E 349S l Edgar Allan Poe
Instructor: Hutchison, C Cross-lists: N/A Unique #: 34990 Flags: Writing Semester: Fall 2020 Computer Instruction: Yes
PREREQUISITES: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.
DESCRIPTION: This course studies the varied work of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1845). A master of a number of literary genres—poetry, short fiction, and criticism, to name but three—Poe remains one of the most popular and perplexing figures in American literature. More than two centuries after his birth, he continues to exert an outsize influence on a number of literary traditions, including detective fiction, horror, science fiction, hoax, humor, and satire. Over the course of the term we will read many of Poe’s tales, a good deal of his poetry, select pieces of criticism, and his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1837). In measuring Poe’s achievement, we will gauge his influence on subsequent generations of writers, including Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Roger Corman, Stephen King, Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, and Mat Johnson. We will also catalog the strange places that Poe shows up in contemporary culture: midnight movies, rock operas, episodes of The Simpsons, even NFL franchises. Finally, the course will take full advantage of UT’s Harry Ransom Center, which houses one of the world’s largest collections of Poe materials. This course will: study in depth the work of one of the most popular and perplexing figures in American literature; model methods of literary and cultural interpretation; and help students to improve their critical thinking, reading, and writing skills.
FLAGS: This course carries the Writing Flag. Writing Flag courses are designed to give students experience with writing in an academic discipline. In this class, you can expect to write regularly during the semester, complete substantial writing projects, and receive feedback from your instructor to help you improve your writing. You will also have the opportunity to revise one or more assignments, and you may be asked to read and discuss your peers’ work. You should therefore expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from your written work. Writing Flag classes meet the Core Communications objectives of Critical Thinking, Communication, Teamwork, and Personal Responsibility, established by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
TEXTS: • Edgar Allan Poe, Poetry, Tales, and Selected Essays (Library of America; 978-1883011383) • ---., The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (Penguin; 978-0140437485) [Optional] • Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes: Selected Stories (Oxford; 978-0199672066) • Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (Vintage; 978-0679745426) • Mat Johnson, Pym: A Novel (Spiegel & Grau; 978-0812981766)
All the above texts are available at the Co-Op: https://www.universitycoop.com/. All other required and optional materials are available via Canvas.
REQUIREMENTS & GRADING: Essays (65% of final grade for the course) You will produce two essays this semester. The first will offer a 4- to 5-page close reading and constitute 25% of the final grade for the course. NB: There will be an opportunity to revise and resubmit this essay. The second essay will be longer (i.e., 6 to 8 pages) and constitute 40% of the final grade for the course. Essay assignments will follow shortly.
Attendance and Discussion Participation (15% of final grade for the course) Attendance is mandatory; repeated unexcused absences will affect your grade. You are expected to login to Zoom before class begins, with text in or at hand, ready to discuss and think about the reading for the day. Contributions to discussions will be measured by, among other things, quality of insights, familiarity with the material, responsiveness to the ideas and comments of classmates, and willingness to take intellectual risks. If necessary, reading quizzes will be used to evaluate preparedness for class.
Canvas Posts: “Once upon a Midnight Dreary” (15% of final grade for the course) 2
Each week, between 3:30 pm on Thursday and 5 pm on Monday, you will post to Canvas (C) a brief response to the previous week’s reading. These responses should pose a critical question, offer an interpretation of a passage, or rebut something said in discussion. Alternatively, you may use your response to reply to another student’s question, interpretation, or rebuttal. Responses should be several sentences in length; formal writing is required. Needless to say, you may post to Canvas more than once per week. NB: You are responsible for checking our course site regularly; please be sure to read through each weekend’s discussion board postings before class on Tuesday: http://canvas.utexas.edu/.
Presentations: Poe-try (5% of final grade for the course) Finally, each of you will make a very brief presentation (think: <5-minute “Show & Tell”) of an object related to or influenced by the life and work of Edgar Allan Poe. Presentations should offer some background information on the object and initial thoughts on how it helps us to better understand Poe. A presentation sign-up will circulate during the first full week of class.
