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English Literature Courses

Survey the remarkable breadth and depth of English literature, from its epic novels and classic short stories to its powerful plays and sublime poems.

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	Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft Professor Brooks Landon Investigate the myriad ways we think about, talk about, and write sentences. In Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft, Professor Brooks Landon from the University of Iowa—one of the nation's top writing schools—shows you the pleasure in reading and writing great sentences. Explore the stylistic rewards (and risks) of various sentence forms, learn how to build and appreciate effective and elegant sentences, get unique insights into the nature of great writing—and discover how you can achieve some of this greatness yourself.
	Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life Professor J. Rufus Fears What makes a written work eternal—its message still so fundamental to the way we live that it continues to speak to us, hundreds or thousands of years distant from the lifetime of its author? Professor J. Rufus Fears presents his choices of some of the most essential writings in history—works that shaped the minds of great individuals and offer an extraordinary gift of wisdom. This course focuses on intellectual history and ethics and what the ideas in each great work can mean in your life today.
Save Up To $450	Classics of British Literature Professor John Sutherland How does literature connect a nation to its past? Few nations can offer a literary legacy that addresses this question as well as that of Great Britain. Professor John Sutherland's examination of Britain's literary treasures and their creators will show you how each is linked to those who have come before—whether building on their predecessors' work or casting it aside to challenge readers and audiences with a new way of understanding a changing world.
	Art of Reading Professor Timothy Spurgin Learn how to make your future reading experiences more enriching and enjoyable with these 24 insightful lectures. Designed to maximize your effectiveness as an artful reader, The Art of Reading brings together concepts, tools, and techniques rarely found together in a single package. Teaching with an engaging and conversational style, award-winning Professor Timothy Spurgin shows you how to approach even the most daunting novel or short story with increased confidence. Whether you're a fiction reader, an aspiring writer, a book club member, or a student, this masterful course will make your future reading experiences more engaging and—most important—more enlightening.
	Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition, 2nd Edition Various Professors From Mesopotamia to Mississippi, from the anonymous writer of the Epic of Gilgamesh to William Faulkner, writing 3,600 years later, many of the greatest figures of Western culture have been its writers. This course is your guide to a rich sampling of their masterpieces, chosen, explained, and analyzed by five outstanding professors. In addition to novelists, poets, and dramatists, you will study historians, biographers, essayists, philosophers, and the anonymous chroniclers behind the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels.
Save Up To $310	Life Lessons from the Great Books Professor J. Rufus Fears For every important moment in your life, there is a Great Book that can give you a unique perspective on the experience. In Life Lessons from the Great Books, master storyteller and veteran Teaching Company Professor J. Rufus Fears shows you how some of Western civilization's greatest literary masterpieces can provide you with guidance and consolation. Every book you explore in this course—from the Odyssey to Hamlet to Animal Farm—is a unique expression of the human spirit. They provide you with a wealth of insight into aspects of life, from how to conduct yourself in times of trouble to appreciating the simple moments in life. Rich in historical perspective, these 36 lectures reveal the many relevant insights in these enduring works of literature.
	Shakespeare: Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies Professor Peter Saccio Professor Peter Saccio—an award-winning Ivy League Professor of Shakespeare studies—is your guide for this marvelous exploration of 15 of Shakespeare's greatest plays. Learn how our most abundant poet and dramatist has been moving, delighting, and enlightening readers and audiences for 400 years, with no end in sight.
Save Up To $640	Classics of American Literature Professor Arnold Weinstein Classic stories and poems of American literature are found in the pages of Franklin, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, Twain, Whitman, Faulkner, and many others. When was the last time you read them? Possibly not as recently as you'd like. Why? Not because you wouldn't love it. But perhaps the demands of your daily life or some other reason have prevented this pleasure. Now, here is the opportunity to gain an extraordinary familiarity with each of these authors within a manageable amount of time, as well as review the great works you may already know.
Save Up To $215	Shakespeare: The Word and the Action Professor Peter Saccio Teaching as a trained actor and director as well as a scholar, and assisted by two additional actors, Professor Peter Saccio explores selected works by Shakespeare. You will be entertained and informed as you analyze how Shakespeare used the resources of the English language and the Elizabethan theater to scale artistic heights never matched before or since.
	Classic Novels: Meeting the Challenge of Great Literature Professor Arnold Weinstein More than a mere "slice of life," classic novels perform a sort of miracle, jolting us to see the remarkable, often provocative truths that underlie the human condition. To experience these extraordinary novels is to ask deep and sometimes unsettling questions about our lives and our world. Join us for an epic journey, as you traverse three centuries, sojourn in foreign lands, and enter remarkable realms of the imagination.
	Joyce’s Ulysses Professor James A. W. Heffernan James Joyce's great novel Ulysses is a big, richly imagined, and intricately organized book with a huge reputation, which many consider to be as fully conceived and vibrant as anything in Homer or Shakespeare. Dartmouth’s Professor James Heffernan lays out the brilliance, passion, humanity, and humor of Joyce’s modern Odyssey in 24 exciting lectures that no literature lover should miss.
Save Up To $310	Western Literary Canon in Context Professor John M. Bowers Explore how some of the most influential masterpieces of literature became part of the elite catalog of books known as the Western literary canon. In The Western Literary Canon in Context, you journey from the ancient world to the 20th century and investigate the literary and historical significance of works including the Odyssey, Beowulf, Moby-Dick, War and Peace, and Ulysses. Award-winning Professor John M. Bowers reveals to you the amazing dialogue that occurs among authors, civilizations, generations, genres, and literary styles in the Western canon. Above all, this insightful course will reshape your thoughts on the development of Western literature.
	How to Read and Understand Poetry Professor Willard Spiegelman Poetry is the primal literary art form, the oldest and arguably the most supple art form. For its combination of concision and richly suggestive expression, it has no rival. With help from this course, you can learn to savor all the pleasures of poetry—the joys that come from "the best words in the best order"—to a fuller degree than you might have thought possible.
Save Up To $42	Life and Writings of C. S. Lewis Professor Louis Markos The Life and Writings of C. S. Lewis takes you through the unique and diverse legacy of one of Western literature's most beloved authors. These insightful lectures are delivered by award-winning Professor Louis Markos. Under his expert guidance, explore the wealth of moral lessons and spiritual allegories behind virtually the entire Lewis canon, from Mere Christianity to The Screwtape Letters/ to The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. You'll also get a complete picture of Lewis as a renowned medieval scholar, a literary critic, a philosopher and theologian, and an inspirational advisor and role model.
	Shakespeare's Tragedies Professor Clare R. Kinney Shakespeare’s contributions to stage and language are unequaled. In what Professor Clare Kinney calls the "power and audacity of his poetry and stagecraft," Shakespeare has left audiences breathless these past four centuries. But beyond his astonishing feats of language and dramatic impact, Shakespeare also left us a legacy, crafted from his experiences and explorations, of suffering and transgression in his six great mature tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus. In Shakespeare's Tragedies, Professor Kinney's aim is to take you deep within each play while supplying you with a nuanced understanding of its meaning.