English 252 - British Literature

English 252 - British Literature Office hours Tuesday 9 - 10am and Spring 2003 by appointment K. Simmons 974-7478 T- Th 11:00 – 12:15 EKH 214 UCB 112 [email protected]

TEXT: Required: Abrams, M.H. et al., ed. The Norton Anthology of British Literature, 7th edition, Vol. 2

Recommended, especially for English majors And on reserve: M.H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms

Joseph Gibaldi , MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers

REQUIREMENTS:

Mid-term exam 20% Research report 20% Literary analysis paper 25% Final exam 25% Attendance and participation 10%

Regardless of your grades in the course, it is impossible to pass without completing every assignment.

Late assignments will be marked down 1/2 grade per day.

Exams can be made up (or taken early) only when circumstances beyond the student's control (such as illness, family emergency) make such arrangements necessary. Students requesting such exceptions should be prepared to present documentation in support of their request.

The deadline for dropping courses in Arts and Sciences is March 7th

1 2 I. T. Jan 14 Course introduction History of the World, Part I (lecture)

Th Jan 16 Unit 1: Introduction to the Romantics Revolution

William Blake, from Songs of Innocence, "Introduction" “The Little Black Boy" The Chimney Sweeper" "Divine Image” “Infant Joy”

from Songs of Experience, "Introduction" "The Chimney Sweeper" “Garden of Love” “Infant Sorry” “A Divine Image”

Literary terms: persona; meter/rhythm; rhyme, image, image pattern, stanza

II. T Jan 21 From Songs of Innocence: “The Lamb” From Songs of Experience: “"The Sick Rose" "The Tyger"

Literary term: symbol

Th Jan 23 Video: The Western Tradition: Revolution and the Romantics

Percy Bysshe Shelley: A Song: Men of England” “England 1918”

Literary terms: sonnet, quatrain, couplet

III.TJan 28 Unit 2: The Romantics, continued The Romantic Consciousness

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth, “We Are Seven” "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,"

Literary Terms: Ballad stanza, persona, diction

Th Jan 30

3 Wordsworth, “My Heart Leaps Up” "Ode: Intimations of Immortality"

Literary terms: figurative language, tropes, simile, metaphor IV. T Feb 4 Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "Dejection: An Ode," “Kubla Khan” Th Feb 6 Library session: Introduction to the report assignment. Class will meet in the library classroom Begin reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, to be discussed on February 18th V T Feb 11 John Keats, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" " “Sonnet: When I have fears”

Literary terms: Sonnet, quatrain, couplet, metaphor TH February 13 Report topic due Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn," “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” VI. T Feb 18 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Th Feb 20 Mid-term exam

Vii T Feb 25 Unit III: Introduction to the Victorian Period:

4 The Woman Question

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from :Aurora Leigh, Book I, “Aurora’s Education; Book 2 “Aurora’s Aspirations” “Aurora’s Rejection of Romney”

Literary terms: Feminist Criticism, dramatic lyric

Th Feb 27 Virginia Woolf, from A Room of One's Own, from Chapter 1 & 3 VIII T Mar 4 Unit IV: The Victorian Period, continued The Crisis of Religious Faith

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "In Memoriam" Prologue, #1, 2, 3, 34, 54, 55, 56, 95, 118, 123, 124, 130, 131 Th Mar 6 Report due Tennyson, continued “The Lady of Shalott” F Mar 7 Discussion of literary analysis paper Last Day to drop a course in Arts & Science IX TMar 11 Matthew Arnold, "Stanzas from the Grande Th Mar 13 Chartreuse” "Dover Beach"

Unit 5: The Victorians, continued:

Precursors to modern poetry: Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess," "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister"

Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur,” “The Windhover,” “Pied Beauty”

X T Mar 18 Literary term: Dramatic Monologue

Unit 6: The Modern Period

5 The Great War Video: The First World War and the Rise of Fascism

Poetry of World War I: Rupert Brooke, "The Soldier," Sigfried Sassoon, “They” "The Glory of Women," “The General” “On Passing the New Menin Gate” Wilfred Owen, "Dulce et Decorum Est," "Disabled”

Literary term: irony Th Mar 20

Literary analysis paper topic due World War I poetry continued. More on literary analysis papers Mar 24 – 29

Spring Break XI T Apr 1

Unit 7: The Modern Period, continued:

