The set texts fall into four main groups.

In the first one you find texts you have to read by all
means in English for the exam. In the second group called Make Your Choice, you will find
various texts in various combinations and you have to pick one or more pieces from each subgroup and read them in English. The third group contains material which is still compulsory but
you may read it either in English or in Hungarian. Finally, there is a group called Bonus: from
here you may read as many pieces as you like in English or in Hungarian for bonus points at the
exam. Enjoy!
1.COMPULSORY TEXTS TO BE READ IN ENGLISH :
Lines 1-52 of Beowulf (in Modern English translation)
The Seafarer (in Modern English translation)
The Dream of the Rood (in Modern English translation)
The General Prologue to Geoffrey Chaucers The Canterbury Tales (in Modern English
translation, preferably Nevil Coghills)
Sir Thomas Wyatt: Whoso list to hunt...; They flee from me...; The long love that in my
thought doth harbour
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey O happy dames...; Love that liveth and reigneth in my
thought...; Wyatt resteth here...;
Sir Philip Sidney: Sonnets 5, 6, 28, 71 from Astrophel and Stella; Leave me, O Love...;
Edmund Spenser: Sonnets Like as a huntsman...; One day I wrote her name...; Lacking my
love...; Fair is my love...; Let not one spark... from Amoretti
William Shakespeare: The Tempest
William Shakespeare: from The Sonnets: 12, 15, 55, 71, 75, 81, 94, 97, 116, 130, 138, 144
John Donne: The Ecstasy John Donne: Batter my heart, three personed God...
George Herbert: Easter Wings
Andrew Marvell: To His Coy Mistress
John Milton: When I consider how my light is spent...; John Milton: On the Late Massacre in
Piedmont;
2. MAKE YOUR CHOICE but please read the texts in English:
Choose ONE form the following sub-group (A):
The story of Caedmon from Bedes Ecclesiastical History (in Modern English translation)
King Alfreds Preface to the translation of Gregorys Pastoral Care (in Modern English
translation)
The Battle of Brunanburh (in Modern English translation)
The Battle of Maldon (in Modern English translation)
The Wanderer (in Modern English translation)
Choose ONE from the following sub-group (B):
"Sir Orfeo" (in Modern English translation)
"Sir Launfal" (Modern English versions on the net)
"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (Marie Boroff's translation in the Norton Anthology);
Choose THREE from the following sub-group (C):
Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales (Nevil Coghill's translation in the Penguin Classics
edition):
"The Miller's Tale"
"The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale";
"The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale";
"The Nun's Priest's Tale";
"The Franklin's Tale";
Choose ONE from the following sub-group (D):
The Second Shepherds Play (Secunda Pastorum) (in Modern English translation)
The York Play of Crucifixion (in Modern translation)
Sir Thomas More: from Utopia:[Marriage Customs]; [Religions]; and [Conclusion]"
Edmund Spencer: from The Fairie Queene: A Letter of the Author and [Invocation]
Francis Bacon: from the Essays: Of Truth; Francis Bacon: from Novum Organum: The Idols
3. COMPULSORY READING either in English or in Hungarian:
Christopher Marlowe: Doctor Faustus
William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Nights Dream

William Shakespeare: Hamlet

William Shakespeare: Othello
William Shakespeare: King Lear
William Shakespeare: Macbeth
John Donne: The Good Morrow
John Donne: At the round earths imagined corners...
George Herbert: Man
George Herbert: Time
Andrew Marvell: The Garden
Andrew Marvell: A Dialogue Between the Soul and Body
John Milton: from Paradise Lost: "Book 1"
4. BONUS: for bonus points at the exam, read as many, either in (Modern) English (translation)
or in Hungarian, as you wish:
The entry of 1066 from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Pearl (if in translation, then in Brian Stones)
Geoffrey Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde
Geoffrey Chaucer: further tales from The Canterbury Tales Everyman
Edmund Spencer: 1-4 of The First Booke of the Fairies Quenne
Sir Philip Sidney: The Defense of Poesie;
Thomas Nashe: from Pierce Penniless, His Supplication to the Devil ;An Inventive Against
Enemies of Poetry and The Defense of Plays;
William Shakespeare: Richard III
William Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice
William Shakespeare: As You Like It
William Shakespeare: Henry V
William Shakespeare: Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida
William Shakespeare: Measure for Measure
William Shakespeare: The Winters Tale
John Donne: Song
John Donne: The Flea
John Donne: The Apparition
John Donne: Hymn to God My God, In My Sickness
John Milton: To the Lord General Cromwell
PLUS: Handouts by the lecturers on the Internet under: seas3.elte.hu: Kallay Geza: course
material (here several of the primary texts are available, too) Your lecture-notes USEFUL
SECONDARY SOURCES (not compulsory): Introductions to the pieces in The Norton Anthology of
English Literature Andrew Sanders: The Short Oxford History of English Literature, 2nd ed.,
Oxford: OUP, 2000 A Concise Companion to Chaucer, ed. Corinne Saunders, Blackwell, 2006.
Volumes of the Cambridge Companion series