An introduction to literary study, with an emphasis on the formal analysis of a diverse range of poetry and prose. Specific content and approach vary from section to section, but all sections share the goals of developing sensitivity to genre, cultivating writing skills, and providing students with a set of literary terms and critical techniques as a foundation for further literary study.
NOTE Also offered online, consult Arts and Science Online (Learning Hours may vary).
NOTE Also offered at Bader College, UK (Learning Hours may vary).

What is literature and why does it matter? Explore the range of language arts that have come to be called literature, whether in print, manuscript, performance, or new media, and how they shape ideas and imaginations. Cultivate your analytic writing and discover new methods and language for scholarly study. Reading lists vary.

A sampling of English-language literary masterpieces from various periods and places, each of which had a significant impact on how their contemporary cultures understood massive social, political, and cultural change, and each of which remain influential today.

This course examines contemporary literature written in Canada that addresses some of the most urgent issues today: the portrayal of identity, racism, and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.

An exploration of three foundation pop culture genres, focusing both on how they work and how they have developed. Themes may include the role of technology, the supernatural, portrayals of gender and race, among others. This course also interrogates the boundary between genre fiction and elite genres.

A survey of texts that deal with fantastic, imaginary, or artificially constructed creatures, investigating how such beings help us think about what it means to be human. We will read texts by writers of myth, fantasy and science fiction that introduce us to humanoid, shapeshifting, or uncanny creatures, thereby asking us to consider what makes a being human.

This course explores language and literature as a field in which people struggle, create communities, and play, and meaning as negotiated, context-dependent, and mobile. Assignments will invite students to disrupt presumptions of single meanings, and to devise deliberate strategies for communicating with specific audiences.

This course aims to unlock poetry for students as an urgently relevant form of artful communication by focusing on the fundamental tools poets use to make meaning: form, style, tone, intertext. It includes song lyrics to demonstrate that poetry remains a vital part of popular culture.

This course explores how human relationships with the planet have been represented, and how they vary across space and time. It responds to our age of ecological crisis by tracking planetary concerns across a variety of literary genres and modes. Assignments invite students to reflect on their own beliefs and actions vis-à-vis the planet.

This course examines the unique perspectives that literary works offer on urgent questions of race, sexuality, queerness, feminism, and ability. Focusing on texts from the past and the contemporary era, it explores how literature can complicate and enrich existing vocabularies for thinking about identity, difference, and solidarity.

This course explores how love and eros in literature express truths and troubles of gender and sexuality for diverse individual lives and social worlds. Either or both of the related literary meanings of romance, as magical adventure and as love story, may provide a focus for the syllabus.

How do representations of mental health shift across time and genre, and what is the role of narrative in building our tolerance for a life of deferral, ambiguity, and loss? This course explores the relationship between literature and psychical life, inviting students to investigate the meaning of madness, and what its opposite might be.

This course is designed to promote interest in and understanding of modern prose fiction by introducing students to a selection of the best novels and short stories of the 20th century. British, American, and Canadian authors are represented.
NOTE This course cannot be counted toward an ENGL Plan nor used as a prerequisite for upper-year ENGL courses.

This course is designed to promote interest in and understanding of modern prose fiction by introducing students to a selection of the best novels and short stories of the 20th century from across the globe.
NOTE ENGL 161 is offered in the Fall term, and is linked to ENGL 162, which is offered in the Winter; although students are encouraged to enroll in both 161 and 162, these are separate courses that can be taken on their own.
NOTE This course cannot be counted toward an ENGL Plan nor used as a pre-requisite for upper-year ENGL courses.

This course is designed to promote interest in and understanding of modern prose fiction by introducing students to a selection of the best novels and short stories of the 20th century from across the globe.
NOTE ENGL 162 is offered in the Winter term, and is linked to ENGL 161, which is offered in the Fall; although students are encouraged to enroll in both 161 and 162, these are separate courses that can be taken on their own.
NOTE This course cannot be counted toward an ENGL Plan nor used as a prerequisite for upper-year ENGL courses.

