Survey of British Literature to 1789

Objectives and Organization:

Before 1066, the English had the largest corpus of non-Latin literature in Western Europe. Then, the Norman Conquest ended that hegemony. French literature took over in England as well as the area that was becoming France. By the end of our period (roughly 1790), Great Britain was the most powerful nation on the planet with indisputably the largest navy and nearly the largest land empire. With the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Britain was the world’s only superpower. Also, by 1790, English literature was in the process of eclipsing French literature in producing the world’s most influential writers (helped by that rising military, economic, and political power Great Britain was creating). Our period of study charts the rise of this literature from the few scraps of Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, literature that was produced by a barbaric Germanic tribe who conquered and was converted to Christianity by the Romanized Britons of England to the eve of the Romantic Period, the Second Great Age of English Lyric Poetry. We will study how the literature reflected the politics, society, and economy of the times. Our journey will start with the earliest surviving English lyric poem, Caedmon’s Hymn, and will include writers of established canonicity (the Gawain-Poet, Chaucer, Spenser, Sidney, Jonson, Donne, Milton, Dryden, Swift, Pope, and Dr. Johnson) as well as minor and marginalized figures (Gower, Wroth, Herrick, Herbert, Philips, Behn, Grey, and Burney). The central figure of our journey will be the most significant and influential writer in our and in any language, Shakespeare. The point of our exploration will be to survey the richness of this heritage and to understand why it continues to shape our world today.

Our objectives for this course will then be:

• To explore various English texts and compare how writers used or transformed their cultural context in order to discover more about their society or themselves,

• To understand how English literature developed over the course of roughly 1200 years,

• To learn how to read, think, and write critically about a literary text,

• To find out more about ourselves and the way we look at the world.

Requirements:

The assignments will be as follows:

Quizzes: 25%

Paper One (4-6 pages): 15%

Paper Two (4-6 pages): 15%

Mid Term Exam: 20%

Final Exam: 25%

• Quizzes will be based on the readings or lecture material and will measure the accuracy of information recounted. Quizzes will not be announced beforehand. If you miss a quiz due to an unexcused absence, you will receive a zero for that quiz. If you miss a quiz due to an excused absence, I will excuse the quiz and compute your quiz score based on the sum total of the other scores. For instance, if you took nine out of ten possible quizzes and the one you missed was due to an excused absence, your score is averaged by the nine, not the ten, quizzes. No quiz score will be thrown out.

• The Two Formal Paper Assignments will be explained in subsequent hand-outs. For each paper, you will be expected to do your own work and not use any outside source without appropriate documentation. Since neither of these papers will require any research, there should be no reason for you to consult any outside sources except for the text or texts you have been asked to analyze.

• Any work submitted for credit that is not your own is plagiarism. Plagiarism shows contempt for the learning process, the university, and me and could result in you being bounced from the university. While the temptation may be great to acquire a paper rather than write one, make your resistance to the temptation greater.

• Papers are due in class on the day stipulated. As a rule, I do not like surprises in any form. Therefore, if you are planning to be unable to turn in an assignment on the day that it is due, you must ask me for an extension no later than the day BEFORE the assignment is due. Late work without prior allowance for an extension will be penalized a letter grade per day. All papers will be typed, double-spaced, in a 12-point font, with a 65-space margin, and in unrhymed English prose. I will not accept formal essays that are hand-written.

• When you receive graded work back from me, I will be happy to discuss my comments with you and answer any questions regarding this work that you may have. I will insist, though, that before you talk to me about any graded work that you wait 24 hours. When we meet, please bring the materials that you want to discuss. Also, keep in mind, that due to the Buckley Amendment, I cannot discuss your progress or your grades with anyone else but you without your written permission.

• All Exams will be based upon readings, class lectures, discussions, and any additional presentations. Exams will be composed of several formats: identification, short answer, and essay. You are responsible for all material covered in class.

• Attendance. You are expected to attend class everyday and I will take attendance daily. I will send around a sign-in sheet at the beginning of class. You will need to sign the sheet to be counted present. Be sure to sign the sheet. You cannot sign the sheet after the class meeting ends. You also cannot sign the sheet and leave. Otherwise, you will be counted absent. Four unexcused absences could result in a failure due to absences.

• You must complete and turn in all assignments to pass the class.

• Email is the primary method for getting in touch with me. I will try to answer messages posted to me within 24 hours (48 hours if posted over the weekend).

• Students who need special accommodations in class should make an individual appointment with me as soon as possible.

• The expected grading scale will be as follows:

A 93 and above

A- 90-92

B+ 87-89

B 84-86

B- 80-83

C+ 77-79

C 74-76

C- 70-73

D 60-69

F 59 and below

Required Texts:

Burney, Frances, Evelina, Oxford World’s Classics.

Greenblatt, Stephen, et al., Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Major Authors, Vol. A (Norton, 2006).

Schedule of Readings:

The following is a tentative schedule of readings. You should complete the reading assigned for each day prior to the beginning of class. I reserve the right to augment the reading assignment should we require more or less time with a specific work. Therefore, you should bring your syllabus to class everyday.

W 17 August Who are these British Chaps Anyway? Anglo-Saxon England

F 19 August Dream of the Rood; Beowulf (31-48)

M 22 August Beowulf (48-77); Wanderer (HO)

W 24 August Beowulf (77-97); Seafarer (HO)

F 26 August Medieval England: Marie de France

M 29 August Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (112-37)

W 31 August Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (137-165)

F 2 September John Gower, "Adrian and Bardus" (HO)

M 5 September LABOR DAY NO CLASS

W 7 September Geoffrey Chaucer: Miller’s Tale

F 9 September Geoffrey Chaucer, Nun’s Priest’s Tale

M 12 September Geoffrey Chaucer, Nun’s Priest’s Tale

W 14 September Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte D’Arthur (301-18)

F 16 September Tudor England: Queen Elizabeth I

M 19 September Sir Thomas Wyatt & Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

W 21 September Edmund Spenser, Faerie Queene, Book I

F 23 September Finish Spenser. Review

M 26 September Mid-Term Exam

W 28 September Spenser, Amoretti; Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophil & Stella

F 30 October Christopher Marlowe (459-60); William Shakespeare, Sonnets

M 3 October William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night Act 1 Paper One Due

W 5 October William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night Act 2 Mid Term

F 7 October William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night Act 3

M 10 October William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night Act 4 & 5

W 12 October Early Stuart England: Ben Jonson

F 14 October Lady Mary Wroth; John Donne (603-15)

M 17 October King James Bible (355-57); Mary Herbert; Aemilia Lanyer (631-33)

W 19 October John Donne (616-25); George Herbert

F 21 October The Civil War: Robert Herrick; Richard Lovelace, Andrew Marvell (677-78)

M 24 October Katherine Philips; Milton, Lycidas

W 26 October Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I (726-43)

F 28 October Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 2 (743-65)

M 31 October Restoration & Act of Union. Paper Two Due

W 2 November John Dryden (882-910)

F 4 November Aphra Behn, Oroonoko

M 7 November Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (979-1016)

W 9 November Alexander Pope, Rape of the Lock

F 11 November Pope, Essay on Criticism

M 14 November Hanoverian England: Samuel Johnson, (1298-1313)

W 16 November Frances Burney, Evelina

F 18 November Frances Burney, Evelina

M 21 November-F 25 November Thanksgiving Holiday NO CLASS

M 28 November Frances Burney, Evelina

W 30 November Thomas Gray, William Collins, William Cowper

F 2 December Review

Final Exam Friday 9 December 2011 8 am-10:30 pm

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