ENG 202: Introduction to British Literature I (Beginnings to 1660s)

Interested in being a volunteer notetaker for ENG 202? Click here.

You are currently looking at the ENG 202 welcome page, where you can find our course description, meeting times and location, requirements, and policies.

You’re most often going to be consulting, and should bookmark, the ENG 202 Schedule of Readings, Meetings, Lectures, and Assignments (click here).

Other helpful links: for the ENG 202 lecture slides, click here; for ENG 202’s video lectures, click here; for the ENG 202 Google Drive (with all class audiorecordings and electronic copies of all texts performed or handed out in class), click here.

This site contains all the material that would normally be on a course syllabus, and more. There’s a lot of information here, but that’s because everything you need for ENG 202 is all collected here conveniently in one place. You’ll mainly use this site for reference during the year, but before you commit to joining our class, be sure you review the contents of this welcome page, starting with the ENG 202 introductory video (this is an early draft of the video; I’ll post the more polished, easier-to-watch version in mid-December), which you’re required to watch before our first meeting.

If you are joining our class late, or miss the first couple of classes for any other reason, you are still responsible for the material you missed: click here for important instructions for late registrants.

I am happy to arrange accommodations or modifications to this class for anyone who would benefit from them — no documentation necessary — but in my classes, you must request accommodations and modifications according to these specific instructions (click here).

I’m your professor, Matthew Sergi. You can call me Prof. Sergi or Matt (not “sir,” please); you can contact me at sergi.utoronto@gmail.com, but I encourage you to approach me in Office Hours (click here for times and location) and to consult my FAQ first. I’ll only be able to answer emails sent to sergi.utoronto@gmail.com; if you send an inquiry about ENG 202 to another email address of mine, it will likely be delayed or missed.

Course Description

ENG 202 is an introduction to early British literature, exploring works in poetry, prose, and drama, from the earliest English writing to the end of the seventeenth century.  A course covering the literature of such a broad span of time—a full millennium (c. 670 through the 1660s)—must leave out many more important works than it includes; as a result, different versions of ENG 202, from one term to another, will include noticeably different approaches and arrays of readings. 

This version of ENG 202 is organized around community-building, connection, and play: we will discover that the roots of British literature grow out of social practices in which texts are read among friends—and, often, composed by multiple hands or voices.  The earlier we go (our readings will be in reverse chronological order, so we’ll start with the latest works first!), the more we’ll consider early literature as an occasion to convene in fellowship and fun, to co-conceive temporary or imaginary societies with fanciful rules, to step together outside of the purely reasonable into the wildernesses and otherworlds of the possible.

We’ll do some of our shorter readings together in class, then, rather than sending students off to do all the readings alone.  As for the readings we do on our own—longer prose and long-form poems—we’ll return repeatedly to and dwell on them in weekly tutorials, with some students following up on secondary sources and reporting back to the group.  And we will come to our readings in drama the way they were meant to be done: live and aloud, involving some student volunteers in live staged readings during our full-class meetings.

We’ll do our best to create full-class meetings and tutorials that are true gatherings, building real and lasting community among readers, who have something genuinely enjoyable to share together — just as the early makers and audiences of our class texts did, or aimed (or claimed!) to do.  Active, real-time participation in tutorials is thus required, but built into our class is an array of inclusive alternative avenues for participation that make room for all learning styles and needs; presence at class meetings will be crucial, too, with a minimum attendance requirement.

Our goal, throughout ENG 202, will be to hone the skills and sensibilities we need to historicize (i.e. to “correc[t] for the tendency to presentize the past,” to read texts on their own terms), to appreciate (i.e. to actually enjoy, look forward to, and find beauty and humour in our texts), and to analyze (i.e. to break ‘em apart and see how they tick, without killing them) our course readings.

TAs and Tutorials

Every student in ENG 202 is required to sign up for, and attend, two weekly sessions: one, a full-class meeting in a lecture hall; the other, a weekly tutorial session led by a TA. If you are currently registered for ENG 202, make sure you are also registered for a tutorial session, or you will begin losing credit as soon as the class starts.

