Most of the literature for our course is in the public domain. I will, therefore, be able to provide PDF copies in our classroom for free, although you may pick up a printed/book version if that is preferred. 

You may print out the course pack with poetry and art, historical documents, and provided pages for guided visual notetaking, but this is not required. 

Creative notetaking and annotation supplies are highly encouraged, such as colourful pens, highlighters, and sticky notes. (Just in case you are looking for recommendations, my favourites are Staedtler double-ended fibre tip pens, Pentel Energel pens, and PaperMate Flair pens.)

📓NOVEL
🫖Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (19th century; 1847)

✅ This novel is in the public domain, so a copy will be provided in the classroom for your learner. You do not need to purchase it!

🎭 DRAMA
🫖Hamlet by William Shakespeare (17th century; 1623)

✅ This play is in the public domain, so you do not need to purchase it! Extracts will be provided in the classroom. Due to time constraints, we will not be reading all of it, but the learners will read some of the essential passages and compare them to a filmed version and to The Lion King, which is inspired by Hamlet.

🍿 FILM (Recorded Drama)

❗This is the only extra expense for our course. These films are not in the public domain and cannot be provided for free. The Lion King and Hamilton are available on Disney+, which now has an ads version that is more affordable. The films will be viewed at the end of October (The Lion King) and the end of March into April (Hamilton), so you needn't pay for an ongoing subscription. Hamlet is not available on Disney+, but a free 1948 version is included on YouTube that I will post in the classroom. Other versions are also readily available on other platforms.

🗽The Lion King by Jeff Nathanson (screenplay writer), Jon Favreau (director), and Walt Disney Pictures (21st century; animated 1994 or photorealistic 2019 version; on Disney+)
*October of the 2024-2025 school year

🌎Any version of Hamlet
*October/November of the 2024-2025 school year
*Hamlet is not available on Disney+, but a free 1948 version is included on YouTube that I will post in the classroom. There are several other versions included with Prime, including Franco Zeffirelli's (a BAFTA film award nominee) and the Stratford Festival version by Antoni Cimolino and Shelagh O'Brien (Canadians). Branagh's Hamlet (1996) is the most faithful to the text, although it is longer than the others. It can be rented on Prime or YouTube. David Tennant's 2009 version is also well-respected.

🗽Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda (21st century; 2020; on Disney+)
*March/April of the 2024-2025 school year

POETRY

✅A poetry-art course pack with guiding comprehension questions will be provided. It will contain the following common domain poems. You do not need to buy or source any of them!

🫖William Shakespeare (English; male; c. 1564-1616; 17th century)
"Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?" (1609)
"Not Marble Nor the Guilded Monuments" (1609)
“All the World’s a Stage” (1623; from As You Like It)

🫖Lady Mary Wroth (English; female; 1587-1630; 17th century)
“Pamphilia to Amphilanthus: 2” (1621)

🗽Anne Bradstreet (British-American; female; 1612-1672; 17th century)
“The Four Ages of Men” (1650; published posthumously)
“The Author to Her Book” (1678; published posthumously)

🫖Duchess of Newcastle Margaret Cavendish (English; female; 
 1623-1673; 17th century)
“The Dutchess to Her Readers”
“An Apology for Her Poetry”
“Man’s Short Life and Foolish Ambition”

☘️🌎Jonathan Swift (Anglo-Irish; male; 1667-1745)
“The Lady’s Dressing Room”
“A Description of the Morning”
“Advice to the Grub Street Verse-Writers”
“Market Women’s Cries”

🫖Alexander Pope (English; male; 1688-1744; 18th century)
“An Essay on Man” (1734)
“Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady”
“Impromptu”
“Ode on Solitude”
“You Know Where You Did Dispise”

🫖Dr. Richard Schackburg (British; male; 1705-1773; 18th century)
“Yankee Doodle Dandy”

🏮🌎Yosa Buson (Japanese; male; 1716–1784; 18th century)
“A Bat Flits”
“Evening Wind”
“The Old Man”
“Harvest Moon”
“Listening to the Moon”

🗽Hannah Griffitts (American Quaker; female; 1727-1817; 18th century)
"The Female Patriots" (1768)
"Upon Reading a Book Called Common Sense" (1776)

🗽Mercy Otis Warren (American; female; 1728-1814; 18th century)
“To the Hon. J. Winthrop, Esq. Who, on the American Determination, in 1774, to suspend all Commerce with Britain, (except for the real Necessaries of life) requested a poetical List of the Articles the Ladies might comprise under that Head” (1774)
“Massachusetts Song of Victory” (1790)
“To A Young Lady On Shewing An Excellent Piece Of Painting Much Faded” (1790)