Grading Rubric NB: Plus/minus grades will be assigned for the final grade for the course. Letter grades will be determined on the basis of the following rubric:
A 94-100 B- B- 80-83.99 D+ 67-69.99 A- 90-93.99 C+ C+ 77-79.99 D 64-66.99 B+ 87-89.99 C C 74-76.99 D- 60-63.99 B 84-86.99 C- C- 70-73.99 F 0-59.99
Alas, the University does not recognize the grade of A+.
SCHEDULE: Thursday 27 August • Introduction: On Reading Edgar A. Poe • Edgar Allan Poe, “‘Alone’” (60)
The Jingle Man Tuesday 1 September • Poe, “Dreams” (31-32); “Spirits of the Dead” (32-33); “Evening Star” (33-34); “A Dream” (36); “Sonnet—To Science” (38); “Israfel” (62-64); “The Sleeper” (64-66); “The Valley of Unrest” (66); “The City in the Sea” (67-68); “Enigma” (71); “A Dream within a Dream” (97); [“Drake-Halleck Review” (excerpt)] • Benjamin F. Fisher, “Life” • John Evelev, “The Literary Profession” Thursday 3 September • Poe, “The Haunted Palace” (76-77); “Sonnet—Silence” (77); “The Conqueror Worm” (77-79); “Dream-Land” (79-80); “Eulalie—A Song” (80-81); “Ulalume—A Ballad” (89-91); “The Bells” (92-95); “Eldorado” (101); “The Poetic Principle” (1431- 1454) Tuesday 8 September • Poe, “To——(‘The bowers whereat’)” (56); “To—— (I heed not’)” (57); “To Helen” (62); “Lenore” (68-69); “To One in Paradise” (69-70); “To F——s S. O——d” (73); “To F——” (74); “Bridal Ballad” (74-75); “To Helen” (95-97); “For Annie” (98- 100); “Annabel Lee” (102-104) • Optional: Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita [selections] Thursday 10 September • Poe, “The Raven” (81-86); “The Philosophy of Composition” (1373-1385) • [Robert Barnabas Brough,] “The Vulture: An Ornithological Study” • Charles Baudelaire, “New Notes on Edgar Poe” • Walt Whitman, “Edgar Poe’s Significance” • [Georges Perec,] “Black Bird” • Mike Keith, “Near a Raven”; “Raven Two” 3 • The Simpsons, “203: Treehouse of Horror”
The Terrorist Tuesday 15 September • Poe, Preface to Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (129-130); “Metzengerstein” (134-142); “Loss of Breath” (151-163); “Shadow—A Parable” (218-220); “Silence—A Fable” (221- 224); “How to Write a Blackwood Article” (278-297) • Alan Brown, “The Gothic Movement” • Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, “Magazines” Thursday 17 September • Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” (317-336); “William Wilson” (337-357); “The Pit and the Pendulum” (491- 505); [Reviews of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales] Tuesday 22 September • Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart” (555-559); “The Black Cat” (597-606); “The Premature Burial” (666-679); “The Cask of Amontillado” (848-854) Thursday 24 September • Poe, “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains” (655-665); “Mesmeric Revelation” (717-727); “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (833-843); [Review of Robert M. Bird’s Sheppard Lee] • Bruce Mills, “Mesmerism” Tuesday 29 September • Poe, “MS. Found in a Bottle” (189-199); “A Descent into the Maelstrom” (432-448); “The Balloon-Hoax” (743-755); “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall” (951-1001) • John Tresch, “Extra! Extra! Poe Invents Science Fiction!” Thursday 1 October • Poe, “The Man That Was Used Up” (307-316); “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” (699-716); “The Imp of the Perverse” (826-832); “The Domain of Arnheim” (855-870) Tuesday 6 October • Poe, “Berenice” (225-233); “Morella” (234-239); “Ligeia” (262-277); “Eleonora” (468-474); “The Oval Portrait” (481-484) • Optional: Joan Dayan, “Amorous Bondage: Poe, Ladies and Slaves” Thursday 8 October • Poe, “The Masque of the Red Death” (485-490); “Hop-Frog” (899-908) • Roger Corman, et al, The Masque of the Red Death Tuesday 13 October • H.P. Lovecraft, “The Outsider”; “The Rats in the Walls”; “Cool Air” • Stephen King, “The Genius of ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’”; “The Old Dude’s Ticker”; “Graveyard Shift” Wednesday 14 October • First Essay due by 5 pm via Canvas
