This gives life to thee

I The Middle Ages: From Beowulf to Chaucer
Readings:

The Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf (the electronic version here is the Gummere’s translation)
Sir Thomas Malory, from Le Morte Darthur, Book 18, chap.25, Book 21, chaps.1-13
Canterbury Tales: ‘Prologue’, ‘The Knight’s Tale’, ‘The Miller’s Tale’, ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale’, ‘The Wife of Bath, Prologue and Tale’ in Nevill Coghill’s translation. + bonus for those who are interested

II Renaissance Literature
Readings:

Sir Thomas Wyatt, ‘The Lover Compareth his State to a Ship in Perilous Storm Tossed on the Sea‘, ‘Of the Courtier’s Life‘
Sir Philip Sidney, from ‘Astrophel and Stella’, 1, 5, 14, 31, 39, 54
William Shakespeare, Sonnets 18, 55, 87, 116; Hamlet

III The Seventeenth Century
Readings:

Francis Bacon, essays Of Truth, Of Death, Of Love, Of Travel
Ben Jonson, ‘Song to Celia‘, ‘To the Memory of William Shakespeare‘
John Donne, ‘The Good Morrow‘, ‘A Valediction Forbidding Mourning‘, ‘A Hymn to God the Father‘
John Milton, ‘Paradise Lost‘ Book I, Sonnet ‘On His Blindness‘
Andrew Marvell, Bermudas
Samuel Pepys, from Diary Sept.1, 1666

IV The Age of Reason
Readings:

Jonathan Swift, From ‘Gulliver’s Travels, A Voyage to Lilliput; A Modest Proposal
Addison and Steele, from ‘The Spectator, 2 and 112.
Alexander Pope, From ‘An Essay on Criticism’, Part I 1-91, Part II 215-232