British Literature II (Romantic to Contemporary)

Course Description

ENL2022 – British Literature II is a 3-credit lecture course that surveys major British literature from the Romantic period (roughly 1785) through the Victorian era and into Modernist, Postwar, and contemporary writing. Students read representative poems, novels, plays, and essays from the canon's most influential British and Anglophone authors, develop critical reading and interpretive skills, and analyze the historical, cultural, and intellectual contexts that shaped the literature.

The course sits within the Florida Statewide Course Numbering System (SCNS) under English > Literature > English Literature and is offered at approximately 30 Florida public institutions, including all major Florida College System institutions and the State University System. It is a companion to ENL2012 – British Literature I (which covers literature through approximately 1750), and the two courses together provide the standard British literary survey sequence.

ENL2022 fulfills several important Florida college requirements: it counts toward general education humanities, satisfies the writing-across-the-curriculum requirement (Florida State Board of Education Rule 6A-10.030, the so-called "Gordon Rule"), and articulates seamlessly into Florida State University System English majors. A grade of C or higher is required for the course to satisfy these requirements.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

Upon successful completion of ENL2022, students will be able to:

• Read and interpret representative texts from the Romantic, Victorian, Modernist, and contemporary British literary periods.
• Identify and describe the defining characteristics, conventions, and themes of each major literary period covered.
• Analyze how literary works reflect and respond to their historical, political, social, and cultural contexts, including the rise and decline of the British Empire.
• Apply literary terminology (genre, form, meter, image, metaphor, symbol, tone, voice, narrative, point of view) accurately in analysis.
• Distinguish among major genres — lyric and narrative poetry, the novel, the short story, drama, and the essay — and their period-specific conventions.
• Compose analytical essays with clear theses, well-developed arguments, textual evidence, proper documentation (MLA), and standard academic English.
• Engage with secondary criticism at an introductory level, integrating sources responsibly into written work.
• Participate in class discussion with informed, evidence-based contributions.

Optional Outcomes

Depending on instructor specialty and institutional emphasis, students may also:

• Apply specific literary-critical frameworks (formalism, historicism, postcolonial criticism, feminist criticism, Marxist criticism) to assigned texts.
• Engage in depth with postcolonial and Anglophone literature, including writers from Ireland, the Caribbean, India, Africa, and other former colonies.
• Investigate the development of the novel as a dominant literary form in the 19th century.
• Trace thematic threads (industrialization, gender, empire, modernity, faith, the individual) across the period.
• Conduct independent literary research using library databases (MLA International Bibliography, JSTOR, Project MUSE).

Major Topics

Required Topics

• The Romantic Period (c. 1785–1832): Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads and Romantic poetic theory; the second-generation Romantics (Byron, Shelley, Keats); Romantic prose (Lamb, Hazlitt, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein); Jane Austen as transitional figure.
• The Victorian Period (1832–1901): Tennyson, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Matthew Arnold, the pre-Raphaelites; the Victorian novel (Dickens, the Brontës, George Eliot, Hardy); Victorian sage writing (Carlyle, Ruskin, Mill); fin-de-siècle (Wilde, Stevenson).
• Modernism (1901–1945): The poetry of Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Auden; modernist fiction (Conrad, Joyce, Woolf, Lawrence, Forster); the impact of World War I (the war poets — Owen, Sassoon, Brooke); modernist drama (Shaw).
• Postwar and Contemporary (1945–present): The Movement (Larkin, Amis); Northern Irish poetry (Heaney, Mahon, Boland); postcolonial Anglophone fiction (Achebe, Rushdie, Naipaul, Lessing); contemporary British and Irish writing.
• Literary Form and Genre: The lyric and the dramatic monologue; the realistic novel; the modernist novel; the short story; the personal essay.
• Historical and Cultural Context: The Industrial Revolution; the rise and decline of the British Empire; the women's movement; two World Wars; postcolonial transformations.
• Critical Reading and Writing: Close reading; thesis development; argumentative essay structure; integrating textual evidence; MLA citation and documentation; revision.

