We will focus on the importance of place in literature, specifically London and surrounding areas. Our reading will include a variety of authors who made place so central to the work that it could have taken place nowhere else, or whose lives were so deeply immersed in place that the location became inexorably mingled into their work. We will also briefly examine London itself as a place: her history, growth, importance in world affairs through the centuries, and explore how and why authors might have considered this city so important.
The culmination of the course will be a trip to London, with opportunities to explore both London herself and important areas nearby, such as Canterbury, Oxford, Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon. Students will not be required to complete the trip, but will plan it as part of the course requirements.
The reading list will include (but is not limited to) Dickens, Oliver Twist; Austen, Persuasion; Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral; Sayers, Gaudy Night; Doyle, Sherlock Holmes; Shaw, Pygmalion; Chaucer, The Knight's Tale, Greene, The Ministry of Fear; Tolkien, selections from Lord of the Rings; at least one Shakespeare play.