🫖Anna Barbauld (English; female; 1743-1825; 18th century)
“The Rights of Women”
“Washing Day”
“To a Little Invisible Being Who is Expected Soon to Become Visible”
“Life”

🗽John Trumbull (American; 1750-1831; 18th century)
"An Elegy on the Death of Mr. Buckingham St. John" (1771)

🗽Philip Freneau (American; male; 1752-1832; 18th century)
“The American Soldier”

🫖Thomas Chatter (English; male; 1752-1770; 18th century)
“Picture of Autumn”
“The Romance of the Knight”
“An Excelente Balade of Charitie”

🖐🏿🗽Phillis Wheatly (enslaved West-African-American; female; 1753-1784; 18th century)
“A Hymn to the Evening” (1773)

🫖William Blake (English; male; 1757-1827; 18th century)
“Song: Memory, Hither Come” (1783)
“Mad Song” (1783)
“The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: The Argument” (1790)
“Several Questions Answered” (1791-1792)
“A Poison Tree” (1794)
“The Sick Rose” (1794)
“The Tyger” (1794)

🐲🌎Robert Burns (Scottish; male; 1759-1796; 18th century)
“To a Mouse” (1785)
“Auld Lang Syne” (1788)
“Tam o’ Shanter” (1791)
“A Red, Red Rose” (1794)
“Scots Wha Hae” (1794)
“It Was a’ For Our Rightful King” (1796)

🏮🌎Kobayashi Issa (Japanese; male; 1763–1828)
“Even With Insects”
“Mosquito At My Ear”

🥨🌎Friedrich Hölderlin (German; male; 1770-1843)
“In Lovely Blue”

🫖William Wordsworth (English; male; 1770-1850; 18th and 19th centuries)
“The French Revolution as It Appeared to Enthusiasts at Its Commencement” (1793)
“Influence of Natural Objects in Calling Forth and Strengthening the Imagination in Boyhood and Early Youth” (1793)
“The Reverie of Poor Susan” (1797)
“We are Seven” (1798)
“Lines Written in Early Spring” (1798)
“The Tables Turned” (1798)
“Simon Lee: The Old Huntsman” (1798)
“Resolution and Independence” (1802)
“The World is Too Much With Us” (1807)
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (1807)
“The Solitary Reaper” (1807)
“It is Not to be Thought Of” (1815)
“Scorn Not the Sonnet” (1827)
“Most Sweet It Is” (1835)
“The Prelude” (1850)

🫖Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English; male; 1772-1834; 18th and 19th centuries)
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1798)
“France: An Ode” (1798)
“Christabel” (1800)
“The Good, Great Man” (1802)
“Work Without Hope” (1825)
“Desire” (1834)
“Youth and Age” (1834)
“Fragment 10: The Three Sorts of Friends” (1893)
“Fragment 1: Sea-ward, white gleaming thro' the busy scud” (1893)

🥨🌎Johann Ludwig Tieck (German; male; 1773-1853; 18th century)
“Time” (1798)

🗽Francis Scott Key (American; male; 1779-1843; 19th century)
“Defence of Fort M'Henry” (1814)

🍕🌎Alessandro Manzoni (Italian; male; 1785-1873)
“May 5th”

🥐🌎Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (French; female; 1786-1859)
“A Memory”

🫖Lord Byron (English; male; 1788-1824; 19th century)
“Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” (1812)
“Manfred” (1817)
“Don Juan” (1819)

🗽Sarah Grimké (American; female; 1792-1873) 
“Regret”
“The Black Finger”

🫖Percy Bysshe Shelley (English; male; 1792-1822; 19th century)
“Prometheus Unbound”
"Adonaïs"
"Ode to the West Wind"
"Ozymandias"

🫖John Claire (English; male; 1793-1864; 19th century)
“I Am!”
“The Yellowhammer’s Nest”
“Meet Me in the Green Glen”

🗽William Cullen Bryant (American; male; 1794-1878)
“Thanatopsis”
“To a Waterfowl”
“The Planting of the Apple-Tree”

🫖John Keats (English; male; 1795-1821; 19th century)
“Ode on Indolence”
“Ode to Melancholy”
“To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent”
“Modern Love”
“I cry your mercy-pity-love! -aye, love!”