Optional Topics

• Postcolonial and Global Anglophone Literatures: Authors from former British colonies in Africa, the Caribbean, the Indian subcontinent, and beyond.
• Women Writers Across the Period: Wollstonecraft, the Brontës, Eliot, Woolf, Lessing, Carter, Smith — and the question of the women's literary tradition.
• Genre Studies: Sustained focus on the Gothic novel, the dramatic monologue, the modernist short story, or another form.
• Literary Theory at an Introductory Level: Reader-response, historicism, postcolonial theory, gender theory.
• Major Author Study: A unit devoted to a single canonical author (Dickens, Eliot, Joyce, Woolf, etc.).

Resources & Tools

• Most-adopted textbook: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volumes D, E, and F (covering Romantics, Victorians, and 20th–21st century) — the dominant textbook across Florida institutions.
• Alternatives: The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Volumes 2A, 2B, 2C; The Broadview Anthology of British Literature; OpenStax-aligned open-access course packs (increasingly common as zero-textbook-cost options at Valencia, FSCJ, and others).
• Style and writing references: The MLA Handbook (current edition); A Writer's Reference by Diana Hacker; The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms.
• Library and research tools: MLA International Bibliography, JSTOR, Project MUSE, the Oxford English Dictionary online — all available through Florida college library subscriptions.
• Open digital resources: The British Library's "Discovering Literature" portal (free, period-organized); Project Gutenberg (full-text public-domain works); Poetry Foundation; The Victorian Web; LibriVox audio.
• Writing support: Institution writing centers (typically free, walk-in or appointment); Purdue OWL for MLA documentation guidance.

Career Pathways

While ENL2022 is a single survey course rather than a vocational program, the analytical, writing, and interpretive skills it builds are foundational for these career pathways relevant to Florida's economy:

• K–12 English Teacher — pathway through Florida English Education BS degrees with subsequent state certification.
• Editor and Writer — Florida's publishing, journalism, communications, and corporate-content sectors.
• Lawyer — humanities preparation for law school; reading-and-writing-intensive courses build core legal-analysis skills.
• Librarian / Information Professional — pathway through MLIS programs (FSU, USF, UF).
• Communications and Public Relations Specialist — broad demand across Florida industries.
• Technical Writer — Florida's aerospace, healthcare, and software industries hire writers with strong analytical training.
• Higher Education and Research — pathway through MA and PhD programs; preparation for university teaching.

Special Information

The Gordon Rule and Writing Requirements

ENL2022 is designated under Florida State Board of Education Rule 6A-10.030 (the Gordon Rule) as a course requiring 6,000 words of writing for credit toward the writing requirement. This typically means 4–6 substantive analytical essays totaling 6,000+ polished words, plus shorter response writing. A grade of C or higher is required for the course to count toward Gordon Rule satisfaction; a C-minus is not sufficient.

Articulation and Transfer

ENL2022 articulates to all Florida SUS institutions and satisfies a 3-credit humanities general education requirement and the writing component of the AA degree. It is required or strongly recommended for the English major at most SUS English departments. Students transferring should verify whether their target institution's English major requires one or both halves of the British literature survey.

Prerequisites

The standard prerequisite is ENC1101 (Composition I) with a minimum grade of C or test-score equivalent. Some institutions also recommend (but do not require) ENC1102. ENL2012 is not a prerequisite for ENL2022 — the two courses can be taken in either order or independently.

Course Format and Workload

ENL2022 is typically a lecture-discussion course meeting three hours per week. Expect 100–200 pages of reading per week, 4–6 analytical essays, possibly midterm and final exams, and active class participation. Reading load is sustained — keeping current with the assigned readings is essential, as the course moves through extensive material across multiple periods.

Course Code Variations

Florida institutions title this course variously: "British Literature II," "English Literature II," "Survey of English Literature: 1750 to the Present," and "English Literature Since 1750" all refer to the same SCNS course. The period coverage (Romantic onward) is consistent across institutions.