The Detective Thursday 15 October • Poe, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (397-431) • Benjamin F. Fisher, “Forensic Science” Tuesday 20 October • Poe, “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” (506-554) Thursday 22 October • Poe, “The Purloined Letter” (680-698) • Optional: Jacques Lacan, “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter’” Tuesday 27 October • Poe, “The Man of the Crowd” (388-396); “The Gold-Bug” (560-596); “The Oblong Box” (643-654); “‘Thou Art the Man’” (728-742) • Stephen Rachman, “Poe and the Origins of Detective Fiction” Thursday 29 October • Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia” (102-123); “The Red-Headed League” (140-161); “The Blue Carbuncle” (184- 202) 4 Tuesday 3 November • Doyle, “The Speckled Band” (203-226); “The Musgrave Ritual” (227-244); “The Dancing Men” (262-285)
The Black Sheep Thursday 5 November • Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1003-1094—through Chapter XI); [Review of Theodore S. Fay’s Norman Leslie] • David Dowling, “The Sea” Tuesday 10 November • Poe, Arthur Gordon Pym, cont. (1094-1182) Thursday 12 November • Poe, Arthur Gordon Pym, cont. • Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark; “Recitatif” • Teresa A. Goddu, “The Ghost of Race: Edgar Allan Poe and the Southern Gothic” Tuesday 17 November • Optional: Jules Verne, An Antarctic Mystery [especially Chapter 4] • Mat Johnson, Pym (1-155) Thursday 19 November • Johnson, Pym, cont. (156-322) Tuesday 24 November • Johnson, Pym, cont. • First Essay Revision due by midnight via Canvas Thursday 26 November • No Class: Thanksgiving Holidays
The Undead Tuesday 1 December • Stéphane Mallarmé, “The Tomb of Edgar Poe” • Julian Hawthorne, “My Adventures with Edgar Allan Poe” • Len Wein and Guy Davis, Batman: Nevermore • James McTeigue, et al, The Raven Thursday 3 December • Conclusion: On Re-reading Edgar A. Poe • Poe, “[The Light-House]” (924-925) • Russell Banks, “The Caul” • Joyce Carol Oates, “Poe Posthumous; or, The Light-House” Monday 7 December • Second Essay due by 5 pm via Canvas TBD • Tour: Poe materials at the Harry Ransom Center
POLICIES: Academic Integrity Everyone is expected to abide by the University Code of Academic Integrity: “The core values of The University of Texas at Austin are learning, discovery, freedom, leadership, individual opportunity, and responsibility. Each member of the University is expected to uphold these values through integrity, honesty, trust, fairness, and respect toward peers and community.” Any work submitted for academic credit must be your own; it must also be produced expressly for this course. For additional information on academic integrity, please visit: http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/conduct/academicintegrity.php.
Accommodations for Students with Disabilities The University of Texas at Austin provides upon request appropriate academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. For more information, please contact Services for Students with Disabilities: http://ddce.utexas.edu/disability/.
5 Course Website The course learning management system is Canvas: http://canvas.utexas.edu/. I will send out regular updates about the course, readings, assignments, and the like. Please be sure to check your Canvas email regularly.
