The Department of English offers a rich program of study for students interested in majoring in English. Student may choose between a Literature track and a Creative Writing track, or select a minor in English.

One of the highlights of this academic program is the Ferrol A. Sams, Jr., Distinguished Chair of English, which brings to the campus each year a nationally recognized writer, poet and/or playwright who works with the students and offers special programs to the campus and the community.

The English Literature Track consists of ENG 263, 264, 265, 301, either 332 or 333, one historical period course (ENG 330, 335, 340, 342, 346, 347, 348, 352, 353, 357, 358, 359, 360), one literary form course (ENG 329, 344, 349, 354, 362, 364, 366, 367, 368, 369, 382), a senior seminar (ENG 480S), and one upper division elective.

The English Creative Writing track consists of the following common requirements: ENG 263, 264, 265, 301, and 307, and one other upper-level literature course. Additional requirements are: for fiction and poetry writing-track students, ENG 310; for Fiction-writing Emphasis, ENG 312, and 485 (Sams Fiction Seminar) or 487; for Poetry-writing Emphasis, ENG 311, and ENG 485 (Sams Poetry Seminar); for Drama-writing Emphasis, ENG/CTA 371 and ENG/CTA 372, and ENG 485 (Sams Drama Seminar). Students who wish to pursue a multi-genre, generalist writing experience may do so by choosing to specialize in a different genre in ENG 487 than they did in ENG 311, 312, or 371.

English Minor

A minor in English consists of five English courses above ENG 108, including at least one course from 233, 234, 235, 263, 264, or 265, and three courses numbered 300 or above.

Departmental Honors

Majors on the Literature Track may attain Departmental Honors in English by successfully completing the above requirements, plus ENG 329 and 488 under the direction of an Honors Committee composed of the Chair and two members of the English Department selected by the student. Students should register for ENG 488 in the spring semester of their junior year and complete the honors paper by March 15 of the senior year.

Majors on the Creative Writing Track may attain Departmental Honors in English by submitting a portfolio by March 15 of the senior year to be juried by outside readers. The portfolio must be judged “outstanding” to receive honors.

A grade point average of 3.50 in upper-division English classes is required for honors.

Secondary Teacher Certification Program in English

Teacher certification in English (6-12) is available to English majors who complete ENG 323 or 325. Students planning to teach English in secondary school should notify their advisor and contact the secondary education advisor in Tift College of Education. Required courses in education include EDUC 210, 220, 256, 283, 357, 398, 399, 468, 469, 476, 485 and 492. Individuals interested in this program should refer to Mercer’s Tift College of Education information.

Ferrol A. Sams, Jr., Distinguished Chair of English

The Ferrol A. Sams, Jr., Distinguished Chair of English, established in 1994, brings a respected fiction writer, poet, or playwright to Mercer during spring semester. The distinguished writer-in-residence conducts one seminar (ENG 485) and offers readings and lectures during his/her appointment. Read about the 2007 Sams Distinguished Chair of English.

Courses

The first semester of First Year Seminar or the equivalent is prerequisite to all other English courses. Either English 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 263, 264, or 265 is prerequisite to all upper-division English courses.

ENG 108. Composition (3 hours)
This course focuses on the expository essay, the basic form of college writing. It includes an introduction to research. The student is expected to be familiar with standards of correctness, including punctuation and grammar.

ENG 233. The Study of Drama (3 hours)
A study of drama from various periods with emphasis on forms, ideas, techniques, and meaning. The student will be required to develop an ability to read, think, and write critically.

ENG 234. The Study of Fiction (3 hours)
A study of novels and short stories from various periods with emphasis on forms, ideas, techniques, and meaning. The student will be required to develop an ability to read, think, and write critically.

ENG 235. The Study of Poetry (3 hours)
A study of poetry from various periods with emphasis on forms, ideas, techniques, and meaning. The student will be required to develop an ability to read, think, and write critically.