Modernism

Modern Poetry: Imagism: Pound, (Poetry to be distributed) T.S. Eliot: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Literary terms: Imagism, Modernism Th Apr 3

Selections from "The Waste Land" Part 1; XIi T Apr 8 Part 2;

William Butler Yeats, “September 1913” "Easter 1916," "The Second Coming," Th Apr 10 "Sailing to Byzantium”

Modern fiction

6 Virginia Woolf, “The Mark on the Wall” XIII T Apr 15 Drafts of papers due

Th Apr 17 James Joyce, “The Dead”

More on literary analysis papers Begin reading Chinua Achebe “Things Fall Apart” XIV T Apr 22

Unit 7: Contemporary Literature

Post Colonial Literature Chinua Achebe “Things Fall Apart” Th Apr 24 Literary term: Post Colonial Criticism

Video: Chinua Achebe interviewed by Bill Moyers “Things Fall Apart,” continued XV T Apr 29 Literary Analysis paper due

Nadine Gordiner: Th May 1 “The Moment Before the Gun Went off” and another story to be distributed? Video: An Interview with Nadine Gordimer

Unit 8: What is literature for? Yeats, "Lapis Lazuli Auden, “In Memory of W.B. Yeats” XVI T May 6 Come to class prepared to share your answer to this question (even if your answer is “nothing.”)

Course wrap-up

REPORT: ASSIGNMENT AND SCHEDULE

Please read this assignment in preparation for the library session on February 6th.

7 Your first independent project this semester will be to look into the life and work of any of the following writers and to write a report as detailed below.

Writers from which to choose:

Robert Burns Mary Wollstonecraft Joanna Baillie Dorothy Wordsworth Sir Walter Scott George Gordon, Lord Byron Charles Dickens Emily Bronte George Eliot Christina Rossetti Oscar Wilde Jean Rhys Derek Walcott V.S. Naipaul Salman Rushdie

To do your report, please do the following:

1. Read the introductory sections in our anthologies pertaining to your chosen writer. It would probably be best to read several introductions before you select your subject. PLEASE DO NOT SELECT A WRITER ON WHOM YOU’VE WORKED IN ANOTHER CLASS. The purpose of this report is to research a writer you’ve not dealt with before.

2. Read about your writers in one of the standard literary dictionaries or encyclopedia, to which you will be introduced in the library session. NOTE: DO NOT USE AN ORDINARY DICTIONARY OR ENCYCLOPEDIA FOR THIS PART OF THE ASSIGNMENT. YOU MUST USE A SPECIALIZED LITERARY REFERENCE WORK.

3. If your writer is represented in the anthology by no more than ten pages, read all of the material in the anthology. If your chosen writer is represented by a larger selection of work, read approximately ten pages of it.

4. Find one other piece of writing either BY or ABOUT your author . Read one full article in a collection, a selection of poetry or short stories, or one chapter, not an entire book. Material for this report may NOT be ordered through inter-library loan.

8 All of this should be completed by February 13th.

On that date, please hand in:

1) The name of your author 2) The name and publication information (MLA format) for the encyclopedia or dictionary from which you have selected your article. 3) A complete list of the material by the author in the anthology that you have read. Use MLA format. For information on how to cite sources, please go to the UHH Llibrary’s homepage. Under “Resources,” click on “Citing Sources.” Or, consult Gibaldi, MLA Guide for Writers of Research Papers, optional book for this class. 4) A list of the outside work that you have read or will read. Use MLA format.

This preliminary report will be worth 15 of the 100 points for the entire report. Points will be awarded only if the report is turned in on time.

The report itself should be approximately three to five pages long and is due on March 4th. It should include:

1) A brief (from one paragraph to one page) biography of your author. This should be based on the material in the anthology introduction and the encyclopedia article you've read, but it must be in your own words. Do not quote, or if you must, quote no more than a phrase or two for the entire biography. The material – including every fact you learned from any source -- must be documented, using proper MLA format.

2) A brief (from one paragraph to one page) general statement of the general characteristics and subjects of your writer. Does s/he write fiction? poetry? drama? non-fiction? Some of all of these? What seem to be his/her major concerns? the lives of the poor? death? religion? love? Write this section as if you were telling your roommate what the writer is like.

3) A brief (one paragraph to one page) discussion of/reaction to the work in the anthology that you have read. This section could include many different things: what is the work about? what do you especially like or dislike about it?