🗽Asher B Durand (American; male; 1796-1886; 19th century)
“Kindred Spirits”

🥨🌎Heinrich Heine (Jewish-German; male; 1797-1856; 19th century)
"The Phoenix"
"The Tear"
"The Fir-Tree and the Palm"
"The Evening Gossip"
"Of Pearls and Stars"
"I Love This White and Slender Body"
"My Darling, We Sat Together"
"From the Window"

🖐🏿🗽Sojourner Truth (African-American; female; c.1797-1883; 19th century)
“Ain’t I a Woman?”

🖐🏿🗽George Moses Horton (Formerly enslaved-African-American; male; 1798-1883; 19th century)
“On Liberty and Slavery”
“Weep”
“Like Brothers We Meet”
“Lincoln is Dead”
“Early Affection”
“On Summer”
“George Moses Horton, Myself”

🍕🌎Count Giacomo Leopardi (Italian; male; 1798-1837; 19th century)
“The Infinite”
“To Himself”

🏰🌎Adam Mickiewicz (Polish; male; 1798-1856; 19th century)
“The Calm of the Sea”
“Within Their Silent Perfect Glass”

🗽Lydia Maria Child (American; 1802-1880; 19th century)
“Thanksgiving Day”

🗽Angelina Grimké (African-American; 1800-1858; 19th century)
“The Black Finger” (1923)
“A Winter Twilight” (1923)
“Little Green Dreams” (1924)
“For the Candlelight” (1925)
“Your Hands” (1927)
“A Mona Lisa” (1927)
“Greenness” (1927)
“At the Spring Dawn” (1927)
“The Puppet-Player” (1927)

🦙🌎Esteban Echeverria (Argentinian; 1805-1851; 19th century)
“Elvira’s Song”

🫖Elizabeth Barrett Browning (English; 1806-1861; 19th century)
“A Man’s Requirements” (1846)
“How Do I Love Thee?” (1850)
“I Think of Thee!” (1850)
“Aurora Leigh”, First Book (1856)
“Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand” (1856)
“My letters! all dead paper, ... mute and white!” (1856)
“Mother and Poet” (1862; published posthumously)
“My Heart and I” (1862)

🗽Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American; 1807-1882; 19th century)
“Paul Revere’s Ride”
“Snow-Flakes”
“Haunted Houses”
“The Harvest Moon”
“Woods in Winter”
“Song of the Owl”
“Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie”

🗽John Greenleaf Whittier (American; 1807-1892; 19th century)
“The Barefoot Boy”
“Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl”

🥐🌎Gérard de Nerval (French; male; 1808-1855; 19th century)
“An Old Tune”

🗽Edgar Allen Poe (American; male; 1809-1849; 19th century)
“The Raven”
“Annabel Lee”
“Alone”
“Spirits of the Dead”
“Sonnet–To Science”

🗽Oliver Wendell Holmes (American; male; 1809-1894; 19th century)
“Daily Trials by a Sensitive Man”
“Old Ironsides”
“Contentment”

💃🌎José Zorrilla y Moral (Spanish; male; 1817-1893; 19th century)
“To the Unfortunate Memory of the Young Literary D. Mariano José De Larra”

🗽Herman Melville (American; male; 1819-1891; 19th century)
“The Bench of Boors”
“The Apparition”
“Misgivings”
“The Maldive Shark”

🗽Walt Whitman (American; male; 1819-1892; 19th century)
“America”
“Song of Myself”
“I Hear America Singing”
“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”

🦜🌎Gonçalves Dias (Brazilian; male; 1823-1864; 19th century)
“Song of Exile”

🖐🏿🗽Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (Free African-American; female; 1825-1911; 19th century)
“The Slave Auction”
“The Slave Mother”
“Eliza Harris”
“Learning to Read”
“Lines”
“A Double Standard”
“Songs for the People”

🗽Emily Dickinson (American; female; 1830-1886; 19th century)
“I heard a Fly buzz–when I died–” (1890; published posthumously)
“Dear March–Come in–” (1890; published posthumously)
“A Drop Fell On the Apple Tree” (1890; published posthumously)
“The Soul Selects Her Own Society” (1890; published posthumously)
“I Tie My Hat–I Crease My Shawl” (1890; published posthumously)
“There is No Frigate Like a Book” (1890; published posthumously)
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death” (1890; published posthumously)
“The Soul Unto Itself” (1890; published posthumously)

🫖Christina Georgina Rossetti (Italian-English; female; 1830-1894; 19th century)
“Goblin Market” (1859)
“A Coast-Nightmare” (1872)
“A Rose Has Thorns as well as Honey” (1896; published posthumously)
“On the Wing” (1904; published posthumously)

🍁🌎Isabella Valancy Crawford (Irish-Canadian; female; 1846-1887; 19th century)
“Bite Deep and Wide, O Axe, the Tree!”
“My Irish Love”
“Roses in Madrid”

