English 411: British Literary Traditions II

 

Spring 2004

 

M W F 12:50-1:40

Haggar Hall 200

 

Susan Cannon Harris


Contact Information:

 

Susan Cannon Harris

712 Flanner Hall
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556

Email: Susan.C.Harris.90@nd.edu

Office phone: (574) 631-5088

Website: http://www.nd.edu/~sharris2/

Web address for this syllabus: http://www.nd.edu/~sharris2/411.htm

 

Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday, 2:30-4:00 p.m.


·  Description

·  Required Texts

·  Coursework and Policy Statement

·  Course Outline


 

The objective of this course is to explore dominant trends in the development of British literary and cultural history by examining canonical works from various genres in light of the major political and cultural shifts taking place while they were being written and published. Over the time frame covered by the course—from the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 to the beginning of the postmodern period—we will focus on the tension between the idea of literature as a catalyst for revolution and change, and the idea of literature as a bastion of tradition and conservatism. Along the way we will focus on “real-world” debates that tapped into these literary issues, such as the emancipation of women, the abolition of slavery, and the aftermath of the First World War. 


Required Texts


Books

 

Damrosch, David ed. The Longman Anthology of British Literature:

            --Volume 1C, The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century

            --Volume 2A, The Romantics And Their Contemporaries

            --Volume 2B, The Victorian Age

            --Volume 2C, The Twentieth Century

 

Bronte, Charlott. Jane Eyre. Norton Critical Edition (3rd edition), ed. Richard J. Dunn. W.W. Norton &

Co., 2000.

Rhys, Jean. A Wide Sargasso Sea.

 

Coursework and Policy Statement


 

Readings

 

You are responsible for reading everything mentioned on the syllabus unless I specifically tell you otherwise. Because most of class time will be spent working with the reading, failure to do the reading will hurt you, your group, and the class in general. It will also lower your in-class work grade.

 

Written Work

 

You will write two 6-8 page papers.  You will also keep a reading journal which you turn in on a weekly basis.

 

All assignments will be turned in at the beginning of class on the days that the syllabus says they are due, unless I inform you that the due dates have been changed. If you are absent on the day that an assignment is due, even if your absence is excused, it is your responsibility to make sure it somehow gets to me at or before 12:50.

 

Papers

 

For both papers you will have the opportunity to revise and resubmit. That is, if you are unhappy with your performance, you have one week to work on the paper and turn it in again. The higher of the two grades will be recorded (i.e., if you make the paper worse when you revise it, your first grade will stand; if you make it better, your first grade is thrown out).

 

Papers turned in after the class period on the day they are due will be considered half a day late and docked half a letter grade--an A will go down to a B+, etc. Starting at dawn on the day after the paper is due, the paper will be docked a full letter grade for every day it is late. For instance, if a paper is due on Monday, and it is turned in at 8:00 am Tuesday, it will be docked a full letter grade: an A goes down to a B, and so on. When the sun rises on Wednesday morning, that A paper is a C; a C paper is an F. The clock does not stop on weekends; if the paper is due Friday and I get it Monday, it is three days late and will be docked accordingly.

Reading Journal

You will also keep a reading journal, which you will turn in every Monday. The reading journal has two purposes: 1) to encourage you to engage with the reading assginments before coming to class to discuss them and 2) to provide you with a place to work out your ideas about the papers before sitting down to write them. The reading journal requirements are as follows:

  • you must turn in AT LEAST one entry a week
  • each entry must be AT LEAST one FULL page long.
  • each entry must engage in a thoughtful manner with the text or texts we will be discussing in class on the day you turn it in (although it may also bring in texts from previous weeks)
  • each entry must clearly indicate that you are caught up on the assigned reading

Reading journal entries must be turned in on time or they will not be accepted. Individual entries are graded on a pass/fail basis; you will get a credit/no credit mark and written feedback. The amount of effort and insight you put into your reading journal will be factored into your final course participation grade. You will not receive credit for entries that do not meet the requirements listed above (i.e., do not deal with that day’s text, do not show that you are caught up on the reading, do not engage in a thoughtful manner with the text, are less than a full page long, or are turned in late).

Your work is considered turned in when I find it. If you leave a paper at my office Thursday night and I do not come across it until Monday morning, it will be docked four letter grades. For this reason, if you are turning a paper in late, it is a good idea to contact me or Taranee and arrange a delivery time.

 

All written work must be typed on a word processor. Papers must be double-spaced throughout (except for block quotations and footnotes). Include page numbers. Margins should be no wider than 1.25" on the right and left and 1" on the top and bottom (standard setting on most word processors). The font size must be 12-point. Papers must be documented in either MLA or Chicago style. Papers that do not meet these requirements will be docked half a letter grade. All papers must include a title, the number of the assignment, your name, my name, and the date.

