ENG 255 London Writers
In this class we will read one work each by six great writers who were (or are) based in London: William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, John Keats, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, and Zadie Smith. Our reading of their work in its London contexts will be supplemented by visits to such sites as the rebuilt Globe Theatre and the homes and workplaces of Johnson, Keats, and Dickens (Keats’ home in Hampstead, where he wrote “Ode: To a Nightingale,” is one of the most evocative places on this earth), and by such out-of-class excursions as following the itinerary of Clarissa Dalloway’s walk through central London in Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and exploring the Bangladeshi and Jamaican neighborhoods of Zadie Smith’s White Teeth.
No prerequisites. Taught in London.