British Women Writers

Catalog description

A study of selected British women writers. ENGL (WMNST) 489 British Women Writers (3) This course provides the opportunity to study writing by British Women from a historical perspective and to explore the views these women have of themselves as artists. The course will concentrate on a careful reading of works by a variety of authors. It will address the question of the role gender plays in the selection of literary forms and the development of character, theme, symbols, and rhetorical strategies. It will also explore what particular dimensions British women writers have brought to the British literary tradition.Students will be active learners through keeping reading journals, presenting background reports on the history of women in England, participating in small-group discussions about the texts, and writing 2 shorter essays and one longer research essay for the class. This course focuses on an area of British literature, which more traditionally structured courses tend to obscure. The course will be attractive to students from a variety of programs, including English majors, Women's Studies minors, and Interdisciplinary Humanities students. The course will be offered once every two years. Estimated class size 20.