 

Exams

 

You will take a midterm and a final exam. Dates for both are listed on the syllabus. Together they account for 45% of your final grade.

 

Attendance

 

Because this class places a tremendous importance on student interaction, your presence and participation are crucial to the well-being of the class as a whole. Attendance is mandatory. If you miss ten minutes or more of a class, either at the beginning or at the end, that counts as an unexcused absence.

 

The only excuses for absence that I accept are religious holidays, physical or mental illness (verified by a doctor), or serious personal trauma. I will allow you one unexcused absence for the semester free of charge; after that, your in-class work grade drops 20 points with each unexcused absence. If you accumulate six unexcused absences (including your freebie), you will fail the course. You will be notified in writing if you are in danger of failing the course due to unexcused absences.

 

Conferences

 

I will always be available in my office during my office hours for conferences. If you can't make those hours you can always set up an appointment with me for another time. Taranee will hold office hours by appointment.

 

Plagiarism

 

Plagiarism--attempting to pass off someone else's writing as your own--is a serious offense and will not be tolerated. This goes for your drafts and short assignments as well as the major papers. If I find evidence that you have plagiarized any part of any assignment, I will turn the evidence over to the departmental honesty committee, who will then prosecute you according to the procedure outlined in the university's Academic Honor Code.

 

We will discuss plagiarism in class, and work on how to cite sources properly to avoid confusion about what is your work and what is someone else's. If at any point you are uncertain about whether you may have plagiarized from a source you used, please ask me about it before turning in the paper.

 

Grading

 

Your final grade for the course breaks down as follows:

 

Paper 1: 20% 

Paper 2: 20%
Midterm: 20%

Final: 25%
Class participation (including reading journal): 15%

 

Papers and exams will be assigned letter grades. These grades will be converted into percentages at the end of the semester. Your class participation includes your reading journal, attendance, group work, and contributions to class discussion.

 

While in this classroom, you are expected to treat your fellow students with respect at all times. Failure to do so will significantly lower your in-class work grade.

Course Outline


This syllabus is subject to change. I will inform you of any changes in advance.


I. The Restoration And Eighteenth Century 


Week One: The Return Of The King


January 14

Introduction

 

January 16

 Longman 1C: 2060-2112

(“The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century”; Samuel Pepys, excerpts from The Diary)


Week Two:  Let’s Misbehave


January 19

 Longman 1C: 2288-2356

(William Wycherly, The Country Wife)

JOURNAL DUE.

 

January 21

 Longman 1C: 2445-2448, 2572-2585

(Jonathan Swift, “The Lady’s Dressing Room;” Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Turkish Embassy Letters, “Epistle from Mrs. Yonge,” “The Lover,” “The Reasons That Induced…”)

 

January 23

 Longman 1C: 2474-2476, 2504-2522, 2396-2406, 2422-2436

(“Alexander Pope;” Pope, The Rape of the Lock; “Periodical Personae,” “Women And Men, Manners and Marriage”


Week Three: Whatever Is, Is Right? 


January 26

 Longman 1C: 2113-2115, 2223-2224, 2235-2276

(“Aphra Behn”; Behn, “To The Fair Clorinda…”, Oroonoko)

JOURNAL DUE.

 

January 28

Longman 1C: 2476-2492, 2541-2549

(Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism, An Essay On Man) 


January 30

 Longman 1C: 2466-2473

(Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal; William Petty, Political Arithmetic)


II. The Romantics


Week Four: You Say You Want A Revolution


February 2

 Longman 2A: 67-83, 227-249, 135-148

(Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution…; Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, introduction and chapters 1-2; “William Blake;” Blake, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”)

JOURNAL DUE.

 

February 4

 PAPER #1 DUE.

Longman 2A: 118-126

(Blake, Songs of Innocence; Lamb, from The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers)

 

February 6

 Longman 2A: 126-135

(Blake, Songs of Experience)


Week Five: Back To Nature


February 9

 Longman 2A: 207-210, 336-349, 356-362

(Wordsworth, “Toussaint L’Ouverture,” “Humanity,” “Letter To Mary Ann Rawson;” “William Wordsworth/The Lyrical Ballads;” Wordsworth, “Simon Lee,” “We Are Seven,” “Lines Written in Early Spring,” “The Thorn,” Note to “The Thorn,” “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads)

JOURNAL DUE.

 

February 11

 Longman 2A: 352-356

(Wordsworth: “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”)

 

February 13

 Longman 2A: 520-526

(“Samuel Taylor Coleridge;” Coleridge, “The Eolian Harp,” “This Lime-Tree Bower”)


Week Six: Dark Angels


February 16

Longman 2A: 576-582, 528-544

(Coleridge, from Chapter 14 of Biographia Literaria (“Occasion of the Lyrical Ballads” and “Philosophic Definitions”), The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; Cowper, “The Castaway;” “Table Talk”)

JOURNAL DUE.