All but one of our tutorials meet in person; one tutorial meets online only (be sure to pay attention to the meeting format/location when you register). Our TA tutorial leaders are Zoey Zisu Zhang-Yang (zoeyzs.zhang), Anna Lewis (ar.lewis), Ferron Guerreiro (ferron.guerreiro), and Laina Southgate (laina.southgate). To contact any of those TA tutorial leaders by email, attach “@mail.utoronto.ca” to the email handles in parentheses next to the TA name. Our Admin TA is Victor Hainiagiu (victor.hainagiu) — to contact him by email, add “@utoronto.ca” to the handle in parentheses.

The Tracks: Three Options for Course Work

In ENG 202, each student chooses from among three options, or “Tracks,” for how they’d prefer to do classwork. Each Track comes with a different set of course requirements (and a different scale of grading weight for each requirement). Each Track requires the same amount of work and is graded with the same rigour — click on each option below to learn more (please note that all information about grading weight/breakdowns, including assignment prompts and an explanation of the final exam, falls under the three links below):

  1. The Philological Track (in which students submit two traditional essays, each an in-depth study of one particular word). If you do not choose a Track ahead of time, you’ll automatically be assigned to the Philological Track.

  2. The Discursive Track (in which students read academic publications, then present four mini-lectures and lead discussions afterward, across four selected tutorial sessions). A maximum of four students at a time, in each tutorial session, can be enrolled in the Discursive Track.

  3. The Embodied Track (in which students prepare and perform a role in four staged readings during full-class meetings in our lecture hall — attending additional weekly rehearsal sessions, rehearsing independently in groups, but only memorizing short material, including some early English). A maximum of fourteen students in ENG 202 at a time, overall. can be enrolled in the Embodied Track.

Every student will have the opportunity to switch Tracks at midterm. If, at midterm, there is a waitlist for students who want to join the Discursive or Embodied Track, that waitlist will be given priority (while students already in the Discursive or Embodied may be required to switch out) — ensuring that everyone who wants to try a Track can do so for at least half a term. If you switch Tracks halfway through term, then we’ll combine two grading scales for you (so, for example: someone doing half Philological and half Discursive will wind up doing one essay and two mini-lecture presentations). In fact, I recommend switching Tracks, at midterm, to add texture and variety to your experience of ENG 202.



Class Meetings

ENG 202 generally meets twice per week — a full-class session for two hours in our lecture hall on Mondays, 11am to 1pm, at UC 140, followed by a TA-led tutorial session for 50 minutes on Wednesdays (you can register for a session that begins at 11am or 12 noon; the various locations of tutorials are listed at the site where you register). Our first meeting will be on Monday, January 6, 11am at UC 140. Unless otherwise specified, meetings will be in person on the University of Toronto campus, on the shared territory of many First Nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Wendat, and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, under the Dish With One Spoon Treaty, and under Treaty 13 between the Mississaugas and subsequent settlers.

Your TA and I both also hold weekly Office Hours during any week that courses are in session: click here for my current Office Hours times and locations; your TA will be in touch with their hours once they are scheduled.

I require real-time attendance at all class meetings, both full-class sessions and tutorial sessions, during the scheduled hours of that meeting. You earn 10 out of the total 100 points of your final grade just by showing up to class (this is your “Actual Attendance” score).

If a student misses a class, for any reason (including late registration), the student must follow my set instructions for what to do after missing a class (click here). Please do not email me or your TA only to alert us to an upcoming absence, nor to explain a prior one, let alone to apologize either way: just follow the course instructions, policies, and requirements regarding missed classes and leave it at that.

For ENG 202, I will allow each student to miss class meetings FOUR times — four no-questions-asked absences (counting absences from both full-class sessions and from tutorials). There are many good reasons to miss class; it is your responsibility to determine what is a good reason, and so to save your allotted absences for when you may really need them. If a student misses a fifth class, for any reason and regardless of administrative documentation, then the student’s Actual Attendance score will drop from 10 to 5. A sixth absence will reduce the Actual Attendance score to 0. There are no exceptions to this rule: if you cannot or will not commit to this rule, choose one of the other versions of ENG 202 available in other semesters; if you’d like to learn more about the logic behind the rule, click here.