An historical survey of literature from the British Isles and beyond. Through the study of representative works, the course aims to familiarize students with the characteristics of literary periods from the Middle Ages to the present.
NOTE Also offered online, consult Arts and Science Online (Learning Hours may vary).

A survey history of the English language from its origins in proto-Indo-European to the variety of contemporary world Englishes, with special emphasis on English as a language of literature.

Introduction to the literature of Britain and Western Europe from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. Non-English works are read in translation; some training in Middle English is provided. Readings may include romance, troubadour poetry, history and pseudo history, drama, women's writing, and authors such as Dante, Boccaccio, and Chaucer.

A survey of Canadian literature in English from its beginnings to the contemporary period. Readings will include poetry, short fiction and nonfiction, as well as novels from various eras; authors to be studied may include Moodie, Atwood, Klein, Richler, Callaghan, Ondaatje, Laurence, Munro, Brand, and King.
NOTE Also offered online, consult Arts and Science Online (Learning Hours may vary).

A survey of American prose and poetry from the Puritans to the present.

A comparative survey of representative works of literature from around the globe (including Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, and the Indian subcontinent) that engage with the history and legacy of colonialism. Themes under consideration may include: cultural memory; economic underdevelopment; hybrid identity; linguistic diversity; political resistance.

This course examines Indigenous novels, traditional stories, poetry, short stories, and plays from various time periods, written by Métis, Inuit, and First Nations authors. We will study the themes, aesthetics, and politics of the texts, using a combination of culturally specific and pan-Indigenous approaches.
NOTE Also offered online, consult Arts and Science Online (Learning Hours may vary).

A survey of women writers from before 1900. The historical and geographical focus of the course may vary from year to year; for details, consult the Department.
NOTE Also offered online, consult Arts and Science Online (Learning Hours may vary).

A survey of women writers from after 1900. The historical and geographical focus of the course may vary from year to year; for details, consult the Department.
NOTE Also offered online, consult Arts and Science Online (Learning Hours may vary).

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

A study of this relatively modern genre with emphasis on methods of close textual analysis of European, British, and North American texts.

Life writing includes autobiography, biography, diaries, letters, and memoirs. The aim of this course will be to explore its generic conventions and innovations, to consider the interplay between lived experience and its textual representation, and to examine the social and cultural dimensions of life stories.

A critical study of literature written for children or appropriated by adults for the nursery. The emphasis will be on distinguishing the characteristics and cultural significance of a variety of works from the medieval to the modern period.
NOTE Also offered online, consult Arts and Science Online (Learning Hours may vary).
NOTE Also offered at Bader College, UK (Learning Hours may vary).

A study of the art of graphic narrative from newspaper strips of the Golden Age to current graphic novels, comprising history, aesthetics, and close reading of graphic narrative as a form of literature.

A study of modern fiction, including works by such writers as James, Conrad, Ford, Joyce, Woolf.

A study of form and technique in modern poetry and plays by such writers as Yeats, Eliot, Auden, Shaw, Beckett.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

A study of Shakespeare's plays in relation to the social, intellectual, and political climate of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods and with reference to theatrical production.
NOTE Also offered online, consult Arts and Science Online (Learning Hours may vary).

A study of eight of Shakespeare's plays in relation to the social, intellectual, and political climate of the Elizabethan period and with reference to theatrical production.
NOTE Also offered at Bader College, UK (Learning Hours may vary).

A study of eight of Shakespeare's plays in relation to the social, intellectual, and political climate of the Jacobean period and with reference to theatrical production.
NOTE Also offered at Bader College, UK (Learning Hours may vary).

A study of the dissemination of Shakespeare's plays across a range of cultures and sites from the early seventeenth century to the present, with a focus on the development of Shakespeare as a 'global' author. Selected plays will be studied in historical context and in geographically diverse adaptations in theatrical, print, and electronic media.
NOTE Also offered online, consult Arts and Science Online (Learning Hours may vary).

