BA (Honours) Programme » BA (Honours) Part II

SECOND YEAR | 750 Marks (2011 – 2015)

Course Code Course Titles Credits Marks
E 201 Old and Middle English Literature 2   50
E 202 16th and 17th Century English Poetry and Prose 4 100
E 203 Restoration and the 18th Century English Literature 4 100
E 204 British Romantic Poetry 4 100
E 205 Literary and Cultural Criticism 4 100
E 206 Introduction to Linguistics 4 100
E 207 Political and Philosophical Thoughts 4 100
E 208 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology 2   50
Viva-Voce 2 50
 30 750

E 201  Old and Middle English Literature

 2 Credits | 50 Marks (35 Final Examination+10 Tutorial+05 Attendance)

The objective of this course is to familiarize students with important Old and Middle English texts translated in modern English. The course requires knowledge of the relevant political and cultural history of the Anglo-Saxon Period and Middle Age. By reading the select texts, students should be able to understand various literary genres and recognize how the cultural, historical, and aesthetic contexts of the Old and Middle Ages shaped literature in English.

  • Anonymous           “The Wanderer”
  • Anonymous           “The Seafarer”
  • Anonymous           “Dream of the Rood”
  • Anonymous           Beowulf
  • Geoffrey Chaucer  “The General Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales
  • Thomas Mallory    Morte D’Arthur Chapters V and VI

Recommended Reading

  • Campbell, Ian (Ed). The Anglo-Saxons. London: Penguin Books, 1991.
  • Godden, Malcolm and Michael Lapidge (Eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Cambridge: CUP, 1991.
  • Treharne, Elaine (Ed.). Old and Middle English c. 890-c. 1400. An Anthology. 3rd edn. Oxford: Blackwell, 2009.

E 202  16th and 17th Century English Poetry and Prose

4 Credits | 100 Marks (70 Final Examination+20 Tutorial+10 Attendance)

In this course, students will read select English poetry and prose of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, centuries that saw the emergence of a plethora of English writers of merit whose writings formed the base of English literature. Often informed with the spirit of the Renaissance, the prose and poetic pieces offered in this course include essays, pamphlets, epics, sonnets, and ‘metaphysical’ poetry.

  • Edmund Spenser       The Faerie Queene, Book I, Cantos I, II (st. 1-11)
  • Francis Bacon           “Of Truth,” “Of Marriage and Single Life,” “Of Great Place,” “Of Studies”
  • William Shakespeare   Sonnets 12, 55, 116, 130, 144
  • John Donne              “The Good Morrow,” “The Sunne Rising,” “The Canonization,”“A valediction: forbidding mourning,” “Batter my heart,” “Death, be not proud”
  • John Milton              Paradise Lost, Books I, IX, X; Areopagitica (as in Norton 1977)
  • Andrew Marvell        “To His Coy Mistress,” “Definition of Love”

E 203  Restoration and 18th Century English Literature

4 Credits | 100 Marks (70 Final Examination+20 Tutorial+10 Attendance)

This course is designed to provide students exposure to the richness of English literature produced in the Restoration period as well as the eighteenth century. The literature in this period is notable for its frequent reference to the socio-political reality of the time. This period saw the rise of satire and the development of prose narratives culminating in the appearance of novel. Knowledge of the significant political, religious, and philosophical ideas of the period is required.

  • John Dryden                            Mac Flecknoe
  • Aphra Behn                             Oroonoko
  • Jonathan Swift                         Gulliver’s Travels
  • William Congreve                    The Way of the World Joseph Addison and
  • Richard Steele                    Coverley Papers: “The Spectator’s Account of Himself” (1),  “Of the Club” (2), “Sir Roger at Church” (112)
  • Alexander Pope                       The Rape of the Lock
  • Samuel Johnson                       “Life of Milton”
  • Edmund Burke                        “Speech on Mr Fox’s East India Bill”

E 204  British Romantic Poetry

4 Credits | 100 Marks (70 Final Examination+20 Tutorial+10 Attendance)

The objective of this course is to introduce students to the important writers and literary ideas of the British Romantic period. Informed with the spirit of the French Revolution, Romantic period is remarkable for its significant political, philosophical and social changes, an exciting representation of which is the poems written by six luminaries of the time. Knowledge of the European Romanticism is required to understand the thematic and formal features of the poems offered in this course.

  • William Blake                          Songs of Innocence and of Experience (selection)
  • William Wordsworth                “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,” “Ode: Intimations of Immortality,” The Prelude Book First
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge         The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, “Kubla Khan”, “Dejection: An Ode”
  • George Gordon, Lord Byron    Don Juan, Canto 1
  • Percy Bysshe Shelley               “Ode to the West Wind,” Adonais
  • John Keats                               “Ode to Psyche,” “Ode to a Nightingale,” “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “To Autumn”

E 205 : Literary and Cultural Criticism

4 Credits | 100 Marks (70 Final Examination+20 Tutorial+10 Attendance)

This course offers a number of influential essays in the history of literary and cultural criticism that explained and have shaped the composition and interpretation of literary discourses. By studying these texts, students should be able to trace the historical development of various critical schools, develop an understanding of the terminology associated with literary criticism and explore the different ways in which literature and culture coalesce.

