British Literature
to 1800
Syllabus
1999
2000
Bibliography
Review Notes
Sounds
The publisher's web site is located at http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/.It contains a variety of intersting supplementary materials.
Monster Resources
The richest single resource I have found is Alan Liu's The Voice of the Shuttle, a Web Page for Humanities Research. As well as being extremely useful, it's an outstanding example of good web page design. The deepest collection of literature links is Literary Resources on the Net, maintained by Jack Lynch at Rutgers. Each of these has detailed sections on numerous topics. When I'm looking for web stuff, I always start with Liu and Lynch.
Almost as if it were designed to support this course is Anniina Jokinen's Luminarium, a beautiful site which Jokinen began when she was an undergraduate at Temple. In includes medieval, renaissance and seventeenth-century sections and contains numerous links to online articles.
For general British topics go to the United Kingdom Web, maintained by Mitsuharu Matsuoka at Nagoya University, and Marie Norris' Anglophilia. Both offer academic, travel, and general information.
The Primary Historical Documents Project at Brigham Young University includes an interesting array of British documents in its collection of electronic transcripts.
For current detailed maps of the UK, go to Multi Media Mapping. For a general political map, go here.
The greatest library in the world is the British Library.
One major (the major problem?) in a course such as this one is the Canon. We can read only a miniscule fragment of the material written in the past, so we have to select -- and selection means following some principle of value. Alan Liu has taught graduate seminars on Canon Revision: History, Theory, Practice.
On the history of English (the language), see the History of the English Language Homepage. It has lots of links to materials ranging from Anglo-Saxon to contemporary English.
Medieval
The most conprehensive resource is The Labyrinth at Georgetown.NetSERF at the Catholic University of America is a nicely designed, categorized index of Medieval web sites.
Read about the electronic Beowulf project and look at images of the pages.
Alan Baragona at VMI has a good Chaucer page; he's also associated with the Chaucer Metapage, which has links to sound files (requiring the RealPlayer plug-in) along with comprehensive links to other sites.
Lawrence Warner maintains a home page on William Langland.
DScriptorium provides online images of medieval manuscripts. One masterpiece of manuscript illumination is the Tres Riches Hueres du Duc de Berry. It is online at the University of Chicago.
Medieval drama isn't very well represented on the web, but for what there is you can start at the site for the REED project (Records of Early English Drama).
Picture of a scribe at work
Renaissance
For individual writers, try Annina Jokinen's Luminarium, She has at least some information on most writers included in the Norton Anthology.The Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at the University of Toronto has a good web site with thoughtfully categorized links.
Laura Eakins at the University of Texas maintains an award-winning page on Tudor England; it's beautiful, rich in information, and has a substantial links section.
Renaissance by Maggie Secara is also very attractive and offers a good links list.It offers a "Compendium of Common Knowledge 1558-1603)" apparently aimed at Renaissance fair performers.
The Welford and Wickham School in Berkshire (UK) maintains two concise pages on Tudor and Stuart history: lists of monarchs with pictures and brief narratives of their reigns. Although the pages aren't rich in information, the school itself (35 students, ages 5 to 12) is interesting.Rebecca Bushnell at Penn taught a Renaissance course using a substantial array of contemporary images which are still online.
Eric Blomquist has a fine site on sonnets, with texts, pictures, bibliography and some sound files; he calls it Sonnet Central.
For Shakespeare, go to my links page.
Richard Bear has a Spenser page, and John Tolva has done an online hypertext edition of The Shepherd's Calendar.
Kevin Creamer at the University of Richmond maintains a strong Milton page.
Restoration and Eighteenth Century
Jack Lynch has a very rich interdisciplinary 18th century site which includes a workable search routine. On it you will find links to sites dealing with the major writers of the period. See also his page on Dr. Johnson and his syllabus for an eighteenth century course.
There is also an Eighteenth Century Web Ring, covering a vast range of topics.
Simon Morgan-Russell has a Restoration Drama page.
Patricia Craddock and her students at the University of Florida are developing a site on eighteenth century drama.
The Dictionary of Sensibility is an interesting web project that grew out of a graduate course at the University taught by Jerome McGann and Patricia Meyers Spacks.
You can read some issues of the London Gazette, a Restoration newspaper online.
Aphra Behn was the first woman in British history to successfully establish herself as a professional writer. See the home page of the Aphra Behn Society, which maintains a set of links to related web sites.
For Alexander Pope, start with the Rape of the Lock Homepage.It offers an annotated text of the poem, illustrations keyed to appropriate passages, biographical information, and some links.
And for Swift, begin with the Gulliver's Travels page. This is a rich, well designed site providing an online text of GT, with annotations, illustrations, and lots of supporting information.
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Last modified August 24, 2000
