English Course Descriptions

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ENGL 101 & 102   Composition and Literature I & II    3 Credit Hours Each Semester
Required of all freshmen.
The development of the basic skills of writing, reading, and analysis through the study of literary types. ENGL 101: Reading and evaluating essays; writing paragraphs and essays. ENGL 102: Writing of essays and a research paper on topics pertaining to selected readings in non-British literature. Readings will include poetry and at least one of the other two major genres of imaginative literature (fiction and drama). ENGL 101 is a prerequisite for ENGL 102.
Foreign students whose English language facility is judged to be less than adequate will be enrolled in a special, two-semester version of ENGL 101 which is taught on a Pass/Fail basis. Satisfactory completion of this course is a prerequisite for ENGL 102.

ENGL 201 & ENGL 202   Major British Writers I & II   3 Credit Hours Each Semester
Prerequisites: ENGL 101 and ENGL 102
Required of all sophomores other than English majors.
Study in depth of major writers in British literature from the medieval period to the present. ENGL 201: Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, and Swift. ENGL 202: Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, Browning, Hardy, Yeats, and Eliot. Several themes assigned on the literature studied.

ENGL 203 & ENGL 204   Survey of British Literature I & II  
3 Credit Hours Each Semester
Prerequisites: ENGL 101 and ENGL 102
Required of all English majors. Students who have received credit for ENGL 201 and ENGL 202 cannot receive additional credit for ENGL 203 and ENGL 204.
First semester: A study of English literature from its beginnings to the end of the eighteenth century. Second semester: A study of English literature from the end of the eighteenth century to the present. Both courses will include some consideration of historical backgrounds and literary movements.

ENGL 205   Introduction to Public Speaking    3 Credit Hours
Prerequisite: ENGL 101
Open to freshmen who have completed ENGL 101 and all upper class cadets.
The general principles of speech composition and speech presentation; practice in expository speaking.

ENGL 206   Persuasive Speaking   3 Credit Hours
Prerequisite: ENGL 205
Logic, rhetoric, and psychology of securing desired reactions from friendly, neutral, and hostile audiences; sources of speech material and planning the speech; and improvement of volume, diction, rate, and platform manners in extemporaneous and manuscript delivery of speeches.

ENGL 207   Introduction to Journalism    3 Credit Hours
Prerequisites: ENGL 102
An introduction to print journalism with emphasis on writing news and feature articles.

ENGL 209   Introduction to Film   3 Credit Hours
Prerequisites: ENGL 102
An introduction to the aesthetics and techniques of cinematic art.

ENGL 210   The Literature of War   3 Credit Hours
Prerequisites: ENGL 102
A study of selected literature about war, to include the historical background of the literature and ways in which it reflects the attitudes of the authors and of the societies which produced it. The approach of the course will be general and is intended to appeal to a wide audience of students.

ENGL 211   Mythology   3 Credit Hours
Prerequisite: ENGL 102
A study of mythology with special emphasis on Greco-Roman, Northern European and Eastern myths. A discussion of the leading theories concerning the origins, development, and significance of myths together with the allusive and allegorical use of myth in later literature and art.

ENGL 212   The Bible as Literature    3 Credit Hours
Prerequisite: ENGL 102
A study of selected portions of the Old and New Testaments as literary masterpieces and cultural monuments, with some attention to the major systems of interpretation.

ENGL 215   Masterpieces of American Literature    3 Credit Hours
Prerequisite: ENGL 101 and ENGL 102
A survey of representative works of American literature from its beginning to the present, with some consideration of principal literary developments and historical issues. Authors may include Bradford, Emerson, Melville, Dickinson, Twain, James, Hemingway, Faulkner, O'Neill, Pound, Hurston, O'Connor, and Rich.

ENGL 218   Masterpieces of World Literature I    3 Credit Hours
Prerequisite: ENGL 101 and ENGL 102
Study of works of world literature to 1650, both western and non-western, from major cultural centers such as ancient Greece, Rome, and India; Medieval Europe; Tang China; and Heian Japan. Readings will include epics, plays, and lyric poems.