For detailed information, consult the Department.
NOTE This course is repeatable for credit under different topic titles.
NOTE Also offered at Bader College, UK (Learning Hours may vary).

For detailed information, consult the Department.

A study of literature dealing with the fantastic or containing supernatural or uncanny elements. This course may include samples of myth, romance, Gothic literature, and fantasy from a variety of periods.
NOTE Also offered online, consult Arts and Science Online (Learning Hours may vary).

A study of texts that have war as their subject, examining the cultural functions war literature performs (such as recruiting, celebrating, healing, mourning, witnessing, commemorating, protesting), as well as its role in the construction of collective memory and national identity. The particular focus may vary from year to year; for detailed information, consult the Department.

This course explores the relationships between race, migration, and multiculturalism in Canadian contexts. It provides students with the cultural and historical knowledge required to critically engage with urgent contemporary concerns such as national identity, settler culture, racism, diaspora, and activism in the name of justice and equality.
NOTE Only offered online, consult Arts and Science Online.

Through study of literary texts, this course will introduce students to a range of ways humans have imagined or documented their relation to the natural world. Students will engage with a range of cultural perspective including Indigenous environmental knowledge. Assignments will include personal reflection, essay, and exam.

This course will explore how different literary works represent desire, romance, queerness, and other gender-related issues. Particular focus may vary from year to year; for detailed information, consult the Department.

A study of English-language literature emphasizing or relating to its sense of place. Course content may vary from year to year.
NOTE Also offered at Bader College, UK (Learning Hours may vary).

Students will read a range of controversial books, and discuss the contexts and content of calls that they be banned. What ideas about literature, religion, and social order underpin such initiatives? Can limiting access to literature ever be justified? Authors may include Milton, Rushdie, Hitler, Twain, Nabokov, Joyce, Lee, and Morrison.
NOTE Also offered at Bader College, UK (Learning Hours may vary).

This course investigates the enduring popularity of the legend of Arthur, with an emphasis on its adaptability to the changing values and viewpoints of different cultural moments (Celtic, Medieval, Victorian, Modern). Themes to be investigated may include chivalry, courtly love, the grail quest, national identity, politics and gender relationships.
NOTE Medieval texts will be read in modern translation.
NOTE Also offered online, consult Arts and Science Online (Learning Hours may vary).
NOTE Also offered at Bader College, UK (Learning Hours may vary).

A study of particular issues and themes in Canadian literature from the 1970s to the present (e.g., postmodernism, multiculturalism, gender and sexual diversity, class relations, migration).

A study of one particular issue or theme in Canadian literature. For detailed information, consult the Department.

A study of one particular issue or theme in Canadian literature. For detailed information, consult the Department.

The British Army established Kingston in 1783 in the wake of defeat in the Revolutionary War. Before and since, this has been Indigenous space, named by the Hurons Ka'tarohkwi. Engaging literary, geographical, and historical perspectives, this course grapples with concepts of treaty, territory, memory, and place to unsettle colonial presumptions.

An intensive study of one text or a cluster of related texts, cultivating close reading skills through discussion. The course develops students' writing abilities and also introduces the basic research tools of literary studies.

A study of the relationships between literary texts written in English, from classics to contemporary popular fiction, and their adaptations in a range of media, comprising close analysis, historical and cultural investigation into national and transnational formulations of adaptation, and discussion of the processes and theories of adaptation.
NOTE Also offered at Bader College, UK (Learning Hours may vary).

Emphasizes literary, rhetorical, and critical terminology, the variety of critical approaches, and the ways in which critical practices (e.g., of editing, interpretation, or evaluation) are related to literary theory. Surveys works of literary theory ranging from ancient to contemporary times.

