Sir Arthur Conan Doyle!)? How do major wars and conflicts affect literature? What is stream-of-consciousness, and how did it change the way literature has been written?

These are just a few questions that this introduction to literature attempts to answer. This class attempts to make connections between literary periods, writers, and history. The goal of this class is to put history, biography, and literature together into a suitable whole. It would be impossible to cover every single work and history behind it, but I have attempted to cover the major periods and major writers of the time and to show how the history surrounding them has influenced their life and works.

Who this course is for:

Those of any age wishing to learn or review the basics of British and American literature
Students who need to improve literature score or standardized testing scores in literature
Anyone who loves to read and shares a passion for literature

An Introduction to British and American Literature

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Elizabethan Drama and Shakespeare's Hamlet6 lectures • 55min

Jacobean Literature and the Metaphysical Poets7 lectures • 58min

The Rise of the Novel and Satire6 lectures • 48min

The Emergence of American Literature5 lectures • 49min

The New England Renaissance9 lectures • 59min

The American Civil War Era and the Gilded Age8 lectures • 1hr 4min

Women Writers of the 19th Century7 lectures • 55min

British Romantic Poets and the Poetic Imagination8 lectures • 1hr

Victorian Novels5 lectures • 59min

The Imagist Movements after World War I6 lectures • 42min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: