1 | Introduction | n/a |
2 |
Odyssey, excerpts from Book I; Books 9–12 | n/a |
3 | Odyssey | n/a |
4 | Chrétien. "The Knight of the Cart" In Arthurian Romances
| Courtly love in the Middle Ages; Eleanor of Aquitaine and her daughter Marie de Champagne |
5 | "The Knight of the Cart" (continued) | Origins and versions of the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table |
6 |
Don Quixote, Prologue and Chapters 1–5, 7–22, and 52 (i.e., pp. 11–51, 58–186, and 467–79) | The picaro and picaresque literature in relationship to Don Quixote
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7 | Don Quixote | The Hidalgo in the class system of Renaissance Spain; the concept of "Clean Blood;" and the place of Jews and Arabs in the Spanish historical background to Don Quixote
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8 |
Gulliver's Travels, Parts 1 and 4 ("A Voyage to Lilliput" and "A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms") | Jonathan Swift's politics; Whigs and Tories in early 18th century Britain and Ireland; Jacobitism |
9 |
Gulliver's Travels (continued)
| Lycurgus and ancient Sparta as described by Xenophon and Plutarch |
10 | Frankenstein | William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft (Mary Shelley's parents); Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and their circle, especially 1816–1818 |
11 |
Frankenstein (continued) | The search for the Northwest Passage |
12 |
Frankenstein (continued) | Humphry Davy; the study of chemistry and the life sciences at the start of the 19th Century |
13 |
Frankenstein (continued) | n/a |
14 | Heart of Darkness | King Leopold of Belgium and the Congo; the Casement Report |
15 |
Heart of Darkness (continued) | The Scramble for Africa; the Berlin Conference of 1884 |
16 |
Heart of Darkness (continued) | n/a |
17 |
Heart of Darkness (continued) | n/a |
18 | To the Lighthouse | n/a |
19 |
To the Lighthouse (continued) | Leslie Stephen; the Bloomsbury |
20 |
To the Lighthouse (continued) | Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and the occasion for which it was written |
21 |
To the Lighthouse (continued) | William Cowper's poem "The Castaway" and its use in To the Lighthouse
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