ST EDMUND HALL OXFORD OX1 4AR Telephone (Switchboard): 01865 279000 Telephone (College Office): 01865 279008 Fax (College Office): 01865 279002 Dear Incoming English Student, July 11, 2018 Welcome to Teddy Hall! We re very much looking forward to seeing you again in October. This letter is to give you a first glimpse into your studies here and to let you know what you should be doing this summer in preparation. In your first year at the college, you will be studying four courses: one is a broad introduction to the study of English Language and Literature (Paper 1), one will focus on early medieval literature (Paper 2), one will look at literature in English from 1830-1910 (Paper 3), and one will look at literature in English from 1910 to the present day (Paper 4). The three Oxford terms Michaelmas, Hilary, and Trinity are short and very busy, so it s absolutely vital that you read and prepare as much as possible before each term starts. You will need to use your weeks during term time to write essays and fine-tune your thoughts about the reading you have done over the vacation. To make sure you hit the ground running this autumn, we have compiled summer vacation reading lists for each of the three courses you will be taking in Michaelmas Term (you will receive a full reading list for the fourth paper, Paper 4, prior to winter break in December). There s a lot of material here including some long novels, so it is crucial that you get started on this reading immediately and work steadily over the summer! We hope it will be fun. For university-level study, it is important that you use well-edited and annotated editions of texts whenever available. We have included information on recommended editions for much of the reading listed below, and you should get your hands on these texts as soon as possible. If we have not specified particular editions, try to use series such as Oxford World s Classics, Penguin Classics, Norton Critical Editions, or Broadview editions all of which include notes and reproduce faithful editions of texts. You should be able to find all of your texts on Amazon or at Blackwells (instore or online); cheaper, second-hand copies of many titles are available from abebooks.com or third-party sellers on Amazon, and you are welcome to purchase these just be sure you are buying the most up-to-date/recommended edition. PAPER 1: INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE This paper will be taught in two parts across the entirety of your first year and is designed to provide you with the key skills, concepts and methodologies that you will need as you go through your degree. Part A covers issues related to Language ; Part B covers issues related to Literature (though obviously these concerns overlap!). You will learn the basics of what it means to be a literary scholar. Here are some starting points for each section: Part A: Approaches to Language Section A covers various approaches to language, introducing you both to the study of the language of literary and non-literary texts in their historical and cultural contexts and to the analysis of form and meaning in language. The English Faculty suggests the following three books as introductory reading for Section A of Prelims Paper 1, which you should read before you arrive in Oxford:
(1) Ronald Carter and Walter Nash, Seeing Through Language: A Guide to Styles of English Writing (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1990) (2) Jonathan Culpeper, History of English, Language Workbooks, second edition (London: Routledge, 2005) (3) The Language, Society, and Power Reader, ed. Annabelle Mooney et al. (London: Routledge, 2011). A new fifth edition of this book will be published in September 2018: you might want to wait until then to buy this newer edition. Whatever your prior knowledge of English grammar (which might be a little or a lot!), you should prepare yourself by working through the whole of the UCL Internet Grammar of English at the following website: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/ Each section of the Internet Grammar has useful exercises to test your understanding. You should complete all of these exercises before you arrive in Oxford and you will be expected to show knowledge and understanding of this basic grammatical material in our classes. David Crystal s Rediscover Grammar, third edition (London: Longman, 2004) provides a similar introduction and reference manual in book form. The Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English, ed. Biber, Conrad and Leech (Harlow: Longman, 2002) is an excellent reference volume to buy for this section of the paper. Part B: Approaches to Literature As a starting point for Part B, you should get your hands on the following books of and about literary theory and read around them as much as possible: The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism (2011), ed. Leitch, Cain, Finke, et al. Jonathan Culler, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (2011) We also recommend the following excellent books of criticism, which may act as models for you as you begin to develop your own style as a literary critic: On poetry: Christopher Ricks, The Force of Poetry (1986) William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930) On fiction: James Wood, How Fiction Works (2008) E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (1927) Three more specialist studies: Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (1946) Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (1983) Derek Attridge, The Singularity of Literature (2004) 2
Fuller reading lists and a course plan for both parts of the paper will follow when you arrive in October. PAPER 2: EARLY MEDIEVAL LITERATURE, c. 650 1350 This paper covers both Old English literature and early Middle English literature. Given that Oxford terms are very busy, it would be sensible to begin your preparation for Old English before you arrive in Oxford. To help you start to learn about Old English as a language, please buy and read the following book: Peter S Baker, Introduction to Old English, third edition (Wiley- Blackwell, 2012). Once you have read this introduction, please translate two short Old English poems: The Wanderer and The Dream of the Rood (these are two of the set texts for this paper). You can find these poems in the anthology section of Baker s Introduction: use Baker s glossary as well as the rest of his Introduction to help you. The Oxford English Faculty has also provided online versions of these set texts. There are two online versions, both useful: (1) http://english.nsms.ox.ac.uk/oecoursepack/ (2) https://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/portal/site/:humdiv:engfac:prelims-2 In the case of the second website, click on the link labelled Set texts at the bottom of the page. Your translations do not need to be perfect: please don t worry if there are bits which you are not sure about. We will discuss these texts further and perfect your translations in our commentary classes. If you encounter any difficulties, please email Dr