A Reading List for English Applicants

That is a fair point, but it was not the only reason. I feel most students of literature exist inside a vacuum of ignorance, where European literature, and most literary theory is allowed to go unnoticed.

Why advocate Chaucer instead of Boccaccio, when the former used the latter's ideas and work heavily? There are lots more examples, and of course it works both ways, especially when work becomes more contemporary.

Hmm, Goethe isn't a Romantic, actually - well, to be fair, he dabbled in just about anything and he lived to be quite old, so he probably did have a Romantic(ish) phase at some point, but Faust definitely wouldn't representative of that...
Oh, and part of me twitches at seeing all of the English Renaissance reduced to just Hamlet, but I suppose that sort of reaction was intended.

The irony is I just realised I forgot Milton; in which case I would probably remove Shakespeare for him!

I tried to place them historically rather than by any particular artistic movement so I do admit there are significant issues with two or three of the categories, but it is the price I pay for only having four choices!

Personally, I do not rate the English Renaissance too highly (I believe I had Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and Spenser's The Faerie Queene listed before removing them from the final four), and I tried my best to remain objective - I did not include Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling, which I positively love! Also, I would personally not pigeon-hole Kafka to one novella either. It is quite easy to get through his entire works in a few days. The inclusion of Dostoevsky, James and Kipling instead of say Dickins, Tolstoy or any number other Victorians (Bronte, Conrad, Eliot, Hardy or Stevenson...) is also questionable.

The only categories which I think I did well were classics and theory.

Why advocate Chaucer instead of Boccaccio, when the former used the latter's ideas and work heavily? There are lots more examples, and of course it works both ways, especially when work becomes more contemporary.

So do I, for some reason. I think if you truly did love 1984, and have some form of critical analysis for it, you should put it in, and not refrain from doing so just because you'll seem "predictable".

If you truly loved "1984", you would probably refer to it by its true title "Nineteen Eighty Four".

If you truly loved "1984", you would probably refer to it by its true title "Nineteen Eighty Four".

Im looking for poems/ poem writers who wrote a lot about sociological aspects, such as gender, race torubles, war, class divide

anyone got any ideas?

Blah.

Prospective applicants often ask on here for recommendations of what books they should be reading. I have produced this list, with the help of some others (most notably hobnob), to hopefully answer this more thoroughly than other replies such questions are likely to receive, or have received hitherto. Whilst I've done my best to give a good coverage of important periods and movements, the list is not to be looked at as prescriptive, but rather a list of suggestions. It certainly isn't perfect.

One may, for instance, point out that there is a sixty year gulf between the most recent text on the list and the present day, in which much important literature has been produced, but I would reply that there is a six hundred year gap between the first and second items on the list, with other similar gaps elsewhere, and so any neglect of the latter half of the twentieth century does not seem quite so terrible after all. (Furthermore, most applicants tend to be rather well versed on the period, mainly by virtue of having lived in it.)

Even though I am supposedly doing it, I have no idea about English Language.

Hey OP are there any recommended reading lists going around for English language applicants??!!!


the TSR english language applicants community is indeed a minority!

I would look at a linguistics reading list and see how it might fit with the course offering at your uni. Cambridge provides this reading list:
http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/ling/courses/pgrad/rlmphil.html.

In my college course I took the following courses as part of my English, BA:
English Grammar: Understanding English Grammar by Kolln
Phonetics & Phonology: English Phonetics & Phonology: An Intro by CARR
Aspects of the English Language: Language: Its Structure & Use by Finegan
Sociolinguistics: Intro to Sociolinguistics by Wardhaugh

Of course, you can read the works of Saussure, Chomsky, Labov, Bernstein, as well as others.

Hope this helps.