• Understanding Literature: What is literature? Forms and functions of literature. Key literary terms and concepts.
• Genres of Literature: Introduction to poetry, drama, and prose. Distinguishing features and historical development.
• Historical Overview: Key literary periods — Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Romanticism, Victorian, Modernism.
• Representative Authors and Texts: Selections from Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, Wordsworth, Austen, and Woolf.
• Introduction to Literary Criticism: Overview of major critical theories — formalism, feminism, Marxism, post-colonialism.

Introduction to English Literature lays the groundwork for literary appreciation, analysis, and academic study. It begins with the fundamental elements of literature — plot, character, theme, and style — and progresses into examining how literature reflects and shapes societies over time.

Students will explore representative texts from classical antiquity, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Romantic period, and the Modernist age. Special emphasis is placed on understanding the literary canon, genre conventions, and narrative structures. The course also introduces tools for critical interpretation using key theoretical frameworks such as structuralism, feminism, post-colonialism, and Marxist criticism.

Texts may include excerpts from Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, Wordsworth, Austen, Dickens, and Virginia Woolf, among others. The subject encourages close reading and critical discussion, and serves as the foundation for more advanced literary studies.