English 353
British Texts: The Nineteenth Century
Spring 2003, Section 1
9:00-9:50 M, W, F
210 Fawcett Hall
Joe Law
Office: 344 Millett Hall
Office phone: 775-2155
E-mail: joe.law@wright.edu
Office hours: 8:30-9:50 T, Th and by appointment
NOTE: Because of my duties as coordinator of the WAC program and director of the University Writing Center, I am sometimes unable to keep office
hours as scheduled. I'll let you know in class if I anticipate being away. I'm
usually on campus until 5:00 each day, so it shouldn't be hard to schedule
to meet some other time as needed. During the afternoon, I am likely to be in
the Writing Center (031 Paul Laurence Dunbar Library).
Required Texts
Damrosch, David, et al., eds. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. New York: Longman: 2003.
Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. Ed. Fred Kaplan and Sylvčre Monod. 3rd. ed. New York: Norton, 2000.
Several works not included in The Longman Anthology are available online via library reserve and the WebCT site for this course. You should print out copies of these short texts and bring them with you to class on the day they are scheduled for discussion. Also available in both locations is the text of Tennyson's The Princess, which you will need for the fourth-hour project.
Recommended Text
Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research
Papers. 5th ed. New York: MLA, 1999.
NOTE: If you do not already own a copy of the MLA Handbook, do
not buy a copy this quarter. Instead, consult a one of the copies
available at the reference desk in the library. A new edition is scheduled for
publication this spring, so wait until it is available before purchasing one.
Course Goal
Through close reading of a number of diverse texts representing the full chronological span of the nineteenth century in Britain, we will attempt to understand both the texts themselves and the contexts that produced them and were affected by them.
Requirements
Reading Quizzes: There will be frequent unannounced quizzes over the readings assigned for the day. These factual quizzes should be easy--provided you have read the assignment carefully. Their chief purpose is to encourage you to keep up with the reading and to reward you for it. These quizzes will be given at the beginning of the class. If you are late, you will not be given additional time to complete the quiz; if you miss class, you will not be allowed to make up the quiz; if you come to class, take the quiz, then leave, the quiz will not be counted. However, I will drop the two lowest quiz scores.
Fourth-Hour Project: Like many other courses in the College of Liberal Arts, English 410 carries four hours of credit but meets only three hours per week. All such courses require a fourth-hour project. As the fourth-hour project for this course, you will read two substantial works related to the so-called Woman Question: The Princess, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Cassandra, by Florence Nightingale. Before we discuss these texts in class, you will submit four short papers (roughly 3-4 pages each) about them. More detailed information will be distributed in class.
Final Exam: Your final exam will be written during the scheduled time. I will ask you to write about Hard Times, particularly ways in which the novel addresses the themes discussed throughout the quarter.
Course Grade
Reading Quizzes 40%
Fourth-Hour Project 40%
Final Exam 20%
Academic Honesty
All work submitted must be your own, with outside sources properly acknowledged. Academic dishonesty includes copying another's work, turning in someone else's work as your own, allowing a tutor to write part or all of your paper, or allowing someone else to use your work in this same manner. If you are unsure about your work in this respect, talk to me before you submit it, not after.
Special Accommodations
If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, if you have emergency medical information to share with me, or if you need special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please make an appointment to see me as soon as possible. We should make any necessary arrangements within the first weeks of the course.
University Writing Center
The University Writing Center (031 Paul Laurence Dunbar Library) is available to assist you as you work on your papers. Be sure to take a copy of the assignment with you when you go. The Writing Center also has a cluster of networked computers available for student use. To get more information about hours and services, call 775-4186.
Reading and Assignment Schedule
All readings should be completed by the date they are scheduled for class
discussion.
Week 1
03/31/03 Introduction to Course
04/02/03 Overview of Period I (Romantics)
Read "The Romantics and Their Contemporaries" (3-29)
04/04/03 Overview of Period II
(Victorians)
Read "The Victorian Age" (1009-31)
Week 2
04/07/03 Revolution and Reaction I
Burke, Excerpts from Reflections on the Revolution in France (67-76)--read
sections titled "Liberties As an Entailed
Inheritance," "The Real Rights of Men," and "The Contract of Society"
Wollstonecraft, excerpts from A Vindication of the Rights of Men
(77-84)
Paine, excerpts from The Rights of Man (85-91)--read sections
titled "Man Has No Property in Man" and "The
Republican System"
04/09/03 Revolution and Reaction II
W. Wordsworth, excerpts from Books 9 & 10 of The Prelude (424-38)
plus "Apostrophe to Edmund Burke" (438-39)
04/11/03 Protest Poetry I; or, Poems and Peasants I
Burns (323-33), "To a Mouse," "To a Louse," "Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace
bled," "Is there for honest poverty,"
"A Red, Red Rose," and "Auld Lang Syne." "Holy Willie's Prayer" (Online
Supplement)
Week 3
04/14/03 Protest Poetry II
Blake, "The Chimney Sweeper" (both poems with this title--122-23, 130),
"Holy Thursday" (both poems--123, 129),
"The Garden of Love" (132), "London" (132)
04/16/03 Poems and Peasants II; or, Art and Society I; or,
Country and City I
W. Wordsworth, excerpts from Preface to Lyrical Ballads (356-62),
"Simon Lee" (338-40), "Expostulation and
Reply" and "The Tables Turned" (350-51)
04/18/03 Poems and Peasants III; or, Art and Society II; or,
Country and City II
W. Wordsworth, Sonnets (385-88), "Tintern Abbey" (352-56)
Project I due
Week 4
04/21/03 Art and Society III; or, Protest Poetry III
P. Shelley, "To Wordsworth" (653), excerpt from A Defence of Poetry
(801-10), "Ozymandias" (659),
"England in 1819" (761)
04/23/03 Art and Society IV
P. Shelley, "Ode to the West Wind" (670-72)
Keats, Letters to Benjamin Bailey ("The Truth of Imagination") (900-01), to
George and Thomas Keats
("Intensity" and "Negative Capability") (901-02), and to Richard Woodhouse ("The
'Camelion Poet' vs.
