10-12 Literature Curriculum

Our 10-12 literature curriculum challenges students with timeless works, from ancient epics to modern classics, fostering deep analysis and moral reflection.

10th Grade - The British Victorian Age

  • Pre-Victorian Literature - Pope's "Rape of the Lock" and "Dufoe's She Stoops to Consquor".
  • A Tale of Two Cities – Dickens’ historical novel of sacrifice and revolution in England and France.
  • Wuthering Heights – Brontë’s gothic tale of passion and revenge on the Yorkshire moors.
  • Pride and Prejudice – Austen’s witty exploration of love, class, and social expectations.
  • Jane Eyre – Brontë’s story of resilience, independence, and romance in Victorian England.
  • Victorian Poets - (Tennyson, Browning, et.al)
  • Victorian Playwrites - Wilde & Shaw
  • Brideshead Revisited – Waugh’s modern novel on memory, time, and loss of the Victorian Age.

11th Grade - Literature of Europe

  • Beowulf – An epic of heroism and monsters in ancient Scandinavia.
  • The Song of Roland – A medieval epic of loyalty and battle in Charlemagne’s era.
  • The Canterbury Tales – Chaucer’s vivid tales of pilgrims in medieval England.
  • Candide – Voltaire’s satirical journey through optimism and hardship in 18th-century Europe.
  • Faust, Part I – Goethe’s tragic tale of ambition and a pact with the devil.
  • Madame Bovary – Flaubert’s realist portrayal of desire and disillusionment in 19th-century France.
  • Crime and Punishment – Dostoevsky’s psychological exploration of guilt and redemption in Russia.
  • The Stranger – Camus’ existential novel of alienation in 1940s Algeria.
  • The Trial – Kafka’s surreal narrative of bureaucracy and existential dread.

12th Grade - Great Books of the Western Cannon

  • The Aeneid – Virgil’s epic of Aeneas’ journey and the founding of Rome.
  • The Divine Comedy: Inferno – Dante’s descent through Hell, exploring sin and morality.
  • Hamlet – Shakespeare’s tragedy of revenge, doubt, and existential questioning.
  • Paradise Lost – Milton’s epic of Satan’s rebellion and humanity’s fall.
  • Don Quixote – Cervantes’ satirical adventure of an idealistic knight in Spain.
  • Great Expectations – Dickens’ bildungsroman of ambition, love, and social class.
  • Moby-Dick – Melville’s epic of obsession and the whaling life.
  • The Brothers Karamazov – Dostoevsky’s profound exploration of faith, morality, and family.