 

February 18

Longman 2A: 546-561

(Coleridge, “Kubla Khan,” “Christabel”)

 

February 20

 Longman 2A: 601-638, 644-645, 650

(“George Gordon, Lord Byron;” Byron, “She Walks In Beauty,” “So, We’ll Go No More A-Roving,” Manfred, A Dramatic Poem; Coleridge, from The Statesman’s Manual; Shelley, Preface to Prometheus Unbound)

 


Week Seven: Sublimation   


February 23

 Longman 2A: 499-505, 752-758, 760, 771-775   

(Edmund Burke, The Sublime And The Beautiful; “Percy Bysshe Shelley;” Shelley, “To Wordsworth,” “Mont Blanc,” “Ozymandias,” “Ode to the West Wind,” “To A Sky-Lark”)

JOURNAL DUE.

 

February 25

 Longman 2A: 761-771, 800-810

(Shelley, The Mask of Anarchy, “A Defence of Poetry”)

 

February 27

 Longman 2A: 852-855, 864, 879-883

(“John Keats;” Keats, “On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer,” Pope & Chapman translations of The Iliad, “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles,” “Ode To A Nightingale,” “Ode on a Grecian Urn”)

 

 


III: The Victorian Age


Week Eight: It’s Good To Be The Queen


March 1

 MIDTERM. No journal due.

 

March 3

 Longman 2B, 1008-1032, 1540-1545,1105-1107, 1108-1112

(“The Victorian Age;” Queen Victoria, “Letters on the Position of Women;”

“Elizabeth Barrett Browning;” Barret Browning, “Sonnets from the Portugese;”)

 

March 5

 Longman 2B:, 1305-1309, 1311-1312, 1321-1322,

 (“Robert Browning;” Browning, “Poryphria’s Lover,” “My Last Duchess,” “Love Among the Ruins”)


March 6-14: Spring Break. No Class. 


Week Nine: Victoria’s Secrets


March 15

Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre, Part I

JOURNAL DUE

 

March 17

 Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre, Part II

 

March 19

 Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre, Part III


Week Ten: Half In Love With Death


March 22

 Longman 2B:  1136-1138, 1141-1145; Longman 2A, 875, 879-881

(“Alfred Lord Tennyson;” Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott;” Keats, “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” “Ode to a Nightingale”)

JOURNAL DUE.

 

March 24

 Longman 2B: 1165-1196

(Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H., “Charge of the Light Brigade”)

 

March 26

Longman 2B: 1243-1264,1551-1552, 1583-1593

(“Charles Darwin;” Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle, On The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man; Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach,” Culture and Anarchy)


IV. Modernism And Beyond


Week  Eleven: The War To End All Wars


 

March 29

 Longman 2C: 1990-2014, 2167-2182

 (“The Twentieth Century,” “BLAST! A Vorticist Manifesto”)

JOURNAL DUE.

 

 

March 31

 PAPER #2 DUE.

Longman 2C: 2188-2192, 2216-2231

 (Wilfred Owen; Robert Graves)

 

April 2

Longman 2C: 2242-2253

(“William Butler Yeats;” “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” “Who Goes With Fergus?” “No Second Troy,” “An Irish Airman Forsees His Death,” “Easter 1916,” “The Second Coming,” “A Prayer For My Daughter”)


Week Twelve: Unreal City


April 5

Longman 2C: 2344-2350, 2374-2379

(“T. S. Eliot;” Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Tradition and the Individual Talent)

PAPER #2 DUE.

 

April 7

Longman 2C: 2356-2368

(T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land)

 

April 9

 Good Friday. No Class.


Week Thirteen: Mostly Dead


April 12

 Easter Monday. No Class.

 

April 14

 Longman 2C: 2270-2310

(“James Joyce;” Joyce, Dubliners)

 

April 16

Longman 2C: 2386-2438

(Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, first half)


Week Fourteen:  Shellshock


April 19

Longman 2C: 2439-2484

(conclusion of Mrs. Dalloway)

JOURNAL DUE.

 

April 21

 Longman 2C: 2370-2374

(Eliot, “Burnt Norton” from Four Quartets)

 

April 23

 Longman 2C: 2788-2797

(“W.H. Auden”; Auden, “Musee de Beaux Arts,” “In Memory of W. B. Yeats,” “Spain 1937,” “Lullaby”)  


Week Fifteen: Writing Back


 

April 26

 Jean Rhys, A Wide Sargasso Sea

JOURNAL DUE.

 

April 28

Evaluations

 


TUESDAY, MAY 4: FINAL EXAM, 4:15 p.m.


Susan.C.Harris.90@nd.edu