4) A brief (one paragraph to one page) discussion of/reaction to the material you've read from outside of the anthology. Feel free to begin this section: "This book [you name it] is about ______'s life. I selected the chapter on her years as a governess. Jones explains that during this time ______[whatever the author explains.]" In a case like this where you're reporting on biography, DO NOT simply repeat what you said in part one. Compare the two. "Unlike the Abrams introduction, Jones focuses much more on ______'s employers who were ______[whatever]." To avoid having to compare, select a critical work about

9 the author's writing, or select something BY your writer. Like the biography, this section should be IN YOUR OWN WORDS unless you choose to quote small well- selected sections. No more than about 10% of the section should be directly quoted. The section must be documented, using MLA format.

5) A formal "Works Cited" section. You will have the opportunity to study samples in class.

6) Accurate and complete parenthetical documentation as indicated above, based on MLA guidelines.

Late paper will be marked down ½ grade per day, including week-ends.

MLA Format

You can find samples and instructions for MLA Documentation style in a number of places: Joseph Gibaldi, MLA GUIDE FOR WRITERS OF RESEARCH PAPERS

10 The library’s home page. Click on “resources” then on “citing sources.” Of the three listed, I think the Diana Hacker selection has the best examples

Some things you’ll need are not clearly available on the library’s pages. So here are some additional samples:

If you’re citing more than one selection from an anthology or collection:

First, cite the anthology itself in your list of works cited:

Abrams, M.H. et al eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 7th edition, Volume 2, New York: Norton, 2000.

Then, for each work from the anthology you’re citing, create a shortened citation:

Blake, William. “To Autumn,” Abrams 40.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, “To George Sand,” Abrams 1178.

Literary Analysis Paper

From the list of poems below, select one in which you can see a variety of or a very strong and complex example of literary elements -- e.g. symbol, persona, rhyme scheme, metaphor, sonnet form, etc. -- and write a CAREFULLY

11 FOCUSED essay in which you show your ability to analyze these elements in the poem or poems you have selected. Your analysis should show how the elements work and how they contribute to the meaning of the work. DO NOT TELL THE PLOT OF THE POEM!

Please be sure that your paper includes a clear statement of exactly which elements of exactly which poems you are discussing.

Your paper should be approximately 3 typed pages in length, up to a maximum of 5 pages. LENGTH IS NOT A GREAT VIRTUE ON THIS ASSIGNMENT. Although it would be difficult to do a thorough analysis of much of anything in less than 3 pages, you will certainly not receive extra credit for more nearly approaching 5 pages. Your paper will be judged in much the same way your essay exams are judged, although one additional factor will be taken into consideration -- your ability to work independently.

The term paper assignment is designed to allow you to apply techniques and/or information that you have learned in English 252 to material we did NOT discuss in class. Please follow term paper instructions carefully, and be sure to see me if you have any questions about the instructions or about your own paper. I can be of great help to you in developing your paper if you see me early. If you see me right at the due date, I can be significantly less useful.

Poems:

Wordsworth: “I wandered lonely as a cloud” “It is a beauteous evening” “The World is too much with us”

Coleridge “Eolian Harp” Shelley “To A Sky-lark” Keats “On sitting down to read King Lear” “Sonnet to sleep” “Ode to a Nightengale” Robert Browning “Porphyria’s lover” Christina Rossetti “Goblin Market” Thomas Hardy “The Darkling Thrush”’

Process and calendar

On March 20th , please bring a written copy of your topic (author, poem(s), element(s)) to class. The topic will be worth 5 of the total 100 points for the term paper assignment and points will only be awarded if the topic is turned in on time.

12 On April 10th a complete, typed draft of your paper is due. The draft will be awarded 10 points if it clearly fulfills the assignment even if there is still work that needs to be done to polish the paper. A partial paper will earn partial credit. A set of notes will earn only a few points. Full credit on the draft does NOT mean that you will automatically receive an A on the final paper, however. The points reflect your progress. Late drafts will not be accepted, and no points will be awarded.

On April 24tth, the final typed paper is due. Although late papers will be accepted, they will be marked down 1/2 grade per day. The paper MUST be turned before the final exam in order for you to earn a passing grade in English 252!

Exceptions to any of these ground rules will be granted only in exceptional and documented cases. Please do not hesitate to discuss such exceptional situations with me.