🗽Emma Lazarus (Jewish-American; female; 1849-1887; 19th century)
"Long Island Sound"
"The New Colossus"
"1492"
"In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport"
"The South"

☘️Oscar Wilde (Irish; male; 1854-1900; 19th century)
“The Ballad of Reading Gaol”

🍁🌎Ethelwyn Wetherald (Canadian; female; 1857-1940)
“In the Crowd”

🍁🌎Charles G.D. Roberts (Canadian; male; 1860-1943)
“The Skater”
“Canada”
“The Solitary Woodsman”

🍁🌎William Wilfred Campbell (Canadian; male; 1860-1918)
“Canadian Folksong”
“England”
“Into My Study”
“The Children of the Foam”
“The Sky Watcher”
“The Winter Lakes”

𖠰🍁🌎Emily Pauline Johnson (Haudenosaunee-Canadian; female; 1861-1913)
“Marshlands”
“Joe”

🪷🌎Rabindranath Tagore (Indian; male; 1861-1941)
“Coloured Toys”
“Freedom”
“Journey Home”
“Lotus”
“The Banyan Tree”
“The Flower-School”

🏮🌎Masaoka Shiki (Japanese; male; 1867–1902)
“Biting Into a Bitter Weed”
“Smoke Whirls”	
“A Hundred Labourers”

🪷🌎Jibanananda Das (Bengali-Indian; male; 1899-1954)
“Go Where You Will”

ART

✅A poetry-art course pack will be provided. It will contain the following common domain art. You do not need to buy or source any of them!