ENG 236. The Study of a Literary Theme: (variable topic) (3 hours)
This course examines a particular theme in various literary forms. In addition to learning how to read a literary text closely and carefully, the student will be required to develop an ability to read, think, and write critically.

ENG 237. Literature and Film (3 hours)
The critical study of film as a literary text. Selected novels and their film adaptations will be studied in order to explore the differences and similarities between written and cinematic forms.

ENG 240. Multicultural Women Writers (3 hours)
Prerequisite: FYS 101
An analysis of the writings of contemporary American women of diverse cultural backgrounds. Reading and discussing novels, short stories, and poetry, this course will explore the ways that these writers navigate being American and being culturally “other” within a homogenizing “melting pot” society.

ENG 263. Survey of English Literature: Beginnings through the Eighteenth Century (3 hours)
A chronological survey of English literature from the Anglo-Saxon period through the eighteenth century. Required for the English major.

ENG 264. Survey of English Literature: Romanticism to the Present (3 hours)
A chronological survey of English literature from the Romantic Age to the contemporary period. Required for the English major.

ENG 265. Survey of American Literary Masters (3 hours)
A study of major American writers from the colonial period to the present. Required for the English major.

ENG 301. Introduction to Literary Studies (3 hours)
This course introduces students to literary criticism and the methodologies of literary scholarship. It is intended to prepare English majors for advanced work in upper-division courses. Required for the English major.

ENG 307. Essay Writing (3 hours)
Writing in a variety of essay forms with special emphasis on the relationships among writer, subject, and reader.

ENG 310. Introduction to Creative Writing (3 hours)
Prerequisites: FYS 102 and either ENG 234 or 235 or a portfolio approved by the instructor.
The students will learn, apply, and question the forms, conventions, and techniques of poetry and prose and will then use this knowledge to craft their own original work in these genres. Students will begin to discern their own voices as writers and will begin to formulate a set of aesthetics based on their readings of strong work by professional writers. This course is the prerequisite for all other creative writing courses.

ENG 311. Poetry Workshop (3 hours)
Prerequisite: consent of the instructor.
Students who have developed a facility in poetry writing will work together in a workshop setting. Exercises, assignments, readings, group critiques, and individual conferences will be used to support the student’s efforts to complete an agreed upon poetry manuscript.

ENG 312. Fiction Workshop (3 hours)
Prerequisite: consent of the instructor.
Students who have developed a facility in fiction writing will work together in a workshop setting. Exercises, assignments, readings, group critiques, and individual conferences will be used to support the student’s efforts to complete an agreed upon fiction manuscript.

ENG 323. History of the English Language (3 hours)
The history of modern British and American English is traced from the Indo-European beginnings through the Anglo-Saxon, Medieval, and Modern Periods to the present trends in linguistic study.

ENG 325. Contemporary Theories in Linguistics (3 hours)
This course includes the study of phonetics, morphology, structural linguistics, and transformational grammar. It is intended to acquaint students with the recent scientific approach to the study of English grammar.

ENG 329. Twentieth-Century Literary Theory and Criticism (3 hours)
A study of literary theory and criticism in the twentieth century, focused on major groups and movements. Regularly included are such schools as Formalism, Structuralism, Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Post-Structuralism.

ENG 330. Chaucer (3 hours)
This course focuses primarily upon The Canterbury Tales with some work on Troilus and Criseyde and minor poems. Attention is given to Middle English pronunciation and poetics. Lectures, reports, and collateral readings will concern the Medieval background.

ENG 332. Shakespeare I: Histories and Comedies (3 hours)
A study of several histories and comedies. Plays to be considered may include Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, and others.

ENG 333. Shakespeare II: Tragedies and Romances (3 hours)
A study of selected tragedies and romances. Plays to be considered may include Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, and others.

ENG 335. Milton (3 hours)
A study of Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes, as well as selections from the minor poems and prose works.

ENG 340. Sixteenth-Century Literature (3 hours)
A survey of the literature of the English Renaissance. Special attention will be given to the work of Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Sir Philip Sidney, and Sir Francis Bacon, as well as to the non-dramatic poetry of Shakespeare.

