Skip top navigation Skip to main content
Lasell University
Lasell University

2020 - 2021 Academic Catalog

Literature Minor

The Literature minor consists of six courses beyond Writing I and Writing II. One course must be at the 300 level.

Course Code Course Title Credits
Core Courses
ENG209 Intro to Literature & Literary Studies 3
Choose 1 from the following:
ENG201 Eng Lit/Themes & Writers 3
ENG210 Survey of American Literature (KP) 3
ENG218 British Literature (KP) 3
ENG340 Classics of World Literature 3

Select any two Literature electives: 6 credits
Select any two English electives: 6 credits

Credit Requirements for minor: 18 credits

ENG209 - Intro to Literature & Literary Studies

This is a foundations course required for the major and the minor in English. The course provides an introduction to a variety of forms and styles in poetry, drama, short story, fiction, memoir, and essay; European, North American, and world literatures are considered. The focus is on interpreting texts; students are introduced to various schools of interpretation and to standards for supporting an interpretation. Students become familiar with the conventional elements of each genre and with the terminology of critical interpretation. The course introduces print and database tools for research on literature.

ENG201 - Eng Lit/Themes & Writers

This course offers a special thematic approach to the study of English literature. Various authors, such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Shaw, and Yeats, are studied within such contexts as convention and revolt, the hero and the heroine, or evil and decadence. Prerequisite: ENG 102.

ENG210 - Survey of American Literature (KP)

This course surveys representative periods, authors, or genres in American literature from beginnings in Native American oral literatures through contemporary works. Individual sections organize study of classic and contemporary texts around particular themes, such as Queering American Literatures, American Migrations, Hemispheric American Literature, or Americans on the Edge: "Frontiers" in the American Imagination. Individual sections also trace twentieth- or twenty-first-century movements to their roots in or resistance to earlier movements or forms. This is a writing-intensive course.

ENG218 - British Literature (KP)

This course surveys British writing in poetry, fiction, and drama, with a focus on key periods in the development of British literature. Emphasis is on representative writers in each period. Periods and movements surveyed include Anglo-Saxon, Medieval, Renaissance, Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, Romanticism, Victorian, Modern, and Contemporary or Postmodern. This is a writing-intensive course.

ENG340 - Classics of World Literature

This course explores representative fiction, poetry, or drama by major figures in world literature, centering on topics such as love, tragedy, comedy, immortality, madness, wasteland, quest for knowledge, voyages, or exploration. Prerequisite: Any 200-level English course.