Options for Attending Remotely

I do allow students to attend certain class meetings remotely, without using up an allotted absence. Since our class has two different types of session (full-class lecture-hall meetings and TA-led tutorial meetings), this requires two separate policies:

FULL-CLASS LECTURE-HALL MEETINGS ONLY: ONE-SHOT-PER-STUDENT REMOTE ATTENDANCE

Our meetings in the lecture hall are always in person, but you’ll notice I also keep Zoom (or an equivalent application) open on my laptop during those meetings; I audiorecord and simulcast all meetings through that application. As a general rule, I require students to attend those full-class sessions in person in order to earn Actual Attendance credit. However, I do allow each student a “one-shot remote attendance option” for our large lecture-hall meetings — one remote attendance, one time, per student, only for the full-class meetings Prof. Sergi runs in the lecture hall. I will count any further remote attendance, beyond that one shot, as an absence. If you do opt to use this one-shot-per-student remote attendance option (and there are many good reasons to do so, so you should save this one shot for when you really need it). Be sure to read my remote attendance instructions ahead of time, and to follow those instructions carefully. Remote attendance still must be done in real time (that is, during the scheduled hours of the class) in order to earn attendance credit.

If you are in a situation in which increased remote attendance would truly remove more obstacles to learning than it would add, you can also find in my remote attendance instructions information on expanding the one-shot-per-student limit.

There also may be very rare situations on my part, whether due to university closures, personal concerns (including emergencies), or academic commitments, in which I have to switch our course to remote format — if that should happen, the remote class will not count toward anyone’s remote attendance limit.

TUTORIAL MEETINGS ONLY: PERMANENT REMOTE ATTENDANCE OPTION

Most tutorials will meet in person; for those tutorials, in-person attendance is required every week (missing a tutorial will also count toward the set number of unpenalized absences that each student can use — click on any of the three Tracks above to see what that number is). However, one tutorial will meet entirely online. Please register for the tutorial listed as “online” only if you have good reason to do so; consult my remote attendance instructions to learn more about what will be expected of you if you do.

Required Texts

You must purchase four books for our course — in these exact editions:

I will also make available, either for free online or through the Library Syllabus Service/Quercus, a series of required readings from Knight and Ohlgren’s edition of Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, as well as from Marie de France and MS Bodley 34.

Yes, there are two different versions of Beowulf; both are required.

Never use any edition of class texts except the ones I mention here — don’t even consult other versions for help (because the “help” they give will likely be in the form of surface-level summaries or quick hacks, which will make this class’s assignments way harder for you). All of the required class texts should be available at the U of T Bookstore one month before our first meeting. You can purchase these texts by any means you wish, in hard copy or electronic format — but you must make sure all the texts are available to you in time for you to get readings done on schedule: allow time for shipping delays, restocking, etc. IMPORTANT: if you do go with the electronic version of any readings from Broadview Press (i.e., the Cavendish and Chaucer), be sure to purchase those electronic books through Broadview’s website directly rather than through the U of T Bookstore or elsewhere — students have reported that purchasing directly from Broadview makes readings much easier to do.



Course Policies

Be sure you know the ENG 202 policies before joining our course — because joining ENG 202 means that you understand and agree to its course policies, as far as they are summarized below. If you are concerned that you may not be able to adhere to any of these policies, or if you want to learn more specific details about how or why I enforce a policy, click on the “further explanation” link next to that policy.

  • I generally use Google apps and Zoom, rather than Blackboard or Quercus, wherever I can. I will periodically contact you with important course info via Quercus's email function, but I cannot receive emails through Quercus and do not conduct any other course business through Quercus — contact me only at sergi.utoronto@gmail.com; adjust your junk mail or spam settings if need be to make sure you can receive emails from that address (it may help to add the address to your contacts). Your TA may still use Quercus for some functions (I leave the choice to each TA). (Click here for a further explanation of this policy.)