Introduces cultural studies from a primarily literary perspective, surveying critical approaches associated with this interdisciplinary field of study, and paying special attention to the study of popular culture and questions of aesthetic value through readings drawn from a range of pop cultural genres (such as horror, romance, crime fiction).

In-depth exploration of the cultural significance of one particular genre, issue, or theme (for instance, spy fiction, literary prizes, youth subcultures). Topics may vary from year to year; for detailed information, consult the departmental website.

Surveys influential works of literary and critical theory, with a particular focus on contemporary movements that have informed the interpretation and evaluation of literary texts (e.g., formalism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, postcolonialism, feminist and queer studies).
NOTE ENGL 296 is offered in the Fall term, and is linked to ENGL 297, which is offered in the Winter; although students are encouraged to enrol in both 296 and 297, these are separate courses that can be taken on their own.

Surveys influential works of literary and critical theory, with a particular focus on contemporary movements that have informed the interpretation and evaluation of literary texts (e.g., formalism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, postcolonialism, feminist and queer studies).
NOTE ENGL 297 is offered in the Winter term, and is linked to ENGL 296, which is offered in the Winter; although students are encouraged to enroll in both 296 and 297, these are separate courses that can be taken on their own.

A survey of major literary works written in Old English and Old Norse from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries. Readings will include sagas, epics, elegies, riddles, mythology, as well as historical and religious writing.

A survey of vernacular literature composed in the British Isles before 1500. Readings may be taken from Welsh, Irish, Old English, Norman and Middle English literature and may include such works as The Mabinogion, the Lais of Marie de France, Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and selections from Chaucer.

A study of the poetry, drama, and prose of late medieval Britain. Texts are read in Middle English; language training is provided. Readings may include the dramatic cycles, Arthurian romance, Chaucer and his successors, women's writing, spiritual writing, historiography, and the culture of political and religious dissent.

This course introduces students to major pieces of medieval literature, their cultural contexts, and associated critical paradigms. Situating texts from England in an international context illuminates the dynamic literary exchange among England, Europe, and the Islamicate cultures of the Mediterranean.

This course surveys early romance, and particularly chivalric romance, from its first flowering during the twelfth century to the allegorical romance of the early modern period. Writers and works to be read may include Chrétien de Troyes, Marie de France, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Thomas Malory, Sir Philip Sidney, and Edmund Spenser.

A study of Renaissance poetry and prose but excluding drama, with emphasis on the works of Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton. Such writers as More, Marlowe, Nashe, Jonson, and Bacon may be included.

The development of English drama from 1580 to 1642 with emphasis on Shakespeare, but including plays by such writers as Lyly, Greene, Marlowe, Dekker, Jonson, Marston, Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, and Massinger.

A study of poetry, drama, and prose of the major writers of the period 1660-1800. Readings will be drawn from the works of writers such as Dryden, Pope, Swift, Johnson, Fielding, and Richardson.

A study of English drama from the medieval to the Restoration period. Emphasis falls on tracing the development of dramatic forms, traditions, and performance practices in relation to socio-cultural history.

A study of the origins of the English novel from early modern prose romances and satires to the gothic novel. Emphasis falls on tracing the development of narrative forms and their relation to socio-cultural history.

An intensive study of the Romantics with emphasis on the works of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.

American literature after the Revolution was arguably the first postcolonial literature in English. Through the study of literature in many genres, this course will explore relationships between innovation and tradition, and between the nation and its others, over the course of the long nineteenth century (roughly 1780 to 1920).

A study of nineteenth-century literature from both sides of the Atlantic. This course will explore cultural transactions between Europe and the Americas from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, with special attention to the transatlantic dimension of literary movements such as Romanticism, Realism, and Modernism.

An exploration of the relationship between Victorian literature and culture. This course will examine novels, poems, and essays written between 1830 and 1900 with attention to their particular literary, historical, and social contexts.

A course emphasizing romance and gothic traditions, beginning with the scholarly revival of romance in the mid-eighteenth century and culminating with modern gothic of the late-nineteenth century.