ENG 342. Seventeenth-Century Literature (3 hours)
A survey of the religious and secular literature of seventeenth-century England, up to 1660, including such authors as Donne, Herbert, Jonson, Herrick, and Marvell.

ENG 346. Eighteenth-Century Literature (3 hours)
A study of the major figures from Dryden to Goldsmith with special emphasis on the comic ironic-satiric tradition in prose and on the rhetorical and empirical traditions in poetry. Lectures and collateral reading provides background for understanding the social, philosophical, religious, and aesthetic implications of literature.

ENG 347. Poetry and Prose of the Romantic Movement (3 hours)
A study of the poetry and prose of the English Romantic period with chief emphasis upon six major figures-Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats.

ENG 348. Victorian Poetry and Prose (3 hours)
A study of the major poets and prose writers of the Victorian age in England, with particular attention to Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Carlyle, Ruskin, and Hopkins. Selected works from the pre-Raphaelites and from the aesthetic and decadent movements of the 1800s and 90s will also be read.

ENG 349. The English Novel (3 hours)
A survey of the development of the novel from the 1720s to the 1880s with special emphasis on Richardson, Fielding, Austen, Dickens, Eliot, Hardy, and other selected writers.

ENG 352. Romanticism In American Literature (3 hours)
The origin, growth, and impact of the Romantic movement in American literature as revealed by an examination of the major writers of the period such as Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman.

ENG 353. Realism In American Literature (3 hours)
A study of the movement in American literature from Romanticism to Realism with its accompanying emphasis on pragmatic, realistic, or naturalistic interpretations. Major consideration will be given to such writers as Dickinson, Twain, James, Howells, and Crane.

ENG 354. The American Novel (3 hours)
A survey of the development of the American novel from its beginnings to the early twentieth century to show how the American novel has become both uniquely American and a major form of American letters. Hawthorne, Melville, Howells, James, Dreiser, and others will be studied.

ENG 357. Literature of the South to 1945 (3 hours)
A study of southern literature from the antebellum period to the end of World War II. The course includes such writers as the Frontier Humorists, Twain, Ransom, Tate, Faulkner, Warren, Wolfe, and Toomer. Topics such as tradition, change, and race relations are considered.

ENG 358. Literature of the South after 1945 (3 hours)
A study of southern literature in the contemporary period. The course includes such writers as O’Connor, Welty, Percy, Ellison, Walker, and Dickey and selected contemporary southern poets and dramatists. Topics such as tradition, change, and race relations are considered.

ENG 359. African American Literature: Beginnings to 1965 (3 hours)
A survey of classic writings in African American literature presented in their historical contexts. The course includes essays analyzing the political and social status of African Americans at various points during the period and representative works by major poets and fiction writers. Reading lists vary from year to year. but generally include such authors as Brown, Chestnut, Harper, the Grimkes, Larsen, Bontemps, DuBois, Washington, Harlem Renaissance writers, Ellison, and writers of the early Civil Rights era.

ENG 360. African American Literature: 1965 to Present (3 hours)
A chronological study of the development of African American literature since 1965. The course attempts to place African American literature in the context of world and American literature by examining prevalent themes and traditions as presented in fiction, poetry, an drama. Reading lists vary from year to year, but generally include such authors as Wright, Baldwin, Morrison, Angelou, Sanchez, Baraka, McMillan, Walker, and Wideman.

ENG 362. Modern Poetry: 1900 to 1965 (3 hours)
A study of major English and American Poets and aesthetic movements from 1900-65. Topics include aestheticism, Celtic Renaissance, imagism, vorticism, and objectivism. Poets usually include Yeats, Eliot, Pound, Frost, and Stevens as well as others.

ENG 364. Modern Drama: 1880 to 1965 (3 hours)
A study of drama in English from the emergence of realism at the end of the nineteenth century to the advent of absurdism in the mid-1960s.

