English LiteratureA Thousand Years of English Literature

Welcome to your A2 course!

This year you will consider how literature serves as a tool to reflect our shared humanity. How it celebrates, refutes and empowers those who read and those who are written about or ignored. This project asks you to dip into a thousand years of English literature, which will boost your general knowledge, understanding of the genres and literature’s own changing story.

What is your favourite book so far? Why does it resonate with you?

A Thousand Years of English Literature – Prose Reading List

Author Title Year Historical / Literary Period

Read

Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart 1958Cecilia Ahern PS I Love You 2004Edward Albee Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 1962Louisa May Alcott Little Women 1968Monica Ali Brick Lane 2003Nadeem Aslam Maps for Lost Lovers 2004Margaret Atwood The Handmaid’s Tale 1985Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility

Pride and PrejudiceEmma / PersuasionNorthanger Abbey

18111813

1815 / 18171817

Julian Barnes Flaubert’s Parrot 1984Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre 1847Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights 1847A S Byatt Possession 1990Angela Carter Wise Children 1991Bruce Chatwin On a Black Hill 1982Tracy Chevalier The Girl with the Pearl Earring 1999Charles Dickens Bleak House / Great Expectations 1853 / 1861Daphne Du Maurier Rebecca 1938Nell Dunn Up the Junction / Poor Cow 1963/ 1967George Eliot The Mill on the Floss 1860Sebastian Faulks Birdsong / Engleby 1993 / 2007F Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby 1925E M Forster A Room with a View / Maurice 1908 / 1971Gabriel Garcia Marquz Love in the Time of Cholera 1985Elizabeth Gaskell North and South 1854William Goldman The Princess Bride 1973

John Green The Fault in Our Stars 2012Mark Haddon The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night

Time’2003

Thomas Hardy Tess of the Durbervilles 1891Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter 1850Khaled Hosseini The Kite Runner

A Thousand Splendid Suns20032007

Milan Kundera The Unbearable Lightness of Being 1984Gaston Leroux The Phantom of the Opera 1909D H Lawrence Sons and Lovers

Lady Chatterley’s Lover19131928

Andrea Levy Small Island 2004Ian McEwan Enduring Love

Atonement19972001

Stephanie Meyer Twilight 2005Margaret Mitchell Gone with the Wind 1936Vladimir Nabokov Lolita 1955Michael Ondaatje The English Patient 1992Emmuska Orczy The Scarlet Pimpernel 1905George Orwell 1984 1949Boris Pasternak Doctor Zhivago 1957Annie Proulx Brokeback Mountain 1997Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy 1995 - 2000Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea 1966Philip Roth The Human Stain 2000Lionel Shriver ‘We Need to Talk about Kevin 2003Dodie Smith I Capture the Castle 1948Adhaf Soueif The Map of Love 1999Nicholas Sparks Dear John 2006Graham Swift Waterland / Last Orders 1983 / 1996Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club 1989Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina 1877

Anne Tyler Digging to America 2006John Updike Couples 1968Edith Wharton Ethan Frome

The Age of Innocence1911 1920

Jeanette Winterson Oranges are not the only fruit 1985Virginia Woolf Mrs Dalloway

Orlando19251928

Top Tips

It is ok not to like an author or a period of literature… just dip into the full range of styles and genres

Build your cultural capital and knowledge of English literature How have literary styles changed and developed over time? Which texts would you recommend to our class? Why?

Famous Authors QuizCan you match the photograph to the correct writer?Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Roald Dhal, Jane Austen, Anne Frank, J.K. Rowling, Virginia Woolf, Jeanette Winterson, John Steinbeck, Jackie Kay,Charles Dickens, Pablo Neruda, Jaqueline Wilson

A Thousand Years of English Literature – Plays Reading List

Author Title Year Literary / Historical Period ReadAphra Benn(1640 – 1689)

The Rover 1677

Caryl Churchill(1938 - )

My Mother Said I Never Should 1985

Eve Ensler(1953 - )

The Vagina Monologues 1996

John Ford(1586 – 1639)

Tis Pity She’s A Whore 1633

Brian Friel(1939 - )

Translations 1980

Henrik Ibsen(1828 – 1906)

The Doll’s HouseHedda Gabler

18791890

Patrick Marber(1964 - )

Closer 1997

Arthur Miller(1915 – 2005)

All My SonsThe Crucible

19471953

William Shakespeare(1564 – 1616)

Romeo and JulietA Midsummer Night’s DreamMuch Ado about NothingOthelloTwelfth NightAs You Like It

159716001600162216231623

John Webster(1580 – 1634)

The White Devil 1612

Oscar Wilde(1854 – 1900)

A Woman of No ImportanceThe Importance of Being Earnest

18931899

Tennessee Williams(1911 – 1983)

Cat on a Hot Tin RoofA Streetcar Named Desire’

19401947

Quick History of Theatre / PerformanceB.C.8500 Evidence of tribal dance and religious rituals3100 Egyptian Coronation play2500 Shamanism600 Myth and Storytelling in evidence600 Origins of Greek theatre365 First Roman theatrical performance365 Greek theaters built throughout the Mediterranean region179 Wooden theatre built in Rome80 First Roman amphitheater built at Pompeii

A.D.300 Earliest recorded religious plays800 Travelling circuses provide live entertainment925 Origins of medieval theatre1110 Earliest record of a miracle play in England1200 Professional bards or storytellers popular in Ireland1375 First English plays1500 Commedia dell’arte, Italian improvisational theatre begins1540 Classical drama in English schools and universities1564 Shakespeare is born1576 First permanent London theatre opens1825 The “well-made” play becomes the theatrical norm1850s Realism becomes established1890 Thomas Edison patents the motion picture1927 First television transmission