Jenni Nuttall (jennifer.nuttall@seh.ox.ac.uk) who will be teaching this paper in Michaelmas Term. It would also be a very good idea to do some reading for the literary side of this paper. Here are some things to start with: Seamus Heaney, trans., Beowulf (Faber & Faber, 1999) The longest and greatest of Old English poems: PLEASE read the whole thing in Heaney s workmanlike translation it isn't that long. You might want to look at the DVD of the recent motioncapture Beowulf, with Angelina Jolie. It's an interesting (if in places fairly ludicrous) take on the events of the poem. J. R. R. Tolkien (ed. & trans.), Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary (2014) This recently published commentary is old-fashioned (he wrote it in the 1920s), but it s nonetheless useful and very readable; I got a lot out of it and I know the poem well. Elaine Treharne (ed.) Old and Middle English, c.890-1400: An Anthology (Oxford, 2004) Concentrate on the pre-1350 stuff (so ignore Chaucer, Langland, the Gawain-poet, Lydgate, and Gower: we do these in your second year). Kevin Crossley-Holland, The Anglo-Saxon World: An Anthology (1982) Lovely, useful guide. James Campbell (et al.), The Anglo-Saxons (Penguin, 1991) This is a stunningly illustrated guide to Anglo-Saxon culture. Not essential, but pretty. 3
PAPER 3: LITERATURE IN ENGLISH, 1830-1910 This paper is taught during Michaelmas term and covers literature from both Britain and America written between 1830 and 1910. Because this period encompasses both the Victorian novel and several long prose texts from the American Renaissance along with excellent poetry from both sides of the Atlantic, it is crucial that you do as much of this reading as possible before you arrive at Teddy Hall in October. There is simply too much else to do in eight weeks of term to leave this amount of reading until then. Please purchase the following two anthologies now; they are excellent collections of important works from the period including poems, short stories, and prose writings. Dip in and out of them, and see what moves you. There will be plenty of scope for you to mould your reading when you get here, so don t be afraid to form opinions and preferences and to be guided by them. That is to say, follow your nose and dive into whatever moves you most! The Norton Anthology of English Literature Volume E: The Victorians, general ed. Stephen Greenblatt (9 th edition, 2012) The Norton Anthology of American Literature Volume B: 1820-1865, general ed. Robert S. Levine (9 th edition, 2017) Please read as many of the following primary texts as possible in advance of term. In brackets are recommended editions, all of which can be found cheaply from second-hand booksellers (including abebooks.co.uk and Amazon marketplace). Other editions are OK, as long as they re published by one of the following: any University Press, Penguin, Norton, Broadview. Long Fiction Recommended The following will not be the main focus of any particular week, but will be vital touchstones throughout for the topics and questions we ll be discussing. These are really the big novels of the period, so it would be very helpful if you were familiar with them. George Eliot, Middlemarch, ed. David Carroll (Oxford University Press) Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, eds. Helen Small and Ian Jack (Oxford University Press) Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady, ed. Roger Luckhurst (Oxford University Press) William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ed. John Carey (Penguin Classics) Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, ed. Tony Tanner (Oxford University Press) The following novels will be the main focus of classes or tutorials during the term. I ve starred the ones that you will want to make sure you read before term begins, due to their length or the density of their language. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations*, ed. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst (Oxford University Press), David Copperfield*, ed. Nina Burgis (Oxford University Press) George Eliot, Adam Bede*, ed. Carol A. Martin (Oxford University Press) Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, ed. Josephine McDonagh (Oxford University Press) Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton, ed. Jennifer Foster (Broadview Editions) 4
Henry James, The Bostonians*, ed. Richard Lansdown (Penguin Classics) Oscar Wilde, The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray: A Reader s Edition, ed. Nicholas Frankel (Harvard University Press) George Gissing, The New Grub Street, ed. Katherine Mullin / John Goode (Oxford University Press) Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom s Cabin, ed. Elizabeth Ammons (Norton Critical Editions) George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel*, ed. John Halperin (Oxford University Press) this is now out of print, and can only be got hold of second-hand Short Fiction Henry James, In the Cage, in Selected Tales, ed. John Lyon (Penguin Classics) George Eliot, The Lifted Veil, in The Lifted Veil and Brother Jacob, ed. Helen Small (Oxford University Press) Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener (in your Norton anthology) George and Weedon Grossmith, The Diary of a Nobody, ed. Kate Flint (Oxford University Press) Poems Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam*, in Selected Poems, ed. Christopher Ricks (Penguin Classics) Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh*, in Aurora Leigh and Other Poems, ed. John Bolton (Penguin Classics) Selections from the following authors, included in your Norton anthologies: Matthew Arnold, Emily Brontë, Robert Browning, Arthur Hugh Clough, Emily Dickinson, Thomas Hardy, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Christina Rossetti, Algernon Swinburne, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Walt Whitman Non-Fiction Prose Browse around the selections of the following authors in your two anthologies: Thomas Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, John Stuart Mill, Walter Pater, John Ruskin, Charles Darwin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Frederick Douglass As you acquaint yourself with the primary literature, you may find it helpful to consult these general and classic studies of the period, which will give some historical and cultural context. They will likely become invaluable as you prepare for your examinations at the end of the year. On the British material: Philip Davis, The Victorians 1830-1880 (Oxford University Press, 2004) Robin Gilmour, The Victorian Period (Longman, 1993) On the American material: Richard Poirier, A World Elsewhere: The Place of Style in American Literature (1966) F. O. Matthiessen, American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman (1941) D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature (1923; repr. Penguin, 1977) ~ 5
We hope you have a wonderful and productive summer. Happy reading! We are very much looking forward to having you here soon. Sincerely, The Teddy Hall English Tutors 6