Literature | Title - Author

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

William Wordsworth (1807, Romantic poetry, first generation) – nature, memory, imagination, emotional healing, Romanticism, daffodils as symbol of joy

She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

William Wordsworth (1798, Romantic poetry, first generation) isolation, hidden beauty, death, simplicity, Lucy poems, nature symbolism

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1798, Romantic poetry, first generation) guilt, supernatural, nature, albatross symbolism, Gothic atmosphere, punishment

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen (1813, Romantic prose / novel of manners) marriage, class, irony, dialogue characterization, wit, realism, pride vs prejudice

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley (1818, Romantic prose / Gothic novel) the Other, Gothic horror, Romanticism, science and responsibility, isolation, mad scientist trope

Ode to the West Wind

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1820, Romantic poetry, second generation) power of nature, revolution, change, wind symbolism, poetic inspiration

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

John Keats (1819, Romantic poetry second generation) fatal woman, medievalism, dreamlike atmosphere, beauty and death, melancholy

Child Harold’s Pilgrimage (extract)

George Gordon Byron (1812~1818, Romantic poetry second generation) Byronic hero, travel, individualism, melancholy, freedom

Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontë (1847, Victorian prose) destructive love, revenge, Gothic elements, nature symbolism, passion, isolation

The Lady of Shalott

Alfred Tennyson (1832/1842, Victorian poetry) isolation, curse, art vs life, symbolism, medieval atmosphere

The Blessed Damozel

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1850, Victorian poetry / Pre Raphaelite poetry) idealized love, heaven, spirituality, sensual imagery

Sonnet 43

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850, Victorian poetry) love, devotion, sincerity, sonnet form, emotional intensity

Great Expectations

Charles Dickens (1861, Victorian prose) social class, ambition, personal growth, childhood, crime, realism

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde (1890, Fin de siècle / aestheticism) beauty, corruption, double life, decadence, morality, art for art’s sake

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

T. S. Eliot (1915, Modernist poetry) alienation, fragmentation, anxiety, stream of consciousness, modern city

Dulce et Decorum Est

Wilfred Owen (1920, Modernist / war poetry) horrors of war, anti patriotism, trauma, realism, irony

Easter 1916

William Butler Yeats (1921, Modernist poetry) Irish nationalism, political change, sacrifice, historical reflection

Mrs Dalloway

Virginia Woolf (1925, Modernist novel) stream of consciousness, time, memory, psychology, post war trauma

Lord of the Flies

William Golding (1954, 20th century novel) civilization vs savagery, human nature, symbolism, loss of innocence

Wild Oats

Philip Larkin (1979, Contemporary poetry) relationships, regret, emotional emptiness, realism, irony

Digging

Seamus Heaney (1966, Contemporary poetry) family, heritage, identity, writing as labor, memory

Mrs Midas

Carol Ann Duffy (1999, Contemporary poetry) myth revision, greed, relationships, feminist perspective, humor and tragedy

Bed

Jackie Kay (1991, Contemporary poetry) illness, isolation, motherhood, family relationships, dramatic monologue

Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett (1953, Contemporary drama / Theatre of the Absurd) meaninglessness, waiting, existentialism, repetition, absurdity

Selected short stories

Kazuo Ishiguro (21st)

Selected short stories

Helen Oyeyemi (21st)

Selected short stories

Sarah Hall (21st)