Along the River During the Qingming Festival (Suzhou Version) by a Chinese artist (Chinese; Ming dynasty)
Ming Vase (late Ming dynasty)
David by Donotello (Italian; 1430-1440)
The Battle of San Romano by Paulo Uccello (Italian; 1435-1440)
The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli (Italian; 1485)
Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci (Italian; 1490)
Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci (Italian; 1503)
Head of a Young Woman with Touseled Hair by Leonardo da Vinci (Italian; c.1500-1510)
The Head of a Bald Man in Profile by Leonardo da Vinci (Italian; c. 1505)
The School of Athens by Raphael (Italian; 1510)
Sistine Chapel Ceiling by Michelangelo (Italian; 1508-1512)
The Librarian by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (Italian)
Air, Fire, Earth, Water by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (Italian)
Winter by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (Italian)
Vertumnus by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (Italian; 1591)
Print from Akbarnama by Abu'l Fazl (Indian; 1598)
A Farm by Joos de Momper the Younger (Flemish/Dutch; 1600-1625)
Winter Landscape by Aert van der Neer (Dutch; 1630-1660)
The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer (Dutch; 1657-1658)
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer (Dutch; 1665)
The Astronomer by Johannes Vermeer (Dutch; 1668)
The Lacemaker by Johannes Vermeer (Dutch; 1670)
The Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough (English; 1770)
Portrait of Margaret Burr by Thomas Gainsborough (English; early 1770s)
The Bard by Thomas Cole (English-American; 1774)
The Parasol by Francisco Goya (Spanish; 1777)
The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli (French; 1781)
The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec, December 31, 1775 by John Trumbull (American; 1786)
The Marsham Children by Thomas Gainsborough (English; 1787)
Portrait of William Linley by Thomas Lawrence (English; 1789)
Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Plate 35, "The Little Girl Found" by William Blake (English; 1794)
Sarah Barrett Moulton: Pinkie by Thomas Lawrence (English; 1794)
Portrait of a Youth by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (French; 1795)
Fishermen at Sea by Joseph Mallord William Turner (English; 1796)
Portrait of J. B. Belley, Deputy for Saint-Domingue by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (French; 1797)
Looking at Figures in a Book by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (French; 1797)
Am I Not a Man and a Brother? by an artist at the British School (British; c.1800)
Charles IV of Spain and His Family by Francisco Goya (Spanish; 1801)
Receiving the Ghosts of the French Heroes by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (French; 1801)
The Funeral of Atala by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (French; 1801)
Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) in the Uniform of the New York Artillery by Alonzo Chappel (American; 1804)
We Three by Philipp Otto Runge (German; 1805)
Study for “Portrait of an Indian” by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (French; 1807)
The Painter and Writer Friedrich August von Klinkowström by Philipp Otto Runge (German; 1808)
Engraving in the Microcosm of London (1808)
The Morning by Philipp Otto Runge (German; 1808)
The Great Morning by Philipp Otto Runge (German; 1810)
Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich (German; 1818)
Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull (American; 1819)
The Lonely Tree by Caspar David Friedrich (German; 1822)
Orphan Girl at the Cemetery by Eugène Delacroix (French; 1824)
General George Washington Resigning His Commission by John Trumbull (American; 1824)
Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix (French; 1830)
Women of Algiers in their Apartment by Eugène Delacroix (French; 1834)
The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth to be Broken Up by Joseph Mallord William Turner (English; 1839)
The Voyage of Life: Old Age by Thomas Cole (English-American; 1842)
Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth by Joseph Mallord William Turner (English; 1842)
Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway by Joseph Mallord William Turner (English; 1844)
The Desperate Man by Gustave Courbet (French; 1845)
Poem of the Soul–On the Mountain by Louis Janmot (French; 1854)
Kindred Spirits by Asher B. Durand (American; 1849)
The Death of Chatterton by Henry Wallis (English; 1856)
Autumn--On the Hudson River by Jasper Frances Cropsey (American; 1860)
Shipwreck on the Coast by Eugène Delacroix (French; 1862)
House Where Turner Was Born by Frances Elizabeth Wynne (Welsh; 1864)
Inside a Welsh Farmhouse by Frances Elizabeth Wynne (Welsh; 1864)
On Board the Prince Frederick William, Ostend to Dover by Frances Elizabeth Wynne (Welsh; 1864)
Apotheosis of Washington by Constantino Brumidi (Italian-American; 1865)
Garden at Sainte-Adresse by Claude Monet (French; 1867)
Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (English; 1868)
Beata Beatrix by Dante Gabriel Alighieri (English; 1870)
The Rehearsal on Stage by Edgar Degas (French; 1874)
Miranda by John William Waterhouse (English; 1875)
Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May by John William Waterhouse (English; 1875)
Woman with a Parasol–Madame Monet and Her Son by Claude Monet (French; 1875)
Madame Monet Embroidering by Claude Monet (French; 1875)
The Statue of Liberty by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (French; 1876)
Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French; 1876)
Paris Street; Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte (French; 1877)
Singer with a Glover by Edgar Degas (French; 1878)
At the Stock Exchange by Edgar Degas (French; 1878)
La Falaise à Fécamp by Claude Monet (French; 1881)
Alyonushka by Viktor Vasnetsov (Russian; 1881)
Knight at the Crossroads by Viktor Vasnetsov (Russian; 1882)
Advertisement: Alexander Hamilton making the first draft of the Constitution
for the United States 1787 by Hamilton Buggy Company (1882)
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat (French; 1884)
Hip, Hip, Hurrah! Artists’ Party, Skagen by Peder Severin Krøyer (Danish; 1888)
The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse (English; 1888)
The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh (Dutch; 1889)
Ophelia by John William Waterhouse (English; 1889)
Ulysses and the Sirens by John William Waterhouse (English; 1891)
The Siesta by Paul Gaugin (French; 1894)
Hylas and the Nymphs by John William Waterhouse (English; 1896)
Boulevard Montmartre by Camille Pissarro (Danish-French; 1897)
Destiny by John Waterhouse (English; 1900)
Hay Harvest at Éragny by Camille Pissaro (French; 1901)
Boreas by John Waterhouse (English; 1903)
Windswept by John Waterhouse (English; 1903)
Lamia and the Soldier by John Waterhouse (English; 1905)
Isabella and the Pot of Basil by John Waterhouse (English; 1907)
Jason and Medea by John William Waterhouse (English; 1907)
Thisbe by John William Waterhouse (English; 1909)
Spring Spreads One Green Lap of Flowers by John Waterhouse (English; 1910)
I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, Said the Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse (English; 1915)
Miranda–The Tempest by John William Waterhouse (English; 1916)
Triston and Isolde with the Potion by John Waterhouse (English; 1916)

📓📓📓📓📓

Are you hungry for more? Consider adding these stories to your reading list, although they are not required for our class. Look for the elements of Romanticism in them. They are all in the public domain and are available for free online.

📓Persuasion by Jane Austen (1817; Historical romance; 1120L)

📓Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818; Gothic; Horror; Science Fiction; 1000L)

📓“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving (1820; Gothic; horror; ghost story; 1360L)

📓"The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe (1843; Gothic short story; L1120; 6,750 words)

📓The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass (1845; slave narrative; autobiography; 1040L)

📓Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847; Gothic bildungsroman romance; L870)

📓The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (1848; epistolary domestic novel; 1090L)

📓The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850; psychological fiction; romance; urban fiction; 1340L)

📓Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852; abolitionist; 1050L)

📓Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (1864; tragedy; 1010L)