English 371 Winter 2000
Jan
M 10 Introduction
W 12 -Barbauld, "The Rights of Woman" (27), "To a Little Invisible Being Who is Soon to Become Visible" (28), "Washing
Day" (29)
-Wollstonecraft, introduction and selection from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, "Introduction" (163-70)
F 14 Wollstonecraft, Vindication, excerpt from chapter 4 "Observations on the State of Degradation to Which Woman is
Reduced by Various Causes" (185-92)
-Blake, introduction, and Songs of Innocence (35-38 and 43-49)
M 17 Martin Luther King Jr. Day: No classes
W 19 Blake, Songs of Experience (49-59)
F 21 Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (72-83)
M 24 Blake, The Book of Thel (59-64) and Visions of the Daughters of Albion (64-71)
W 26 Blake, The Book of Urizen (Dover edition–not in our book)
F 28 Selections from "The French Revolution and the ‘Spirit of the Age'": "English Controversy about the Revolution"
(117-36)
Feb
M 31 Selections from "The French Revolution and the ‘Spirit of the Age'": "Apocalyptic Expectations by Preachers and Poets"
(137-62)
W 2 Mary Darby Robinson, "All Alone," "The Poor, Singing Dame," "The Deserted Cottage," "The Haunted Beach," "Deborah's Parrot," and "The Alien Boy" from Lyrical Tales available at
http://www.lib.ucdavis.edu/English/BWRP/Works/RobiMLyric.htm
and
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~curran/lyrtale.html>
F 4 Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (access selections from chapters
1, 2 and 5) on the internet at http://www.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl310/equiano.htm
Ann Cromarty Yearsley, "Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave Trade" and "To Mira, on the Care of Her Infant"
M 7 Wordsworth, introduction, Lyrical Ballads, "Simon Lee," "We Are Seven," "Lines Written in Early Spring," "Expostulation
and Reply," "The Tables Turned," "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" (219-35)
-Baillie, "Up! Quit thy Bower" (217)
First paper is due at the beginning of class: no late papers accepted.
W 9 Wordsworth, "The Ruined Cottage" and "Michael" (259-280)
F 11 Wordsworth, "Strange fits of passion have I known," "She dwelt among the untrodden ways" "Three years she grew," "A
slumber did my spirit seal," "Nutting," "Resolution and Independence," "I wandered lonely as a cloud," "Ode: Intimations of
Immortality," (251-54, 258-59, 280-92)
M 14 Wordsworth, from The Prelude, Book First (303-18)
W 16 Coleridge, introduction, "The Eolian Harp," "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison," and "Frost at Midnight" (416-21,
457-59)
F 18 Coleridge, "Kubla Khan" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (422-38)
M 21 Coleridge, "Christabel" (441-56) and "Dejection, an Ode" (459-62)
W 23 Coleridge, The Biographia Literaria, chapters 4, 13, 14, 17 (467, 474-86)
F 25 Midterm
March
M 28 Winter Recess
W 1 Winter Recess
F 3 Winter Recess
M 6 Austen, Persuasion, chapters 1-16 (3-100)
W 8 Austen, Persuasion,
F 10 Austen, Persuasion, chapters 17-24 and original ending (100-77)
M 13 Persuasion, Criticism (Tanner a good chunk, Astell, and Johnson 231-64, 275-307)
W 15 Byron, introduction, shorter poems (551-62) plus letters (689-98)
F 17 Byron, Manfred (588-620)
M 20 Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (563-87)
W 22 Byron, Don Juan (621-88)
F 24 Shelley, introduction, "Mutability," "To Wordsworth," and "Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude" (698-719)
M 27 Shelley, "Mont Blanc," "Ozymanidas," "Stanzas Written in Dejection–December 1818, near Naples," "A Song: Men of
England," and "England in 1819," and "Ode to the West Wind" (720-23, 725-28, 730-32)
W 29 Shelley, "To a Sky Lark" (765-67) and "Adonais" (772-86)
F 31 Shelley, Prometheus Unbound Acts 1&2 (732-49)
April
M 3 Shelley, Prometheus Unbound Acts 3&4 (749-63)
Second paper due at the beginning of class. No late papers accepted.