ENG 366. Modern Fiction: 1900 to 1965 (3 hours)
A study of major modernist innovations in form and techniques by the foremost writers of the twentieth century up to 1965. Writers usually include Joyce, Woolf, Lawrence, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, and James.

ENG 367. Contemporary Drama: 1965 to Present (3 hours)
A study of drama in English since 1965, exploring aspects of postmodern aesthetics and staging.

ENG 368. Contemporary Poetry: 1965 to Present (3 hours)
A study of major English and American poets with respect to representative themes of postmodernism and new directions in poetic form. Major topics include: confessional and Black Mountain poetics, neo-surrealism, concrete poetry, and political, regional, and feminist verse.

ENG 369. Contemporary Fiction: 1965 to Present (3 hours)
A study of major English and American works that extends modern modes in fictional representation and style.

ENG 371. Beginning Playwriting (3 hours)
The goal of this course is to introduce the student to the conventions and techniques playwriting. Students will complete exercises leading to the creation of an original one-act play.

ENG 372. Screenwriting (3 hours)
The art, craft, and business of screenwriting from theoretical and practical perspectives. Topics include: the nature of screenplay formats and structures; creation and development of premise, plot, character, and action; scene writing; adaptation issues; place of the screenwriter in the collaborative process of film making; and marketing strategies.

ENG 378. Images of Women In Literature (3 hours)
A study of the literary representation of women, with emphasis on the lives and careers of women writers. Authors covered may include Austen, Bronte, Wharton, Woolf, Morrison, and others.

ENG 380. Special Topics in English Literature (3 hours)
A study of some significant topic in literature written in English not included in the regular departmental offerings. May be taken twice for credit in the English major.

ENG 382. The Critical Study of Film (3 hours)
An examination of film as a form of literature. A study of the relationship of film to literary forms and structures. Special emphasis will be on important film genres, as well as on the work of major directors.

ENG 480S. Seminar in Literature (3 hours)
Prerequisite: senior standing.
A study of some significant topic in English or American literature not included in the regular departmental offerings. May not be repeated for credit. Required for the literature track of the English major.

ENG 483. Advanced Playwriting Workshop (3 hours)
Prerequisites: junior or senior standing, ENG/CTA 371, and 372
A portfolio (two complete plays) approved by the instructor may substitute for ENG/CTA 371 and/or 372. Students will write and revise one play with assistance from readers’ theater criticism conducted by classmates and will assemble a portfolio of three complete plays. Offered as needed for playwriting students unable to enroll in ENG 485 (Sams Seminar in Drama).

ENG 484. Directed Independent Reading (1-3 hours)
Prerequisites: junior or senior status and consent of the instructor.
This course provides the student with the opportunity to do guided intensive reading in a literary field of his or her interest under the direction of the instructor selected. The student will be expected to meet regularly with the instructor and to present written evidence of his or her critical ability and aesthetic appreciation. Variable credit 1-3 hours, not to exceed 3 hours total.

ENG 485. The Ferrol Sams, Jr., Distinguished Chair of (3 hours)
English Seminar in Fiction, Poetry, or Drama
Prerequisite: successful completion of appropriate creative writing courses or permission of the instructor.
This course will provide an opportunity for students to study advanced creative writing under an accomplished artist. Course may be repeated for credit.

ENG 487. Advanced Creative Writing Workshop (3 hours)
Prerequisites: junior or senior standing, ENG 310, and 311 or 312.
The course follows a workshop format wherein students critique one another’s work, hone their editing skills, and study the editorial standards of strong presses and practicing writers. The course also explores matters of form and researching markets for written work. Offered every fourth semester.

ENG 488. Independent Study for Honors in English (3 hours)
Open to qualified senior English majors and offered fall semester of each year.
Working under the direction of a member of the English Department and with the approval of the chair, the student will complete by March 15 of his or her senior year an essay project of scholarly merit. Three hours credit will be awarded on satisfactory completion of the project, and an Honors designation will be entered in the student record.