  • Samuel Johnson                    Preface to Shakespeare (selection)
  • William Wordsworth             Preface to Lyrical Ballads
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge      Biographia Literaria Chapters XIII, XIV
  • Matthew Arnold                    “Sweetness and Light”
  • Virginia Woolf                      “Shakespeare’s Sister”
  • Thomas Stearns Eliot            “Tradition and the Individual Talent”
  • Victor Shklovsky                  “Art as Technique”
  • Edward Said                         Introduction to Orientalism
  • Terry Eagleton                      “The Rise of English”

E 206  Introduction to Linguistics

4 Credits | 100 Marks (70 Final Examination+20 Tutorial+10 Attendance)

Everyone speaks at least one language, and most people have fairly strong views about their own language. Linguistics scientifically studies the varied aspects of language in general and a language in particular as well as language learning and language teaching. This course is designed to study the basic facets of the nature of language, language learning, and language teaching.

  • Language: origin, definition and properties
  • Linguistics: definition, scope, status as a discipline and branches
  • Schools of linguistics: Saussure, Prague school, Bloomfield, Chomsky, Firth and Halliday
  • Levels of Linguistics: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, lexicology and graphology
  • L1 acquisition: Behaviourist Theory, Mentalist Theory, Biological Theory and Cognitive Theory
  • L2 learning and acquisition: Monitor Model, Interlanguage Theory, Acculturation Theory and Universal Grammar Theory
  • Social aspects of language: dialects, standard language, registers, bilingualism, diglossia, code-switching
  • Language teaching: methods, approaches, techniques, curriculum, syllabus, materials and testing

Recommended Reading

  • Aronoff, M. and Rees-Miller, J. (Eds.). The Handbook of Linguistics. Oxford, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003.
  • Brown, H. D. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. London: Longman, 2000.
  • Carter, R. and Nunan, D. Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge: CUP, 2001.
  • Ellis, R. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: OUP, 1994.
  • Maniruzzaman, M. Introduction to English Language Study. Dhaka: Friends’ Book, 2006.
  • McLaughlin, B. Theories of Second Language Learning. London: Edward Arnold, 1987.
  • Richard, J. C. and Rodgers, T. S. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: CUP, 2001.
  • Sampson, G. Schools of Linguistics. Oxford: OUP, 1980.
  • Wardhaugh, R. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992

E 207: Political and Philosophical Thoughts

4 Credits | 100 Marks (70 Final Examination+20 Tutorial+10 Attendance)

This course offers an eclectic range of political and philosophical ideas, theories, and writings. Including philosophers and thinkers of different ages and areas, ranging from Plato and Neitzsche to Bentham and Marx to Rumi and Lalon, this course intends to provide students with access to the wide range of political and philosophical thoughts that have shaped the development of English literature and literature in general.

  • Theory of Ideas (Plato)
  • Theory of Form (Aristotle)
  • Sufism (Rumi)
  • Cogito, ergo sum” (Descartes)
  • Tabula rasa (Locke)
  • State of nature (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau)
  • Sovereignty (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau)
  • The Enlightenment (Kant)
  • Utilitarianism (Bentham, Mill)
  • Dialectics (Hegel)
  • Historical and Dialectical materialism (Marx)
  • Superman (Nietzsche)
  • Existentialism (Sartre)
  • Totalitarianism (Fascism, Nazism)
  • Baul philosophy (Lalon)

Recommended Reading

  • Radhakrishnan

E 208  Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

2 Credits | 50 Marks (35 Final Examination+10 Tutorial+05 Attendance)

The course is designed to introduce students to the theories and methodologies of Cultural Anthropology. As culture in its various forms and inflections is integral to the development and study of language and literature, this course offers a critical study of culture and its diverse manifestations ranging from economy and arts to gender and ethnicity.

INTRODUCTION

  • Scope and object of the study of Anthropology
  • Sub-fields of Anthropology and interdisciplinary specialties

CONCEPT OF CULTURE

  • Core concepts: culture; social structure; cultural relativism; acculturation; holism; the combination of the etic and emic perspectives; methods of the study of culture

CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND IDENTITY

  • Making a living: subsistence and economy
  • Belief Systems in Different Societies
  • Kinship and Marriage
  • Language, Society and Culture
  • Arts
  • Social Inequality: Gender, Class, Colour, Caste
  • Politics, power and society
  • Ethnicity, Nationalism and Identity

Recommended Reading

  • Alan, Bernard. History and Theory in Anthropology. Cambridge: CUP, 2000.
  • Harris, M. Culture, People, and Nature: An Introduction to General Anthropology. Harper and Row Publishers, 1988.
  • Haviland, William. Cultural Anthropology. 10th Edition. McGraw Hill. 2002.
  • Kottak, Conrad Philip. Cultural Anthropology. 10th Edition. McGraw Hill. 2006.
  • Kuper, A. Anthropolgy and Anthropologists. London and New York: Routledge, 1985.
  • Miller, Barbara, Penny Van Esterik and J V Esterik. Cultural Anthropology. Canada: Pearson Education Publication, 2002.
  • Spradley and McCurdy. Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Antrhopology. Allyn & Bacon, 2003.