Answer:
The Question is Incomplete as it does not provide a list of English Literary works for the semester in question. However, most college level literature courses use the same reading list and so the complete question can become:
The selection from this semester that is considered one of the first works of English Literature is:
- Beowulf
- The Canterbury Tales
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Hamlet
- and other options can be available for the succeeding eras but as the question is only interested in the first works of English Literature, the list will not be fully written here.
The correct answer is: Beowulf
Step-by-step explanation:
The reason that Beowulf is considered the most famous example of the first works of English Literature is because, despite that it was written in Old English, it influenced modern day English, and poetry writing to a great extent. Epic poetry at the time was very common, and Beowulf was written as a heroic poem in Anglo-Saxon, which is an ancestor of the English Language. Thus, it was the first of its kind to have survived and served as a predecessor of what is considered today English Literature. This Epic tale is generally taught in most high school and early college courses as it serves as a very important beginning milestone for English Literature.