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Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Norton:
The
Longman Anthology of British Literature, 3rd Edition, 2006.
This semester we will read and discuss poems and novels written by some of the best English writers from a period which has so greatly influenced contemporary notions about art and its relation to individual perception, memory and vision.
We will study the writers who created a literary revolution during the final decade of the eighteenth century and the first three decades of the 19th, including Robert Burns, a "pre Romantic," who wrote poems dealing with working class Scots, and who influenced the Romantics in a number of ways. We will begin by looking at Romantic ideas about poetry and the poet and we will look at the fervor caused in England by the French Revolution. Then we will look at Pride and Prejudice, a novel by one of the great novelists of the century, Jane Austen. Few, if any, literary historians would classify Austen as a Romantic; she happens to be one of those brilliant figures who resist classification. She did, however, begin her writing career around the same time as those key figures of British Romanticism, Wordsworth and Coleridge. Her novels open a window on the lives of the British landed gentry, especially in terms of marriage, property and the circumscribed lives available to women. Since writers like Burns, Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge insisted on expanding the subject matter of serious literature to include people of the working class, Austen provides an interesting contrast. While she has no interest in depicting the lower classes, she has great insight into the world women must inhabit.
By contrast we will look at William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and Experience,” symbolic poetry very different from Austen’s socially grounded novel. Some of the Songs present explicit political content, revealing the plight of lower class characters. Blake’s poem “The Little Black Boy” will lead us into a consideration of another major socio-historical movement, the England’s involvement with the transatlantic slave trade and the abolition movement that began in the 18th Century and culminated with the end of the slave trade in England in 1834. For this unit we will look at sections of slave narratives by Olaudah Equiano and Mary Prince, as well as texts by abolitionists like Hannah More and Thomas Clarkson, as well as comments on slavery by Dorothy and William Wordsworth. We will watch the feature film “Amazing Grace,” (title of the famous hymn was written by John Newton, a former slave ship captain) which focuses on abolitionist politician William Wilberforce.
Following our study of the slave trade and abolition movement, we will look at the great tradition of the descriptive-meditative poem begun by Coleridge and developed by Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats. Next we will look at how Coleridge and Keats used the supernatural in their work. Another major course theme will be the Romantic Rebel. We will study that figure as it occurs in writers like Blake, Byron and both Percy and Mary Shelley. Finally, we will look at Keats' odes as they struggle to connect aesthetic intensity with life experience.
Student Learning Outcomes
Students will learn
1.
What makes the
Romantic Period in
2. About the effect of historical events like the French Revolution and the Abolition movement on Romanticism through reading, PowerPoint presentations, which will provide a visual dimension to student learning, and class discussions.
3. To do close readings of particular poems, novels and non-fiction writings through frequent class discussions.
4. To enter the discourse community of the English profession, learning to write literary analysis for an interested audience.
5.
To write carefully reasoned, well-organized essays
analyzing particular texts in a series of paper and/or in-class writings.
Interesting Web Sites for British Romantic Writers:
Romantic Praxis-- Critical Essays published online on topics in Romanticism.
Jane Austen Information Page – Lots of information about Austen’s life, work and social and historical context. You might find the entries on education, marriage and the status of women particularly useful
The William Blake Archive- -A work in progress, this wonderful site includes text and color plates for ten of Blake's illuminated books, including The Songs of Innocence and Experience, The Book of Thel, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and The First Book of Urizen. http://www.iath.virginia.edu/blake/illuminated-books/index.html
1. Class Participation : Students are expected to read all
assignments carefully and on time. I strongly encourage active participation in
class discussions. While there is no specific grade for attendance and
participation, excessive absences (i.e. in excess of 4, two full weeks of
class) may result in a lower course grade. Please plan to participate in
discussing and analyzing texts. Please plan on arriving on time and remaining
for the entire class; note that getting up to leave, even if you return, is
disruptive.
2. Quizzes: There will
be six short quizzes during the semester, each worth 10 points. I will drop the lowest quiz grade. Together these will count 1/5th of
the final grade. You must take the quiz
in class and remain for the whole class.
Please not that there will be no opportunity to make up missed
quizzes. Please do not ask to take
make-up quizzes!!!
3. Papers: Students may elect to write a paper or take an in-class essay exam. You must either submit the paper on the due date or sit for the exam. Late papers will not be accepted. Each of the three papers/In-Class Exams is worth 1/5th of the final grade.
Paper #1 due Tuesday, 2/17 on Pride and Prejudice. Five pages double-spaced.
Paper #2 due Tuesday, 3/31 on Romanticism and ideas about poetry. Five pages double-spaced.
Paper #3 due Thursday, 4/23 on Frankenstein and The Romantic Rebel. Five pages double-spaced.
4. Final Exam, worth 1/5th of the final grade: Thursday, May 7th
from 7:30 – 10:00 a.m. (YES
– THIS EARLY) in B51 119B. The final
will be on the poetry of Shelley and Keats.
Papers are due on or before the dates indicated. I will gladly accept papers via email. They must come as Word attachments and be
accompanied by a brief note indicating that the attachment is from you. Students may also choose to write an in-class
paper instead. If you are unable to
complete the paper by the due date or prefer an in-class, one will be offered
in class on each paper due date. If you
turn in the paper on the due date, you need not attend class that day, though
you may choose to hand it in at that time.