  • In order to minimize glitching and lag in the online materials I use in class, to accommodate various participants’ needs, and to stand against the encroachment of an exploitative attention economy, I require all in-person students to disable internet connectivity on all their devices as soon as they enter my classroom, to stay offline until the class is done, and not to engage at all with phones, even offline, while class is in session.  (Analog attention management tools are fine.) If I see an in-person student using phones or internet connectivity during class, I will require that student to leave the classroom, marking the student absent for the day. If you have a special circumstance on any given day in which you need to remain on call, clear that with me ahead of time, at the beginning of class.

  • All students, with no exceptions, are required to engage and participate actively in class discussion during TA-led tutorials; you’re also welcomed and encouraged, but not required, to make your voice heard in full-class sessions in the lecture hall. (Click here for a further explanation of this policy.)

  • For students who have difficulty jumping into class discussion, your TA and I can offer an array of alternative avenues for participation, which the student must pre-arrange with us according to the specific instructions I make available on this website. (Click here for instructions, and for a description of how I usually arrange alternative avenues for participation; your TA is free to choose to follow my usual practices or to come up with new avenues of their own.)

  • If you miss a real-time class session for any reason, including illness or late registration, you are responsible for making up the content of any class session you miss, including make-up Comprehension Questions (CQs) for that day, according to the specific instructions I make available on this website. (Click here for a further explanation of this policy and for the relevant instructions.)

  • Even if you make up missed content, it will not reverse the fact that you missed the class session (make-up CQs restore CQ credit, but do not restore attendance credit!). Be sure you’re clear on this: my course attendance policy allows for a certain number of missed sessions (specified on your Track homepage) without penalty, inclusive of full-class and tutorial sessions; if you exceed that number, I will deduct points from your course grade. There are no exceptions available, no matter what, for the requirement to attend class sessions in real time, at the time they are scheduled. I never require proof, documentation, or any reason for a student’s absence. You can use your allowed number of absences for any reason; if the allowed number is exceeded, I deduct credit regardless of the reason. (Click here for a further explanation of this policy.)

  • I generally expect students in ENG 202 to attend our weekly full-class meetings in person in the lecture hall. But in addition to the allotted absences (see above) built into our course, I allow every student in ENG 202 to attend ONE of our weekly full-class lecture hall meetings remotely, ONCE during term — a one-time limit ONLY — and still receive credit for attending. Students whose circumstances make in-person attendance difficult can pre-arrange with me to expand the limit on how often they can use this remote attendance option. (Click here for instructions on how to attend remotely and on how to expand the limit on remote attendance if necessary.) Most tutorials meet entirely in person, and in-person attendance is required for those sessions; one online-only tutorial is also available.

  • If you want a deadline extension for a Philological Track Assignment, you must request it from your TA at least one week in advance (please do not share the reason for your request; just ask); lateness penalties will otherwise be deducted, but are very light. (Click here for a further explanation on Philological extensions and lateness.) There are no deadline extensions available for Discursive and Embodied Tracks; for those Tracks, if you cannot or do not show up ready to present as scheduled, our course policy is that you’ll be switched automatically to the Philological Track and expected to produce a written essay, unfortunately invalidating any work you’ve put in so far toward a presentation or performance. (But we’ll do our best to find other options where available — in a pinch, for instance, if you are scheduled to do a Discursive presentation but cannot attend as planned, ask your TA or a fellow student if they’d be willing to Zoom you in on a laptop or tablet. Be proactive and get in touch with your TA, or with me, as soon as you know something has gone wrong.) (Click here for a further explanation of this policy.)

  • If you are a student who has difficulty speaking up in class, or who wants extra help in English grammar and usage (including ESL/EFL), or who has a health consideration or atypical learning style that affects classwork, or who frequently has trouble with, or feels inadequately challenged by, classwork, or who is interested in investigating or applying to graduate school, or anything else that might benefit from an accommodation or modification, I can gladly customize my course to your needs or your style; I do not require any documentation or proof that you need accommodations. I do require that you request accommodations and modifications within the first three weeks of class — and that you follow my specific set of instructions for requesting accommodations and modifications when making your request. (Click here for instructions on how to request accommodations or modifications.)