A survey of British literature from 1789 to 1989, this course begins with the poetry of William Blake and ends with the prose of Chinua Achebe and the graphic fiction of Alan Moore and David Lloyd. The literature presented represents a complex range of forms or genres of writing, including poetry, non-fiction prose, and the novel. The course will chart the evolution of the British Empire, from the time of the French and Industrial Revolutions through the expansion of frontiers and the consequences of that expansion.