UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH BOHEMIA IN ČESKÉ BUDĚJOVICE
Study programmes & Course catalogue
for academic year 2025/2026
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH BOHEMIA IN ČESKÉ BUDĚJOVICE
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Course: Time in English Literature

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Course title Time in English Literature
Course code UAN/7CAL
Organizational form of instruction Seminar
Level of course Bachelor
Year of study not specified
Semester Summer
Number of ECTS credits 3
Language of instruction English
Status of course Compulsory-optional
Form of instruction Face-to-face
Work placements This is not an internship
Recommended optional programme components None
Course availability The course is available to visiting students
Lecturer(s)
  • Krajíčková Veronika, Mgr. Ph.D.
Course content
week 1: Introduction to time in literature week 2: William Shakespeare - Sonnets on Time week 3: Metaphysical poets and John Milton - Andrew Marvell ("To His Coy Mistress"), John Donne ("The Will", "The Funeral"), John Milton ("On Time") week 4: Romanticism 1- Graveyard Poets (Thomas Gray - "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard") ,William Wordsworth ("Ode: Intimations of Immortality", "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey"), William Blake ("The Chimney Sweeper" in Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience) week 5: Romanticism 2 -John Keats ("Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode to a Nightingale"), Percy Bysshe Shelley ("Time"), John Clare ("The Old Year") week 6: H. G. Wells - The Time Machine week 7: Modernism - Introduction to Henri Bergson's concept of duration (Time and Free Will) and William James's specious present (Principles of Psychology) week 8: T.S. Eliot - Four Quartets week 9: Paul Ricoeur - "Games with Time", "Time in Fictional Narrative" (Time and Narrative) week 10: V. Woolf - Mrs Dalloway week 11: V. Woolf - Orlando week 12: V. Woolf - "A Sketch of the Past" (Woolf's memoir) week 13: Jean Rhys - Good Morning, Midnight

Learning activities and teaching methods
Dialogic (discussion, interview, brainstorming)
Learning outcomes
This seminar aims to familiarize students with the theme of time in English literature from Shakespeare to modernism. It focuses on literary works where time is foregrounded and represents one of the most important thematic or narrative aspects. Students will be encouraged to examine the development of the notion of time in English literature and to search for some parallels and differences in treatment of time in the discussed works, for example the nostalgia for the time passed, the attempt to capture the transience of time and immortalize the present moment. Moreover, the seminar involves discussions of theoretical concepts of time that were explored either by writers themselves or used by scholars to interpret the analysed literary works. These include Henri Bergson's notion of duration or Paul Ricoeur's definition of psychological, monumental, and mortal time.
The course participants will get some awareness about the theme of time in English literature from Shakespeare to modernism
Prerequisites
No prerequisites.

Assessment methods and criteria
Essay

attendance (maximum 3 absences), active participation, short oral presentation (maximum 15 minutes), final essay (1,500-2,000 words) When submitting their essays, students must meet the deadline required by the teacher. If the essay fails, students have one more chance to resubmit it.
Recommended literature
  • Austin, Linda M. "Children of Childhood: Nostalgia and the Romantic Legacy." Studies in Romanticism, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 75 - 98. 2003.
  • Bergson, Henri. Matter and Memory. Trans. N. M. Paul and W. S. Palmer. New York: Dover Publication, 2004.
  • Blake, William. Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. New York: Dover Publications, 1992.
  • Coleridge, Samuel T., and William Wordsworth. Lyrical Ballads and Other Poems. Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 2003.
  • David, James P. "The ?Spots of Time?: Wordsworth's Poetic Debt to Coleridge," Colby Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 2., pp. 65 - 84..
  • De Man, Paul. "Time and History in Wordsworth." Diacritics, vol. 17 no. 4, 1987, pp. 4-17..
  • Eliot, Thomas S. Four Quartets. Orlando: Harcourt Brace International, 1968.
  • Hilský, Martin. Modernisté. Praha: Argo, 2017.
  • Lee, Hermione. The Novels of Virginia Woolf. London: Methuen & Co Ltd., 1977.
  • Lee, Chia-jung. "Locating the Self in Temporality: The Wordsworthian Self and The Prelude." The Wenshan Review of Literature and Culture, vol.10, no. 2, 2017, pp. 135-163..
  • Melaney, William D. Alterity and Criticism: Tracing Time in Modern Literature.. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2017.
  • Miller, Christopher R. The Invention of Evening: Perception and Time in Romantic Poetry. Cambridge, CUP, 2006.
  • Prudente, Theresa. A Special Tender Piece of Eternity: Virginia Woolf and the Experience of Time. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008.
  • Rhys, Jean. Good Morning, Midnight. London: Penguin, 2000.
  • Ricoeur, Paul. Time and Narrative, Vol. 2. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985.
  • Stříbrný, Zdeněk and Zdeněk Beran, editors. Tušivá rozpomnění: Jezerní básníci. Jitro, 2010.
  • Wells, George H. The Time Machine. New York: Dover Publications, 1995.
  • Woolf, Virginia. "A Sketch of the Past." In Moments of Being. 64-159. Edited by Jeanne Schulkind. London: Harcourt, 1985.
  • Woolf, Virginia. Mrs Dalloway. London: Penguin books, 1996.
  • Woolf, Virginia. Orlando. London: Penguin, 1998.


Study plans that include the course
Faculty Study plan (Version) Category of Branch/Specialization Recommended year of study Recommended semester
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH BOHEMIA IN ČESKÉ BUDĚJOVICE, date of update: 13.06.2025 23:50. Data created for academic year 2025/2026