The Decline of English Majors: A Personal Reflection on the Norton Anthology
Mark Bauerlein, who used to teach at Emory University, is worried about the decline in English majors. He believes this trend is linked to the fading of a common literary foundation, like what The Norton Anthology of English Literature used to provide. Back in the fall of 1980, while he was studying at UCLA, he relied on the anthology's fourth edition for his English 10A-10B-10C classes, which covered everything from Beowulf to W. H. Auden. This course required students to write three essays and take a final exam. In contrast, he notes that today’s programs, like the University of Chicago's 'Standard Track,' only require two courses from before 1900. He points out that the proportion of English majors has fallen from one in thirteen degrees in 1970 to one in sixty now.
Key facts
- Mark Bauerlein is a contributing editor at First Things and professor emeritus of English at Emory University.
- He declared an English major at UCLA in fall 1980.
- The required text was The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 4th edition, volumes 1 and 2.
- The course was English 10A-10B-10C, a yearlong survey held in Rolfe Hall with up to 300 students.
- The syllabus ran from Beowulf to W. H. Auden, covering over 1,000 years of literature.
- The average grade in the 10-series was a B-.
- In 1970, English majors accounted for 1 in 13 four-year degrees; now it's 1 in 60.
- At the University of Chicago, the 'Standard Track' requires only two pre-1900 courses out of twelve.
- Bauerlein still has his Norton volumes and remembers specific lines from the works.
- The Norton Anthology included maps of England and London as the only visuals.
Entities
Artists
- Mark Bauerlein
- W. H. Auden
- Shakespeare
- Milton
- Wordsworth
- Thomas Gray
- Thomas Carlyle
- Samuel Johnson
- Gerard Manley Hopkins
- John Ruskin
- Geoffrey Chaucer
- Sir Philip Sidney
- John Donne
- Andrew Marvell
- John Milton
- Alexander Pope
- William Wordsworth
- John Keats
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- Robert Browning
- T. S. Eliot
- Lord Byron
- Jane Austen
- Mary Wollstonecraft
- Louisa May Alcott
- Harriet Jacobs
- Mark Twain
- Matthew Arnold
- Thomas Hardy
- Joseph Conrad
- W. B. Yeats
- M. H. Abrams
- Maynard Mack
- Ian Watt
- Walter Jackson Bate
- Linus Pauling
- John Kenneth Galbraith
- Johnny von Neumann
- Évariste Galois
- John McEnroe
Institutions
- UCLA
- Emory University
- University of Chicago
- First Things
- Norton Anthology
- Rolfe Hall
- Kerckhoff Hall
- Sproul Hall
- University Elementary School
- School of Education and Information Studies
- Stanford
- DePaul
- NCAA
- Cinerama Dome
- Los Angeles Herald Examiner
- Del Mar racetrack
- Garrick Club
- Bloomsbury Square
- Royal Academy
- Westminster Abbey
- Marshalsea Prison
- Bedlam asylum
Locations
- UCLA
- Los Angeles
- California
- United States
- England
- London
- Pauley Pavilion
- Westwood
- Santa Monica Beach
- Rolfe Hall
- Kerckhoff Hall
- Sproul Hall
- Sunset Boulevard
- Del Mar
- La Costa
- Chicago
- Illinois
- Grande Chartreuse