ENGL-102-Y-202102-2728 - Seminar in Literature and Comp

Welcome to Seminar in Literature and Composition! In this course we will be learning about strategies of composition by studying various pieces of early British literature. The point of this course is to conduct close analysis of texts to understand what made them great and how we as writers in the 21st century can utilize these strategies of rhetoric and whatnot ourselves. We'll be starting with the hack-and-slash conquests of Beowulf and ending with Frankenstein, a literal nightmare (what better way to end a semester?)! The literature pieces I chose for this course are a blend of famous, beautiful, and just plain weird. This semester is going to be a strange one in more ways than one, but get through it we shall; as the great Bard once wrote:

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!"

Take this attitude with your this semester and you will never fail.