Unit One
Note: Teachers may choose texts from the list in a number of ways. They might include one mid-length novel or two short novels; a play; a selection of poems by various authors; and a nonfiction essay. The teacher may also add or remove texts from the list depending on the class.
12-1 Literary Texts—European Literature: Middle Ages
Epic Poems
Stories
Literary Nonfiction
Poems
Informational Texts
Historical Nonfiction
12-1 Literary Texts—European Literature: Middle Ages
Epic Poems
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Anonymous)
- Inferno (Dante Alighieri) (Cantos I-XI, XXXI-XXXIV) (L 1170)
- Beowulf (Anonymous)
- Le Morte d'Arthur (Sir Thomas Malory)
Stories
- The Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio) (continued in unit two) (L 1500)
Literary Nonfiction
- Confessions (Saint Augustine) (Book XI) (L 1270)
Poems
- “The Ruin” in The Exeter Book (Anonymous)
- “The Wanderer” in The Exeter Book (Anonymous)
- The General Prologue in The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer) (E)
- “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer) (E)
- “The Knight’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer) (E)
- “The Pardoner’s Tale”in The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer) (E)
- The Wife's Lament in The Exeter Book (Anonymous)
- The Seafarer in The Exeter Book (Anonymous)
Informational Texts
Historical Nonfiction
- The One and the Many in the Canterbury Tales (Traugott Lawler)
- Medieval Images, Icons, and Illustrated English Literary Texts: From Ruthwell Cross to the Ellesmere Chaucer (Maidie Hilmo)
- St. Thomas Aquinas (G. K. Chesterton)
- The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade (Susan Wise Bauer)
Unit Two
12-2 Literary Texts—European Literature: Renaissance and Reformation
Novel
Stories
Plays
Poems
Informational Texts
Historical Nonfiction
Historical Nonfiction
Novel
Stories
- The Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio) (continued from unit one) (L 1500)
Plays
- The Tragedy of Macbeth (William Shakespeare) (L 1350)
Poems
- Dark Night of the Soul (Saint John of the Cross) (selections)
- “The Nightingale of Wittenberg” (Hans Sachs)
- The Faerie Queene (Edmund Spenser) (selections)
- Sonnets 29, 30, 40, 116, 128, 130, 143, and 146 (William Shakespeare)
- “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” (Christopher Marlowe)
- “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” (Sir Walter Raleigh)
Informational Texts
Historical Nonfiction
- Rabelais and His World (Mikhail Bakhtin)
Historical Nonfiction
- The Prince (Niccolo Machiavelli) (selections) (L 1510)
Unit Three
12-3 Literary Texts—European Literature: Seventeenth Century
Note: Because of the number and length of works included in this unit, teachers may want to organize it around two major works, one fiction (or dramatic, or poetic) and one nonfiction, with other works supplementing these selections. As a minimum, students should read one full literary work, a substantial excerpt from a philosophical or scientific work, and several shorter works of fiction and poetry.
Novels
Poems
Informational Texts
Historical Nonfiction
Note: Because of the number and length of works included in this unit, teachers may want to organize it around two major works, one fiction (or dramatic, or poetic) and one nonfiction, with other works supplementing these selections. As a minimum, students should read one full literary work, a substantial excerpt from a philosophical or scientific work, and several shorter works of fiction and poetry.
Novels
- Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes) (E) (selections) (L 1410)
- The Pilgrim’s Progress (John Bunyan) (L 900)
Poems
- “The Flea” (John Donne) (E)
- “Song: Goe, and catche a falling starre” (John Donne) (E)
- “Holy Sonnet 10” (John Donne) (E)
- “To His Coy Mistress” (Andrew Marvell)
- “To the Virgins to Make Much of Time” (Robert Herrick)
- “To Daffodils” (Robert Herrick)
- “Love III” (George Herbert)
Informational Texts
Historical Nonfiction
- Leviathan (Thomas Hobbes) (selections) (L 1270)
- Novum Organum (Francis Bacon) (selections)
- An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Vol. 1 (John Locke), Vol. 2
Unit Four
12-4 Literary Texts—European Literature: Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century
Novels
Novels
- Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe) (L 1070)
- Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift) (L 1210)
- Emma (Jane Austen) (L 1147)
- “Micromégas” (Voltaire)
- The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchhausen (Rudolf Erich Raspe)
- A Modest Proposal (Jonathan Swift)
- “Auguries of Innocence” “Songs of Innocence and of Experience” (selected poems) (William Blake) (EA)
- “Ode on Indolence” “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (excerpts) (John Keats)
- In Memorium A. H. H (Alfred Lord Tennyson)
- “Tintern Abbey” “London, 1802” “The World is too Much with Us” “Ode to Intimations to Immortality” (excerpts) (William Wordsworth)
- The Diary of Samuel Pepys (Samuel Pepys)
- The Life of Samuel Johnson (James Boswell)
- Preface to Lyrical Ballads (William Wordsworth)
Unit Five
12-5 Literary Texts—European Literature: Nineteenth Century
This is a longer unit. Teachers may want to select one novel, one play; one long poem; and several short poems. Alternately, the teacher might choose to include two plays instead of a novel, or two long poems instead of a play. The selections of the unit should show a range of literary imagination and contrasting attitudes toward the role of literature in society.
Novels
Children’s Literature
Drama
This is a longer unit. Teachers may want to select one novel, one play; one long poem; and several short poems. Alternately, the teacher might choose to include two plays instead of a novel, or two long poems instead of a play. The selections of the unit should show a range of literary imagination and contrasting attitudes toward the role of literature in society.
Novels
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Victor Hugo) (L 1205)
- The Three Musketeers (L 960), The Count of Monte Cristo (Andre Dumas) (L930)
- Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne) (L1030)
- The Time Machine (H.G. Wells) (L1070)
- Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen) (L 1160)
- Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë) (E) (L 840)
- Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë) (L 880)
- A Christmas Carol(Charles Dickens) (L 900)
- Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) (L 1170)
- Dracula (Bram Stoker) (L 960)
- The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde) (L 920)
Children’s Literature
- Peter and Wendy (J.M. Barrie)
- The Adventure of Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll) (L 860)
- The Jungle Book (Rudyard Kipling) (L 740)
Drama
- A Doll’s House (Henrik Ibsen) (E)
- The Sunken Bell (Gerhart Hauptmann)
- The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde) (E)