the Egotistical Sublime") (907-08)
Project II due
04/25/03 Art and Society V
Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (882-83)
Tennyson, "The Palace of Art" (Online Supplement)
Barrett Browning, excerpt from Book 5 of Aurora Leigh (1131-33)
Week 5
04/28/03 Angels in the House vs. Women in the World I
Wollstonecraft, excerpt from Chapter 13 of A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman (255-57)
Eliot, "Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft" (1531-36)
Norton, Letter to the Queen (1528-31)
Project III due
04/30/03 Angels in the House vs. Women in the World II
Ellis, excerpt from The Women of England (1521-24)
Cobbe, excerpt from Life of Frances Power Cobbe As Told by Herself (1517-21)
Queen Victoria, excerpts from Letters and Journals (1540-45)
05/02/03 Angels in the House vs. Women in the World III
Siddal, Poems (Online Supplement)
C. Rossetti, "In an Artist's Studio" (1615)
Barrett Browning, "To George Sand" (both poems with this title) (1107)
Tennyson, "The Lady of Shalott" (1141-46)
Week 6
05/05/03 Angels in the House vs. Women in the World IV
Discussion of fourth-hour projects
Project IV due
05/07/03 Country and City III; or, Work and Workers I
Engels, excerpts from The Conditions of the Working Class in England in
1844 (1060-68)
Macaulay, excerpt from review of Southey's Colloquies (1051-53)
05/09/03 Work and Workers II; or, Art and Society VI
Excerpts from Parliamentary Papers (Blue Books) (1053-55)
Mayhew, excerpts from London Labour and the London Poor (1068-73)
Week 7
05/12/03 Work and Workers III; or, Art and Society VII
Carlyle, "Captains of Industry" (excerpt from Past and Present)
(1042-46)
05/14/03 Hard Times
05/16/03 Hard Times
Week 8
05/19/03 Hard Times
05/21/03 Hard Times
05/23/03 Religion, Science, and the Higher Criticism I
Strauss, excerpt from The Life of Jesus (1278-81)
Colenso, excerpt from The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically
Examined (1286-87)
Clough, three poems (1283-85)
Week 9
05/26/03 Memorial Day (University Closed)
05/28/03 Religion, Science, and the Higher Criticism II
Tennyson, excerpts from In Memoriam--read sections 50-56, 117-end
(1178-79, 1190-94)
05/30/03 Religion, Science, and the Higher Criticism III
Darwin, excerpt from Autobiography (1265-71)
Huxley, excerpt from Evolution and Ethics (1295-1300)
Gosse, excerpts from Father and Son (1300-04)
Week 10
06/02/03 Art and Society VIII
Ruskin, "Greatness in Art" (Online Supplement)
Arnold, excerpt from The Function of Criticism at the Present Time
(1573-83)
06/04/03 Art and Society IX
Pater, excerpts from The Renaissance (1665-71)
Wilde, Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray (1883-84)
06/06/03 Review for final exam;
course evaluation (please bring #2 pencil)
Final Exam
Wednesday, June 11, 2003, 8:00-10:00 a.m.
Go to the Course Reserves link on the library's home page (http://www.libraries.wright.edu/), then to the Course Reserves link on that page. You will then be able to search either by course number or by my name. The password will be given to you in class. The readings are saved as Word files, which you can then either open or save to a disk.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Because the texts are saved as Word files, you will find it much easier to retrieve them via Netscape Communicator than Internet Explorer (which will automatically convert them to html files).
1. Start your Web browser (Netscape Communicator) and go to wisdom.wright.edu. Click the LogonWebCT link.
2. When the dialog box appears, enter the following and click OK:
User Name: (CaTS Unix Account – e.g., w001xxx)
Password: the last four digits of your Social Security number
If you changed your password in a Wright State WebCT course after the start of the fall 2001 quarter, use the new password you created. Your WebCT password is independent of your Wright State UNIX and Novell passwords. Changing your WebCT password does not change the others.
The first time you log on, you will be asked for a “hint” to use if you forget your password. This is optional and you can add or change it later.
3. You should now see your MyWebCT page, with your name near the top. To go to your course, click the name of the course, under Courses on the left.
4. Click on the icon labeled Supplementary Readings. You will see a group of icons for the readings. When you click on the appropriate one, you will be asked if you want to open the file or save it to disk. If you open it, you can print it out just as you would any other Word document. If you choose to save the file to disk, you can open the file and print it later. (Just be sure you pay attention to where you save it!)
Quit your browser to log out.
Your course may not be available until the first day of the quarter. If you have problems getting to your course, please contact the Help Desk, (937) 775-4827, helpdesk@wright.edu. You can request a CD-ROM with browser and QuickTime installers at wisdom.wright.edu/getcd