ENGL 219   Masterpieces of World Literature II    3 Credit Hours
Prerequisite: ENGL 101 and ENGL 102
A survey of world literature (in translation) from 1650 to the present, with emphasis on both non-English European works and works written outside the Western tradition. The periods and topics covered will include the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, European Romanticism and Realism of the 19th century, and developments in the literatures of Africa, India, Japan, China, and South America in the 20th century. Reading will include drama, poetry, and prose fiction.

ENGL 301   Chaucer   3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
An introduction to Chaucer's language, art, and cultural milieu through readings of The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, and some of the shorter poems.

ENGL 303 & ENGL 304   Shakespeare I & II    3 Credit Hours Each Semester
Open to juniors and seniors.
Each course will present students with different but representative selections from the comedies, histories, and tragedies. Since the courses will not overlap, students may take both.

ENGL 305   Milton   3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of Paradise Lost, of Samson Agonistes, and of representative prose works, with special attention to their philosophical content.

ENGL 310   Literature of Medieval England    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A survey of the most important literature composed during the Old English and Middle English periods, exclusive of Chaucer. Some works will be read in the original languages, some in translation.

ENGL 320   Sixteenth Century Poetry and Prose    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of the principal English writers of the period, with particular emphasis on the prominent aspects of the Renaissance spirit.

ENGL 321   Seventeenth Century Poetry and Prose    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of representative prose prior to the Restoration, of representative poetry of Ben Jonson and his "sons," and of John Donne and the metaphysical poets.

ENGL 322   English Drama to 1642   3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of representative plays, exclusive of Shakespeare's, from the medieval beginnings of English drama to the closing of the theatres in 1642.

ENGL 323   Restoration and Early Eighteenth    3 Credit Hours
Century Literature
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of the new spirit of English prose, poetry, and drama which came with the Restoration. Some emphasis will be given to the philosophical, religious, political, and social backgrounds.

ENGL 324   The Age of Johnson   3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of the decline of Neoclassicism and the movement toward Romanticism in the poetry, fiction, drama, and nonfiction prose of the age.

ENGL 325   The Romantic Movement 3    Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of the chief features which culminated in the Romanticism of the nineteenth century, with special emphasis on the five major poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.

ENGL 326   Victorian Poetry and Prose    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of the period from 1830 to 1900, showing the effects of the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions on traditional attitudes toward art and life through the works of the major writers of the period, with emphasis upon the poetry of Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, and Hopkins; and upon the prose of Carlyle, Arnold, Mill, and Ruskin.

ENGL 327   Nineteenth Century British Novel    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of selected works of major nineteenth century British novelists such as Austen, Scott, the Brontes, Thackeray, Dickens, Eliot, Trollope, and Hardy.

ENGL 332   Twentieth Century British Fiction    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A course in the reading and critical analysis of selected British novels by writers like Conrad, Joyce, Lawrence, Forster, Woolf, and Waugh.

ENGL 336   Twentieth Century British Poetry    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of British poets from the 1890s until World War II, with an emphasis on the work of Hopkins, Hardy, the poets of the First World War, Yeats, Thomas, and Auden.

ENGL 340   Southern Literature to 1900    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A survey of the literary achievement of Southern writers from 1710 to 1900.

ENGL 341   Early American Literature    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of American writings from the time of the first settlement through the colonial period, ending with early nationalism.

ENGL 342   American Romantic Literature    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of American authors from the period of the establishment of a national literature. The course includes such writers as Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman.

ENGL 343   Literature of American Realism    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of American literature following the Civil War and up to the twentieth century. The course includes local colorists and such writers as Dickinson, Twain, James, and Crane.

ENGL 346   Twentieth Century American Fiction    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of major American fiction since 1900. Authors studied may include Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Stein, Mailer, Styron, Pynchon, and Toni Morrison.