A study of British nineteenth-century fiction featuring selected writers from Jane Austen to Thomas Hardy.

A study of the relationship between literary texts and the burgeoning visual culture of the period. Representative visual forms might include book illustration and design, painting, photography, and commercial advertisement.

A study of poetry, prose, and drama from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century.

A study of poetry from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

A study of prose fiction from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

A study of poetry, prose, and drama from the mid-twentieth century to the present.

Studies in modern and/or contemporary American fiction, poetry, and drama.

Studies in Canadian fiction, poetry, and literary criticism in relation to recurring concerns within Canadian cultural history.

Studies in literature from a specific nation or region of the postcolonial world (such as South Africa, West Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, South Asia). Content will vary, but the aim will be to explore the cultural and historical contexts that inform literary production in the particular nation or region under study.

A study of the creative interactions between print literature and modern audio and visual media such as mass circulation newspaper, radio, film, television, and digital devices.

A study of modern and/or contemporary North American literatures (which may include some works in translation). Content will vary, but the aim will be to discern how cultural similarities and differences are reflected in individual works by writers from (e.g.) Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.
NOTE This course is repeatable for credit under different topic titles.

For detailed information, consult the Department.
NOTE This course is repeatable for credit under different topic titles.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

Studies in literary topics focused on the period before 1800 that do not fit within the established Group I rubrics (Medieval, Renaissance, Restoration/18th Century). For detailed information, consult the Department.

Studies in literary topics focused on the period before 1800 that do not fit within the established Group I rubrics (Medieval, Renaissance, Restoration/18th Century). For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

Studies of 19th-century literature produced in the Americas (Canada, United States, and elsewhere in the western hemisphere). Geographical focus will vary from year to year. For detailed information, consult the Department.

Studies of 19th-century literature produced in the Americas (Canada, United States, and elsewhere in the western hemisphere). Geographical focus will vary from year to year. For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

Studies in literary topics focused on "the long nineteenth century" that do not fit within the established Group II rubrics (Romantic Literature, Victorian Literature, Literature of the Americas). For detailed information, consult the Department.

Studies in literary topics focused on "the long nineteenth century" that do not fit within the established Group II rubrics (Romantic Literature, Victorian Literature, Literature of the Americas). For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

A study of the theory and practice of modernist writers in Britain and North America. Texts will include theoretical manifestoes as well as creative writing. Some attention will be given to the modernist movement in other arts.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.
NOTE This course is repeatable for credit under different topic titles.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

Studies focused on Modern and Contemporary literature that do not fit within the established rubrics (British, Canadian, American, Postcolonial, Indigenous). For detailed information, consult the Department.

Studies focused on Modern and Contemporary literature that do not fit within the established rubrics (British, Canadian, American, Postcolonial, Indigenous). For detailed information, consult the Department.

Studies focused on Modern and Contemporary literature that do not fit within the established rubrics (British, Canadian, American, Postcolonial, Indigenous). For detailed information, consult the Department.

Studies focused on Modern and Contemporary literature that do not fit within the established rubrics (British, Canadian, American, Postcolonial, Indigenous). For detailed information, consult the Department.

Studies in literary topics that cross over the historical boundaries between Groups A, B, and C. For detailed information, consult the Department.

Studies in literary topics that cross over the historical boundaries between Groups A, B, and C. For detailed information, consult the Department.

Studies in literary topics that cross over the historical boundaries between Groups A, B, and C. For detailed information, consult the Department.

Studies in literary topics that cross over the historical boundaries between Groups A, B, and C. For detailed information, consult the Department.

Studies in representative critical theories from antiquity onwards, with special emphasis on modern criticism both in its theoretical and practical aspects.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

For detailed information, consult the Department.

A critical essay of at least 7500 words on a topic of the student's choice, written under the supervision of a faculty member. For additional information, students should consult the Department, preferably in the spring of their third year.