British Literature: 1660-1900

Each of the three one-hour essay questions in this area addresses a broad issue of the period but asks for in-depth analysis of specific authors and works. For each question students must choose appropriate works to discuss; in most cases they must choose authors as well. They may choose authors and works other than those suggested below, so long as their choices reflect an understanding of important developments of the period. (More information about the MA Qualifying Exam can be found in the Guidelines.)

Representative Poems of the Restoration and the Eighteenth Century

(writers such as Dryden, Pope, Collins, Gray, Johnson, and Cowper)

Romantic and Victorian

(writers such as Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold)

Plays from 1660-1900

(writers such as Wycherly, Congreve, Goldsmith, Sheridan, Byron, and Wilde)

Prose and Criticism from 1660-1900

Prose Fiction from the Period 1660-1900

(writers such as Behn, Defoe, Fielding, Sterne, Hardy)

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English Department
College of Arts & Sciences
Oklahoma State University
205 Morrill Hall
Stillwater, OK 74078
Phone: 405-744-9474
For Information about English Programs: english.information@okstate.edu
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Statement of
"Organic Knowledge"
for Literature and Film

A student with "organic knowledge" of the reading lists will

1. understand the way individual texts reflect the material and intellectual conditions of the time of their production; this means that the student can perceive an author's work in reference to history, including literary or film history, and to contemporary social and philosophical issues;

2. consider the way texts exemplify the major concerns and formal features that critics have associated with literary or film periods, movements, and genres; further, the student will be aware of the ways that texts change, depart from, or undermine the conventions of movements or periods to which they belong;

3. in summary, be able, on request, to forge links between author or filmmakers, their individual works, and various intellectual, social, and aesthetic traditions, when applicable.