Week 1 T
1/13: Introduction and Syllabus. Please read the
introductory essay in the Longman Anthology, “The Romantics and Their
Contemporaries,” pp. 3 – 29; it will provide some good background concerning
the Romantic Era in
R 1/15: Poetry Continued
.
Week 2 T 1/20: Poetry continued; and the French Revolution Power Point; Perspectives: The Rights of Man and the Revolution Controversy, 92 - 149.
R 1/22: French Revolution continued; Robert Burns, “To A Mouse,”372 (See a Burns parody, "To Coffee"); Songs (read and played in class).
Week 3 T 1/27 – R
1/29: Mary Wollstonecraft, from Vindications of the Rights of Women,
chapters 2 -3, 288 – 301; Jane Austen, Pride
and Prejudice. Quiz #1 on Thursday, 1/29. A Word About Money in Jane Austen’s Time
February
Week 4 T 2/3 – R
2/5: Pride and Prejudice continued.
Week 5 T 2/10 - R
2/12, Innocence and Experience in Romantic Poetry: William Blake: Songs
of Innocence and Experience ,
179 ff (60-84). Quiz #2 on Thursday,
2/12 – these poems from Songs of Innocence and Experience will be covered on the quiz: Introduction
poems to both Innocence and Experience; “Infant Joy” and “Infant
Sorrow;” “The Lamb” and “The Tyger,” “The Echoing
Green,” “The Nurse’s Song” from both parts; “The
Chimney Sweeper” from both Innocence and Experience; “The Little Black
Boy;” “The Divine Image”. We will likely
discuss other poems as well, but most certainly these.
Week 6 T 2/17: Paper #1/In class #1 due on Tuesday, 2/17
R 2/19: The Abolition of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Oladaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative, 210; Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince, 219; Thomas Clarkson, The History of the Rise, Progress, & Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade by the British Parliament, 250; Hannah Moore, “The Sorrows of Yamba,” 240; Robert Southey, Poems Concerning the Slave Trade, 244; Dorothy Wordsworth, 250; and William Wordsworth, 259.
Week 7 T 2/24 – R 2/26: Tuesday, 2/24 – Quiz #3 on H 2/26 quiz will focus on information about the slave trade and abolition movement from the text (be sure to read the brief introduction on page 209 – 10) and my in-class presentation, and on texts by Equiano, Mary Prince, Thomas Clarkson, John Newton’s hymn “Amazing Grace,” William Wordsworth (the brief excerpt from The Prelude) and Dorothy Wordsworth (from her journal). Film Amazing Grace (118 minutes) and discussion of film in relation to our study of the abolition of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade.
March
Week 8 T 3/3: Assign Paper/In-Class #2; Descriptive-Meditative Tradition: “Coleridge, "This Lime-Tree bower, My Prison," 574; Frost at Midnight," 576
R 3/5: Wordsworth,
"Tintern Abbey," 404 and slides dealing with Wordsworth’s Lake
District and the Wye River Valley in Wales
SPRING BREAK March 9 - 13
Week 9 T 3/17: Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Mont Blanc," 817; John Keats, “To a Nightingale,”
953
R 3/19: Dorothy Wordsworth, Grasmere Journals, 551 - 7; William Wordsworth, “Resolution and Independence,” 520; The Great Odes: Wordsworth's "Intimations Ode," 528; Coleridge, "Dejection: An Ode,” 619
Week 10 T 3/24 – R 3/26 Romanticism and the Supernatural:
Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner," 580; Keats, “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” 946 and 948; Quiz #4 on “Lime Tree Bower,” “Frost at Midnight,” “Tintern Abbey,”
“Mont Blanc,” “Resolution and Independence,”
“Intimations Ode,” and “Dejection an Ode.”
Week 11 T 3/31: Paper #2
due/In-class #2
April
R 4/2: The Romantic Rebel (Click for a definition) Blake,
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 183
Week 12 T 4/7 -- Lord Byron, The Byronic Hero: Manfred, 659; The Byronic Hero, 695 - 710.
R 4/9 – Quiz #5 on “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,”“La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Manfred and the concept of the Romantic Rebel. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lyrics: To Wordsworth,"816; “Ozymandias," 823; "England in 1819," 824; "Song: To The Men of England" (handout); “To the West Wind,” 835; “To A Skylark,” 837
Week 13 T 4/14 – R 4/16: Mary (Wollstonecraft Godwin) Shelley, Frankenstein. Quiz #6 on H 4/16 on Frankenstein.
Week 14 T 4/21: Frankenstein.
H 4/23 – Paper #3/In-class #3
Week 15 T 4/28 - 4/30: John Keats, “Ode to Psyche,” 951; “Ode to a Nightingale,” 953; “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” 955; “Ode on Indolence,” 957; “Ode on Melancholy,” 959; “To Autumn,” 960. Letters, 992 - 1007.
Final Exam : Thursday, May 7 at 7:30 (yes,
this early!) in our regular classroom, B51, 119B.