A Thousand Years of English Literature – Poetry Reading List

Author Title Year Period Genre ReadEdgar Allen Poe Annabelle Lee

(1809 – 1849)William Blake(1757 - 1827)

Love’s Secret

Robert Browning(1812 – 1889)

Meeting at Night

Robert Burns(1759 – 1796)

A red, red rose

E E Cummins(1894 – 1962)

I Carry Your Heart with Me

Emily Dickinson(1830 – 1886)

My River

Robert Frost(1874 – 1963)

The Silken Tent

Robert Graves(1895 – 1985)

She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep

John Keats(1795 – 1821)

Bright star, would I were as steadfast as thee

Christopher Marlowe(1564 – 1593)

Whoever Loved

Andrew Marvell(1621 – 1678)

To His Coy Mistress

Ogden Nash(1902 – 1971)

Reprise

Pablo Neruda(1904 – 1973)

I do not love you

Sylvia Plath(1932 – 1963)

Love Letter

Percy Bysshe Shelley(1792 – 1822)

Love’s Philosophy Romanticism

Sir Philip Sidney(1554 – 1586)

The Bargain

Lord Alfred Tennyson Maud

(1809 – 1892)William Butler Yeats(1865 – 1939)

The Ragged Wood

A Thousand Years of English Literature – Non-Fiction Reading List

Author Title Year Notes ReadSusan Gerhardt(1953 - )

Why Love Matters 2004

Thomas Jefferson(1743 – 1826)

The Rights of Man

Scott Peck(1936 – 2005)

The Road Less Travelled 1978

Transcript of Lady Chatterley Court Case

1960

John Keats(1795 – 1821)

Collected Letters

Thoreau Walden Wilde’s Love Letters

William Wilberforce(1759 – 1833)

The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner (by William Hague)

2008

Dorothy Wordsworth(1771 – 1855)

Grasmere Journals

Top Tips

Read a couple of pages / chapters of each non-fiction text. Don’t worry about reading the whole text unless you would like to! Think about your other A2 subjects: what other non fiction texts can you

read which will develop your wider understanding?

A Thousand Years of English Literature – Poetry Through the Ages Reading List

14th CenturyAuthor Title Year Period Read

Geoffrey Chaucer(1343 – 1400)

The Miller’s Tale (Parody of Courtly and Chivalric love)The Knight’s Tale – Courtly, Chivalric LoveThe Wife of Bath’s Tale

15th CenturySir Thomas Malory( 1415? - 1471)

Le Morte d’Arthur

16th CenturySir Thomas Wyatt (1503 – 42)

Any of his work

Sir Philip Sidney(1554 -86)

Astrophil and Stella sonnets (read a couple)

Edmund Spenser(1552 – 91)

The Faerie Queene(just read a bit of this… unless you like it of course!)

Shakespeare(1564 – 1616)

Sonnets – My Mistress’ Eyes are nothing like the sun and The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

16th and 17th Century – Jacobean (1603 – 25) The MetaphysicalsJohn Donne(1572 – 1631)

The Flea / The Sunne Rising

Andrew Marvel(1621 – 78)

To His Coy Mistress

17th CenturyJohn Milton (1608–74)

Paradise Lost (Extracts will be fine)

18th Century – The AugustansAlexander Pope(1688 – 1744)

The Rape of the Lock

18th Century – The Romantics

William Blake(1757 – 1827)

Songs of Innocence and ExperienceRead a couple of each.

William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850)

The Lucy Poems

Samuel Taylor Coleridge(1776 – 1849)

Frost at Midnight

John Keats(1795 – 1821)

La Belle Dame sans Merci

George, Gordon, Lord Byron (1788 – 1824)

‘Don Juan’ was his great work, but if you’d like a shorter version, try ‘Beppo’. (Hilarious!)

19th Century – The Victorians (1837 – 1901)Christina Rossetti (1831 – 94)

A Birthday / Remember

Emily Dickinson(1830 – 86)

My Life Closed Twice and Love’s Stricken Way

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809– 92)

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal

William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)

When you are old and grey and full of sleepPrayer for my daughter

Thomas Hardy(1840 – 1928)

The Voice (written after the death of his wife)

20th Century – The EdwardiansWar Poems:Vera Brittain(1893 – 1970)

The Testament of Youth 1933

Wilfred Owen(1893 – 1918)

Collected Poetry

20th Century – Modernism (1910 – 52)TS Eliot(1888 – 1965)

The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock” – sad, sad, sad. A man who has not dared to love, not dared to be that

vulnerable…WH Auden(1907 – 1973)

Collected poems.

20th Century – Post Modernism (1952 - )Ted Hughes(1930 – 1998)

Birthday Letters (to supplement your knowledge of ‘Ariel’)

Sylvia Plath(1932 – 63)

Collected Poems 1981

Philip Larkin(1922 – 1985)

Any poems to supplement the Anthology.

Wendy Cope(1945 -)

Collected Poems

Jackie Kaye(1961 - )

Collected Poems

Carol Ann Duffy(1955 - )

RaptureMean Time

Tony Harrison(1937 - )

Long Distance 1978

Pablo Neruda (1904-73)

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair 1924

Personal Literature Project

1. Identify and tick off any texts that you have already read.2. Highlight the three that you will read first.3. Read independently or with an audio book. Many of these classics are available free via digital

download and in our library.4. Be ready to discuss what you have read with your A2 peers.5. Individual presentation on your own personal reading, wider research and learning.6. Ask your teacher as they often have copies of the texts that they will be willing to share with YOU!!!