This course offers an introduction to English literature, including poetry, prose and drama from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century and serves as the culmination of a series of General Studies courses in composition. In earlier courses, students learn to compose grammatically correct, rhetorically effective, and logically sound essays; in this class, students will focus these tools on the literary texts under discussion. The course thus has two major goals that work symbiotically: to teach students to understand and analyze literary works, and to teach them to write cogently about those works. In order to allow for a clear focus to both student reading and writing, the course will center on, though by no means be limited to, questions of identity and nationalism: how do literary works fashion identities? what is a "national" literature? what is "English" literature? and what is the relation of the literary author to the nation and to literary tradition?