For this English Department, this class is the first of its kind—a graduate literature class that is not cross-listed with an undergraduate class. (And considering the low enrollment, it may be the last such class.) The idea is to elevate the English Department's graduate literature program to a more professional level.

Undergraduate classes in the lit program here have three levels: 1) Intro. to Poetry and Fiction, which are really intros to how to talk and write about poetry and fiction. 2) Surveys, which cover about two centuries each, and provide a kind of snack-bar kind of experience. 3) Specialized seminars, typically in a Professor's pet subject. In all of these individual works and individual authors are treated mostly as discrete topics.

Crosslisting creates courses which always have more undergraduates that graduates, and which have to serve both audiences. The perception (here and elsewhere) is that they don't do the job very well, especially for the graduate students, particularly because the traditional comprehensive exam for a M.A. degree signals that successful candidates are supposed to have a comprehensive knowledge of two or three literary periods, which means a knowledge that encompasses not only familiarity with individual works, but also an understanding of the intellectual and social background which helps shape those works, and the resulting connections among works. For example, here is a typical comprehensive question: "Trace the development of the knightl ideal in at least three works of the Middle Ages."

Therefore, I have ephasized works on the M.A. reading list, and I have demanded a scholarly approach, and I have emphasized personal resposibility.

A personal note: Assumptions:

1. That this isn't the first time you have read, or at least heard of these works.
2. That this isn't the first time you have read, or at least heard of these works.