My daughter had very reasonably sized classes freshman year. The big lecture classes she encountered were the upper division classes required of all business majors, which she took mostly in sophomore and junior years. I’m going from long-ago memory here, but 1st semester freshman year she had an honors class with 15 students, a CBH class with about 20 students, an English class with 18 students, a Kinesiology class with 25 students, a business law class with 35 students, and a Calculus class with 75 students. The largest class she had freshman year was accounting (2nd semester), which had 99 students. I think this might be different from other courses of study where the big lecture classes occur freshman year.
ETA: Since you specifically asked about a literature class, I can tell you that my daughter’s American Lit class had about 35 students. I don’t think the English classes tend to be all that large. As for honors, you definitely do not need Ivy level stats. You need a 28 ACT or 1250 SAT(I think that’s the old SAT) and a 3.5 GPA. If you have those stats, you will be admitted. The competitive honors programs (University Fellows and CBH) are what require higher stats.