W 5 Shelley, Frankenstein (vol. 1, 903-54)
F 7 Shelley, Frankenstein (vol. 2, 954-86)
M 10 Shelley, Frankenstein (986-1034)
W 12 Keats, introduction, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles," selections from "Sleep
and Poetry and Endymion, (829-33), "On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Again" (823-33)
F 14 Keats, "The Eve of St. Agnes" and "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" (834-44, 845-46)
M 17 Keats, "Ode to Psyche," "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "One on Melancholy," and "Ode on
Indolence" (847-56, 872-73)
W 19 Keats, "The Fall of Hyperion" (873-85)
F 21 John Clare, introduction, "The Nightingale's Nest," "Mouse's Nest," "A Vision," "I Am," "An Invite to Eternity," and
"Clock of Clay" (802-05, 807-09) and "The Lament of Swardy Well"
M 24 FINAL EXAM: 8:00-11:00 am
English 371: Literature of the British Romantic Period
Robert Anderson
522 Wilson Hall
r2anders@oakland.edu
Hours: MWF 9:10-10:35 & W 6:00-6:30
370-2266
English 371: Literature of the British Romantic Period
Robert Anderson 522 Wilson Hall
r2anders@oakland.edu Hours: MWF 9:10-10:35
370-2266 W 6:00-6:30
When you walk into this class on April 24 at 8:00 a.m. for your final exam, you will be asked to do two things: 1) formulate a definition for Romanticism, and b) defend that definition by applying it to a number of the texts we will have read. This entire class will be devoted to preparing you for that exam. The long-standing scholarly debate about this definition (some have even argued that there is no such thing as Romanticism) has recently been complicated even further by the growing attention to the women writers of the period. We will not be spending nearly as much time as we perhaps should reading these women writers. Although we will be looking at what else is going on in Britain during the period, the bulk of our time will be spent reading the works of what has been called "the Big Six": William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and John Keats–all poets. Although none of these men (all poets) considered themselves "Romantics," when Hippolyte Taine first used the term in 1863 in his discussion of "The Romantic School" he was referring to these poets (excluding Blake, who was largely unknown at the time). A.O. Lovejoy was among the first, in his 1924 essay "On the Discriminations of Romanticisms," to argue that there was no corresponding entity for the term "Romanticism." Since that time, however, whether out of conviction or convenience many scholars have stuck with the term, some arguing to include the women poets, some suggesting a "Female Romanticism," others arguing for a Romanticism comprised of the "big six" and parallel independent traditions of women and other writers, and still others insisting that only the "Big Six" deserve our attention.
The relatively small space on our syllabus devoted to women writers is not a sign of my sense of the quality of their writing, but a function of the central place of the Big Six on the canon, the short space of time, and my own limitations as a teacher/reader. We will read two novels by women writers whose relation to Romanticism is not clear. In any case, we will start with the circular assumption of Romanticism comprising the six poets (rather like responding to the question "What is art" with "The stuff artists make"). You will be asked to formulate a definition linking those six–or to explain why no definition could include Blake, Byron and Keats. I will try to resist calling the period a "movement" because it was not a movement–there was no sense of a movement, although many contemporaries lumped some of the writers in groups ("Lake Poets," "Cockney School of Poetry," "Satanic School"). To help you formulate your definition, I encourage you to consult the lengthy introduction in our Norton Anthology and as many other sources as you can find, such as The Oxford Companion to Literature, The Merriam Webster Encyclopedia of Literature, Raymond Williams's Keywords, other anthologies like Duncan Wu's Romanticism, Mellor and Matlak's British Literature 1780-1830, David Perkins's English Romantic Writers. Some of these sources are available at the library, some in my office, and some will be on my website.
For more practical matters. Because this class will work best when all contribute to discussions, I want each of you to come to class prepared to contribute something–even if it is only a question, so come each day prepared with a question or comment on the reading written down–and be prepared to share it with the class or turn it in to me. Your voluntary contributions to our discussions will also affect your final grade. We will be reading a great deal of poetry (and some prose too) this semester. I will not attempt to cover all of the poems/readings in class. Instead, I will try to focus our discussions around developing the skills to understand the readings. This will put an added burden on your shoulders to make sure that you are taking advantage of class time to develop your analytical skills. To help you do this, I expect you each to come to class each day prepared with questions or insights. Occasionally, I will ask specific people to open our discussion with their questions/comments, other times, I will invite volunteers.
