English 212: Major British Authors: Romantic to Modern
Fall 2008
Dr. Ben Clarke Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 10:00-10:50
Office: MHRA 3108 BRYN 111
Phone: 334-3971
E-mail: b_clarke@uncg.edu
Course Description
This course surveys British literature from the late eighteenth to the late twentieth century. Students will read texts by some of the major authors who worked within in this period, and analyse developments in literary technique and genre. They will also consider the relationship between these texts and the historical conditions within which they were produced.
Required Texts
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Norton, 2001.
Greenblatt, Stephen et. al. Eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature (volumes D,
E, and F). Norton, 2006.
Waugh, Evelyn. Vile Bodies. 1930. Back Bay Books, 1999.
Students are expected to own and use a guide to composition, grammar and referencing such as Diane Hacker's A Writer's Reference (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007)
Assessment
Attendance and participation: 20%
Mid-term examination: 40%
Final examination: 40%
Both examinations will include short-answer questions and an essay.
Course Requirements and Policies
You must attend all classes. Missing more than two classes without permission will result in a significant reduction in your final grade. Late arrivals and early departures count as absences. If you are unable to attend class, you must provide a doctor's note or equivalent.
Your essays should be typed (New Times Roman font 12), double-spaced (with one inch margins), paginated, and headed with your name and the course number. Please use MLA citation. You must keep copies of all your work and notes.
You must hand in all work on the date given on the syllabus unless a documented emergency prevents you from handing an essay in on time or you have received an extension from me before the assignment is due. I will penalize late papers 3 points for every day beyond the deadline.
Bigoted and intolerant language and behaviour will not be accepted in the classroom.
Please read the university policies on cheating and plagiarism, which can be found on page 176 of the UNCG Student Calendar and Handbook. Any violation of these policies will be dealt with severely. If you have any questions about cheating or plagiarism, please see me during office hours.
Schedule
Please note that you must read all the introductions to the writers we are studying in the Norton anthology. This will help you to locate each piece of work within its historical and theoretical contexts. All page numbers refer to the Norton Anthology unless otherwise stated.
August 25: Syllabus and course outline
August 27: William Blake, "The Lamb" (83-4) and "Holy Thursday" (86) from Songs of Innocence and "The Tyger" (92-3) and "Holy Thursday" (90) from Songs of Experience
August 29: William Blake, "The Chimney Sweeper" (85) from Songs of Innocence and "The Chimney Sweeper" (90), "The Sick Rose" (91), "The Garden of Love" (94) and "London" (94) from Songs of Experience
September 1: Labour Day Holiday
September 3: Mary Wollstencraft, from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (170-88)
September 5: Mary Wollstencraft, from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (189-95)
September 8: William Wordsworth, "Expostulation and Reply" (250-1), "The Tables Turned" (251-2), "Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" (258-62)
September 10: William Wordsworth, "Resolution and Independence" (302-5), "Composed upon Westminster Bridge" (317), "The world is too much with us" (319)
September 12: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (430-46)
September 15: Lord Byron, from Don Juan, Canto 1 (670-97)
September 17: Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandius" (768), "A Song: 'Men of England'" (770), "England in 1819" (771)
September 19: John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale" (903-5), "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (905-6), "Ode on Melancholy" (906-8), "Ode on Indolence" (908-9)
September 22: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1-51)
September 24: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (51-101)
September 26: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (101-150)
September 29: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (150-204)
October 1: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (204-54)
October 3: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Sonnets from the Portuguese" (1084-5)
October 6: Lord Alfred Tennyson, "Mariana" (1112-4), "The Lotus Eaters" (1119-23), "Ulysses" (1123-5)
October 8: Charles Dickens, "A Visit to Newgate" (1239-48)
October 10: Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess" (1255-6), Matthew Arnold, "Dover Beach" (1368-9)
October 13: Mid-term examination.
October 15: Christina Rossetti, "Goblin Market" (1466-78)
October 17: Friedrich Engels, from The Great Towns (1565-72), Charles Dickens, from Hard Times (1573-4), Henry Mayhew, from London Labour and the London Poor (1576-7), Annie Besant, "The 'White Slavery' of the London Match Workers" (1577-9)
October 20: Fall Break
October 22: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1890-1912)
October 24: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1912-1947)
October 27: Edward Thomas, "Adlestrop" (1956-7), "Rain" (1958), "As the Team's Head Brass" (1959)
October 29: Isaac Rosenberg, "Break of Day in the Trenches" (1967), "Returning, We Hear the Larks" (1968),"Dead Man's Dump" (1969-70), Wilfred Owen, "Dulce Et Decorum Est" (1920)
October 31: Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies.
November 3: Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies.
November 5: Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies.
November 7: Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies.
November 10: Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies.
November 12: Virginia Woolf, "The Mark on the Wall" (2082-7), "Modern Fiction" (2087-92)
November 14: James Joyce, "The Dead" (2172-2199)
November 17: D. H. Lawrence, "Odour of Chrysanthemums" (2245-58), "How Beastly the Bourgeois Is" (2282-3)
November 19: T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (2289-2293)
November 21: Katherine Mansfield, "The Daughters of the Late Colonel" (2333-46)
November 24: Stevie Smith, "Sunt Leones" (2373), "Our Bog is Dood" (2374), "Not Waving but Drowning" (2374-5)
November 26: Thanksgiving holiday
November 28: Thanksgiving holiday
December 1: George Orwell, "Shooting an Elephant" (2379-84)
December 3: W. H. Auden, "Musée des Beaux Arts" (2428-9), "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" (2429-2431), "September 1, 1939" (2432-5)
December 5: Philip Larkin, "Church Going" (2566-8), "High Windows" (2570), "This Be the Verse" (2572-3), "Aubade" (2573-4)
December 8: Final examination |