Britain from Its Beginnings to the Modern Period

ELIT 328 traces how Britain became Britain, following the long political and social arc from pre-Roman settlement through the Norman Conquest, Magna Carta, Reformation, Civil War, and the industrial transformations that produced the modern state. You'll read primary sources like Bede and the Magna Carta alongside Black's survey history, and the grade rests on three pieces of written work: an essay, a midterm essay, and a final essay, so most of the real learning happens when you sit down to argue with the material. Since it's a literature department offering, the point isn't just memorizing kings and dates but building the historical scaffolding that makes English literary texts legible, which pays off across nearly every other ELIT course you'll take.