ENGL 347   Twentieth Century American Poetry and Drama   3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A survey of American poetry and drama since 1900. The course will cover such poets as Robinson, Frost, Eliot, Stevens, Pound, Moore, and Bishop, and such playwrights as O'Neill, Williams, Miller, Albee, and August Wilson.

ENGL 348   Twentieth Century Southern Literature    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of the most important Southern authors of the twentieth century, with emphasis on significant regional topics such as the Fugitive and Agrarian Movements, the development of the Southern Tradition, and the Southern Gothic School.

ENGL 349   African-American Literature    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A survey of African-American poetry, fiction, and drama, featuring works from the Harlem Renaissance, the Depression, and postwar and contemporary periods.

ENGL 360, ENGL 362, & ENGL 364   A Survey of World  Literature I, II, & III 
3 Credit Hours Each Semester
Open to juniors and seniors.
Masterpieces of world literature in translation, including non-Western literature, with special attention to the philosophical content and development of literary forms. ENGL 360: From the Rig Veda to Dante. ENGL 362: From Boccaccio through the nineteenth century. ENGL 364: Twentieth century.

ENGL 368   Twentieth Century Drama    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
Representative plays of the twentieth century, with emphasis on European and non-Western works.

ENGL 370   Adolescent Literature   3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors, but designed for the secondary-school teacher.
A study of literature for the adolescent, including methods of introducing the major literary genres to the secondary-school student.

ENGL 375   Special Topic in Literature or Language    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of an individual author, topic, or problem in literature or language.

ENGL 401   Independent Study   3 Credit Hours
Prerequisites: Approval of the department head.
Open to senior English majors with a GPR of 3.0 or better.
A tutorial course individually designed to meet the needs or special interests of one or a few students. Assignments, tutorial sessions, tests, and papers will be assigned by the professor in consultation with individual students.

ENGL 402 & ENGL 403   Senior Seminar I & II   3 Credit Hours Each Semester
Open to senior English majors.
A seminar on an individual author, topic, or problem, as suggested by members of the faculty or by groups of English majors and subject to the approval of the department head in consultation with the instructor.

ENGL 407   Principles of Literary Criticism    3 Credit Hours
Open to senior English majors and to any student who has completed four courses in English above the sophomore level, or to any student with the approval of the department head.
A study of literary criticism from the classical tradition to the modern period.

ENGL 411   Writing in the Professions    3 Credit Hours
Prerequisite: ENGL 102
The course emphasizes the application of the principles of effective writing and of vocabulary development to a given profession such as law, engineering, or medicine.

ENGL 413   Advanced Composition   3 Credit Hours
Prerequisite: ENGL 102
The study and practice of advanced writing techniques for those who wish to improve their prose styles. This course fulfills state teacher certification requirements for advanced composition.

ENGL 414   Modern English Grammar    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors, but designed for the secondary-school teacher.
An analysis of the structure of Modern English, its phonology, morphology, and syntax, with explorations into the conceptual basis of language and the way in which grammar generates meaning.

ENGL 415   The English Language   3 Credit Hours
Open to sophomores with approval of department head, and to juniors and seniors.
A survey of the English language beginning with the Indo-European backgrounds, tracing the development of Old, Middle, and Modern English through major phonological, morphological, and syntactic changes with attention to dialectical variations and semantic changes.

ENGL 426   Creative Writing: Fiction    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of the craft of fiction and its most important elements. Students will consider appropriate models and, in a workshop setting, develop their own skills. Requirements include completion of a substantial piece of fiction.

ENGL 427   Creative Writing: Poetry    3 Credit Hours
Open to juniors and seniors.
A study of the craft of poetry, including the examination of appropriate models and theories, and, in a workshop setting, directed practice in writing. Requirements include completion of six to eight well-crafted poems.

ENGL 499   Practicum in Professional Writing    3 Credit Hours
Prerequisite: Permission of department head and supervising professor.
Open to seniors.
Students who have demonstrated their ability to write effectively work several hours per week in the Charleston community under the supervision of a professional in law, religion, health, engineering, communications, or other field. Students must provide their own transportation.