Email and Office Hours Protocol Email is fine for brief questions but not substantive ones. Please make ample use of office hours, which are by appointment and via Zoom.
Religious Holy Days Anyone who needs to miss class for the observance of a religious holy day should let me know as soon as possible.
Zoom Protocols and Recommendations This course will meet synchronously, every Tuesday and Thursday from 5 to 6:30 pm. You can access our class meetings via the Canvas Zoom button. Here are some protocols and recommendations for using Zoom: • I recommend that everyone set their Zoom window to “Gallery View” (as opposed to “Speaker View”)—see the upper right- hand corner of the Zoom window. • It would also be helpful if you changed your Zoom handle to your preferred name—that is, how you want your colleagues and professor to refer to you. And please feel free to add preferred pronouns. • Everyone will enter the virtual classroom muted. You can unmute yourself via the “Participant” button at the bottom of the Zoom window—just press “Unmute Me” to make your mic hot—but I recommend that you leave yourself muted when you aren’t talking in order to cut down on ambient noise. • If you want to you say something in class, please press the “Participant” button and then “Raise Hand.” I will call on you. • I’ve turned off the ability to send private messages to one another via the “Chat” function. But you can still send messages to me or to the whole group during our class meetings—see the “Chat” button at the bottom of the Zoom window. • And feel free to use the “Reactions” button to nonverbally respond to a colleague’s comment—also at the bottom of the Zoom window. • If you find that your connection is slow, feel free to press the “Stop Video” button—once again at the bottom of the Zoom window. You will still be able to hear and participate in our discussion, but this should save you some bandwidth. • Class Zoom meetings will be recorded and archived on Canvas. Class recordings are reserved only for students in this class for educational purposes and are protected under FERPA. The recordings should not be shared outside the class in any form. Violation of this restriction by a student could lead to Student Misconduct proceedings.
A Note on the Format of this Course Let me acknowledge that many of you may have misgivings about an online course. In truth, I would prefer that we meet in person every Tuesday and Thursday to discuss Edgar Allan Poe, but the global pandemic has wreaked havoc on nearly every aspect of our lives. So, here we are. The good news is that I have a great deal of experience with online teaching. With some dedication and care, I am confident we will be able to have dynamic discussions about the extraordinary texts we will read this term. (Synchronous class meetings will help; ditto your weekly Canvas posts.) In addition, I will be in near-constant contact this semester, via regular email updates, virtual office hours, and one-on-one writing workshops. I also hold out hope that we will be able to get together in person later in the semester, likely for a film screening and/or a tour of the Harry Ransom Center’s Poe holdings. For now, let me thank you in advance for your patience, resilience, and goodwill.
A Note on the Context of this Course Given everything that is going on, it is incumbent upon all of us that we remain as flexible and resilient as possible this term. It is also crucial that you stay in touch with me throughout the term. If you fall behind for any reason, please do ask for help—and don’t despair. Finally, take good care of yourself and one another.
A Note on Reading for this Course By way of reminder, studying literature often requires us to engage with uncomfortable and even offensive content. In this course we will address such content in a forthright and mature fashion, using our critical thinking, reading, and writing skills to both critique and contextualize it. At the same time, respect for the course community and one another’s experiences and viewpoints is paramount.
A Note on Writing for this Course 6 “This course carries the Writing Flag. Writing Flag courses are designed to give students experience with writing in an academic discipline. In this class, you can expect to write regularly during the semester, complete substantial writing projects, and receive feedback from your instructor to help you improve your writing. You will also have the opportunity to revise one or more assignments, and you may be asked to read and discuss your peers’ work. You should therefore expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from your written work. Writing Flag classes meet the Core Communications objectives of Critical Thinking, Communication, Teamwork, and Personal Responsibility, established by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.” Students who are struggling with their writing are strongly encouraged to both meet with me and visit the University Writing Center: http://uwc.utexas.edu/.
WEBSITE: Canvas or another class website (if any).