There will several assignments for the class, some standard ones (exams and papers) and some less standard (poetry recitation, Romantic project). Because there will be a number of assignments for the class, there will be only one midterm and a final. This makes me a little nervous because it doesn't give you much time to figure out what kinds of responses I want (hint: good ones), so I will try to give you some practice questions to work out on your own. Both the final and the midterm will be essay questions–probably only one question on each exam, but you might have a choice of questions for the midterm. In general, I expect you to formulate a thesis and defend it by referring specifically to the texts we have read and interpreting those passages concretely and logically. I will probably allow you to consult your books on the exams.
Papers (40%): There will be two short interpretive papers (3 pages) which will ask you to construct and defend an argument about a poet's work. These papers should address formal or interpretive questions (such as theme, tone, imagery, representations of gender, children, etc.). The first paper, due on Monday January 31, will address some aspect of Blake's work. The second paper, due on April 3, will ask you to discuss some aspect of Austen's Persuasion or Byron's poetry. The papers should have 12 point Times New Roman font (or something very similar in size), have no more than one-inch margins all around, double spaced-lines, and have no title page. Please staple the papers, don't use report covers, and put your title (required) at the top of the first page, but do not use a title page. You are not expected to consult any outside sources, but if you do, you must acknowledge it according to MLA documentation format. If you plagiarize–use someone else's ideas, insights, words, arguments without acknowledging it–you will be referred to academic conduct which may suspend or expel you, but you will receive a failing grade from this class. Don't take the chance. I have gone through this too many times; it causes pain to all involved.
The Romantic Project (10%): will ask you to do plan, execute, and report on some public (outside of the classroom) demonstration/expression/performance of the Spirit of Romanticism. The project has two parts, the written document you turn in to me which describes the project and explains how it expresses the spirit of the period. Last year, I planned to send out poems and political messages on hot air balloons (copying Percy Shelley experiment with radical tracts on hot air balloons), but when I realized the possible consequences: birds eating the balloons, and generally contributing to the litter problems, I changed my mind. I will do another project this year. This means that you will have to have formulated some definition of the period before that time. The second part will be the actual performance. Some past projects have included writing, directing and filming a brief creation scene (echoing Blake and Frankenstein), distributing poetry in unusual places, performing dances at the mall, sharing poetry with children and others. You may add your own personal spin to any of these, or, better yet, come up with something entirely new. The requirements are fairly simple: 1) design and execute the project (the most difficult part will be coming up with an idea); 2) write a one or two page description of the project explaining the ways that it embodies the spirit of Romanticism. This written part will form an important part of your grade for the project.
In-class recitation of a poem (10%): Since romanticism has been traditionally associated with poetry–the six major writers were all poets–and since poetry, as an oral form, usually must be read out loud to be understood, it is essential that you develop a feel for how a poem sounds. Speaking a poem out loud requires you to make some decisions about tone and pacing that are crucial for understanding it. You may find it best to do a practice run, get some feedback from your peers and from me, and then make a final run in class. There will, however, be no first efforts at recitations after March begins. This may seem like daunting task now, but it will be less troubling with a little practice. The poem–or excerpt from a longer poem–must be at least 14 lines long (longer if the lines are short), and you should be familiar enough with the poem that you will have experimented with variations in pronunciation. To get full credit, you should have the poem memorized. I am expecting colleagues from the English department to visit us from time to time to give us examples of recitations of poems.
Exams (40%): There will be a midterm and a final. The midterm will be similar in spirit to the final. We might have an optional practice midterm to give you a sense of the kinds of answers I will be looking for.
Participation: Although there will be no specific percentage of your grade attached to participation and attendance, contributing regularly to class discussions will help your grade significantly. This means that if you do not contribute regularly to our class discussions, your final grade will suffer. I expect you to be in your seats when the class begins. Students who miss frequently will find their grade significantly lowered (6 absences for any reason will lower your grade at least a full point). I will not take roll after the first few minutes of class, so if you are late, you will be considered absent.
Books:
Abrams, M.H. et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 2. Seventh Edition.
Austen, Jane. Persuasion. Norton Critical Edition.
Blake William. The Book of Urizen. Dover Edition.
Butler, Marilyn. Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries. Oxford University Press.
You must have these specific editions of these texts.