First of all, after making the decision to do H2 Literature, I have to pick my texts. Here are my choices:

Section B: Prose

* E.M. Forster: A Room with a View
* Jean Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea
* Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights
* J.M. Coetzee: Disgrace

Section C: Drama

* Harold Pinter: The Birthday Party
* Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest
* William Shakespeare: Richard III
* David Auburn: Proof

PAPER 2: THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 1558–1660 (3 hours) 

This paper focuses on writing in English from the years 1558-1660. The student will study three of the following texts:

* Thomas Nashe: The Unfortunate Traveller
* Francis Bacon: The Major Works
* William Shakespeare: Sonnets
* William Shakespeare: Hamlet
* George Herbert: The Complete English Poems
* John Donne: The Complete English Poems
* Christopher Marlowe: The Jew of Malta
* Cyril Tourneur: The Revenger’s Tragedy
* Ben Jonson: The Alchemist

I picked Wuthering Heights primarily because it’s a book that has been sitting on my shelf for years, and my literature teacher from secondary school mentioned it once in passing- so I’ve always had a fascination from it, and always needed an excuse to read it.

I picked The Importance of Being Earnest because I wanted to get to know Oscar Wilde a little better- he seemed like an interesting, intelligent and fun guy with a great sense of humour, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to learn from and about him.

I chose the English Renaissance because I was more interested in it than the other topics (Contemporary British, Post-Colonial Asian, and Women). I’ve always been interested in the actual European Renaissance- with Da Vinci and Michelangelo and Machiavelli- so I figured it would be pretty interesting to get to learn about the English equivalent (Wikipedia has provided some interesting perspective- including ideas about how there never really was an actual “English Renaissance”, and we’re kind of getting a biased picture from, well, the English!). Francis Bacon is a familiar name and a character of interest, so we’ll go with that.

I picked Hamlet because all I knew about it was “To be or not to be?”, and from it was quoted “Brevity is the soul of wit” (Thanks, Polonius), and I wanted to learn more about one of Shakespeare’s most famous poems. I ended up greatly enjoying getting into Hamlet’s reflective, contemplative mind. I think anybody who has a habit of spending a lot of time inside his or her own mind would enjoy Hamlet.

I picked Shakespeare’s sonnets because they’re supposed to be really good, right? I wanted to know more than “shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”. I wanted to understand poetry a little deeper,  a little better.

I picked Francis Bacon because he’s a philosopher who’s contributed significantly to human knowledge!

The cool thing about being a private candidate with some years under my belt is that I have more contextual knowledge- I have a better idea of what I’m interested in, and so I can make an informed decision about what I’d like to delve deeper into.

Next post in this series will be about how I get around to studying Literature, now that I’ve got my texts in order.