Course Description
This course provides a survey of 19th and 20th-century British literature.
Readings have been selected with an eye to representing the major genres,
styles, and cultural/historical concerns of the period. Questions we will
ask as we read: What is good literature? What is the function of good literature?
What is a national literature? What is British about British literature?
How and why do our answers to these questions change as we move from the
Romantic Period to the Victorian to the Modern?
Course Objectives
1) study of 19th and 20th-century British literature within historical, social,
and cultural contexts
2) examination of literary and aesthetic theories
3) application of literary analysis to literature
4) identification and discussion of selected characteristics of literature
5) development of close reading, critical thinking, research, and writing skills
Required Texts
The Longman Anthology: British Literature: Volume B. 2nd Compact Edition.
Frankenstein. Mary Shelley.
Additional readings on EReserve.
Students are expected to own and use a grammar handbook.
Course Requirements and Grading
3 In-Class Exams 10%, 10%, 20%
2 1-Page, Single-Spaced Papers 20%, 20%
Participation 20%
Course Policies
The format of the class will be a mixture of lecture, discussion, and group
work with an emphasis on student discussion. Students will come to class
having completed the assigned readings and prepared to actively participate.
Please read through the following class policies carefully:
•
Attendance is mandatory. Absences dramatically affect your participation grade.
Students absent for more than 5 classes for any reason will be dropped.
•
Late papers will not be accepted unless prior permission from the instructor
has been given.
•
Tardiness is unacceptable and will dramatically affect your participation grade.
•
All assignments are mandatory in order to pass this course.
•
Students and instructors are expected to treat each other with respect and
courtesy in the classroom.
•
Students will adhere to the University Academic Honor Policy.
Class Schedule
Mon 8/15: Logistics.
The Romantic Period
Wed 8/17: “The Romantics”—Lecture
Fri 8/19: Blake—Songs of Innocence (77-83)
Mon 8/22: Blake—Songs of Experience (85-94)
Wed 8/24:
Fri 8/26:
Mon 8/29:
Wed 8/31: Equiano—The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
(109-117)
Prince—The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave (118-122)
Fri 9/2: Burke—Reflections on the Revolution in France (47-56)
Wollstonecraft—A Vindication of the Rights of Men (56-64)
Paine—The Rights of Man (64-70)
Mon 9/5: Labor Day / Classes Dismissed
Wed 9/7: Wordsworth—Lyrical Ballads (206-212), “I Wandered Lonely
as a Cloud (282-283), “My Heart Leaps Up” (283)
Fri 9/9: Wordsworth—“Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” (202-206)
Mon 9/12: In-Class Exam
Wed 9/14: Coleridge—“The Eolian Harp” (325-326), “Dejection:
An Ode” (345-348)
Fri 9/16: “The Sublime”—Lecture
Shelley—“Mont Blanc” (393-397)
Mon 9/19: Keats—“On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” (423-424), “If
By Dull Rhymes Our English Must be Chain’d” (EReserve)
Wed 9/21: Keats—“Ode to a Nightingale,” “Ode on a Grecian
Urn” (438-441)
Fri 9/23: Shelley—Frankenstein, Volume 1
Mon 9/26: Shelley—Frankenstein, Volume 2
Wed 9/28: Shelley—Frankenstein, Volume 3
Fri 9/30:
The Victorian Period
Mon 10/3: “The Victorians”—Lecture
Wed 10/5: Carlyle—“the Condition of England” (477-480)
Arnold—Culture and Anarchy (752-756)
Fri 10/7: Tennyson—“The Lady of Shalott” (588-589)
Paper #1 Due
Mon 10/10: Fall Break / Classes Dismissed
Wed 10/12: Tennyson—“Ulysses” (593-594)
Fri 10/14: D. Rossetti—“The Blessed Damozel” (EReserve)
Mon 10/17: R. Browning—“Prophyria’s Lover” (662-663)
Wed 10/19: R. Browning—“Andrea del Sarto” (684-689)
Fri 10/21: Hopkins—“God’s Grandeur” (774-775), “As
Kingfishers Catch Fire” (777)
Mon 10/24: Ellis—The Women of England (557-559)
Newman—The Idea of a University (563-564)
Norton—A Letter to the Queen (565-567)
Queen Victoria—Letter and Journal Entries on the Position of Women (576-581)
Wed 10/26: E. B. Browning—Aurora Leigh (532-554)
Fri 10/28: C. Rossetti—“Goblin Market” (759-771)
Mon 10/31: In-Class Exam
Wed 11/2: Wilde—The Importance of Being Earnest (847-886)
Fri 11/4:
The Modern Period
Mon 11/7: “Modernism”—Lecture
Hardy—“Hap” (1073)
Wed 11/9: Yeats—“Leda and the Swan” (1125-1126)
Fri 11/11: Yeats—“Sailing to Byzantium” (1124-1125)
Mon 11/14: Yeats—“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” (1117-), “The
Song of Wandering Aengus” (EReserve)
Wed 11/16: Joyce—Ulysses (1165-1191)
Fri 11/18:
Mon 11/21: Eliot—“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1194-1197)
Paper #2 Due
Wed 11/23: Thanksgiving Holiday / Classes Dismissed
Fri 11/25: Thanksgiving Holiday / Classes Dismissed
Mon 11/28: Eliot—“The Wasteland”
Wed 11/30:
Fri 12/2: Owen—“Anthem for Doomed Youth,” “Strange
Meeting,” “Dulce Et Decorum Est” (1100-1102)
Sassoon—“Glory of Women,” “Everyone Sang” (1099-1100)
Mon 12/5: In-Class Exam