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English 224 Course Materials
Course Home Page
Online Resources
Romantic Resources
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Syllabus
Monday, January 21 First day: introduction to the course, personal introductions, brief discussion of Wordsworth's "The Solitary Reaper" (439). Wednesday, January 23 Reading M.H. Abrams, "Structure and Style in the Greater Romantic Lyric" (handout). Wordsworth, "Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" (328). Assignment This is a two-part assignment to get the electronic side of the class moving. Group I will do the following literary assignment, but all of you need to do this part: go to the class discussion board and write a solid paragraph or two introducing yourself to the class. You can repeat information from the first day or not, as you like. Group I Response (due, as always, by 9:00 pm the previous evening). Comment on "Tintern Abbey" as it relates to the Abrams article. Does Abrams give a satisfactory explanation for the action of the poem? What about the poem does Abrams leave aside? How is Abrams particularly useful? Friday, January 25 Reading Wordsworth, from the Preface to Lyrical Ballads (332) and "Old Man Travelling" (327); Mary Robinson, "London's Summer Morning" (203) and "The Old Beggar" (204) from Lyrical Tales. Assignment Group II Response: Discuss either a) Wordsworth's poetic values and the way they apply (or do not apply) to "Old Man Travelling" or b) some aspect of Robinson's revision of Wordsworth's ideas. Monday, January 28 Reading Marjorie Levinson, "Insight and Oversight: Reading 'Tintern Abbey'" (handout). Assignment Group III Response: Levinson has called her approach "revisionist reading." What does it offer us that Abrams's article didn't? What do you think Wordsworth might have thought of her work? Wednesday, January 30 Reading Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Frost at Midnight" (518), "The Eolian Harp" (478). Assignment Group I Response: write about today's readings using (explicitly) one of the six approaches from "Some Hints to Help You Read Poetry with More Pleasure." Reading Coleridge, "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" (480), "Kubla Khan" (501). Assignment Group II Response: write about today's readings using (explicitly) one of the six approaches from "Some Hints to Help You Read Poetry with More Pleasure." Monday, February 4 Reading Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1817 version, 484) and the 1798 excerpt for comparison (482). Assignment Group III Response: write about today's readings using (explicitly) one of the six approaches from "Some Hints to Help You Read Poetry with More Pleasure." Wednesday, February 6 Reading Anna Laetitia Barbauld, "The Mouse's Petition to Dr. Priestley" (29), "Washing-Day" (33), and "Eighteen Hundred and Eleven" (35). Assignment Group I Response: open response. Friday, February 8 Reading Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Mont Blanc" (653) and excerpts from "A Defence of Poetry" (695). Assignment Group II Response: Discuss Shelley in relation to Wordsworth using their prose essays or the form and content of "Tintern Abbey" and "Mont Blanc." Monday, February 11 Reading Shelley, "Ode to the West Wind" (670) and "To a Sky-Lark" (672). Assignment Group III Response: do another response using one of the six approaches from the sheet. Wednesday, February 13 Reading John Keats, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" and companion readings (748), "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles" (757). Assignment Group I Response: do another response using one of the six approaches from the sheet. Friday, February 15 Reading Keats, "La Belle Dame sans Mercy" (768) and "Ode to a Nightingale" (773). Assignment Group II Response: open response. Monday, February 18 Reading Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (775), "Ode on Melancholy" (778), "To Autumn" (779). Assignment Group III Response: open response. Wednesday, February 20 Reading George Gordon, Lord Byron, from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (558). Assignment Group I Response (only a suggestion this time; you can also choose another aspect of the reading if you like): Comment specifically on the annotations that your anthology provides to help you through Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. How must an editor approach Byron differently from Wordsworth? You can comment on whether specific notes were useful or not useful to you, but do so in the service of a larger point about the role of Byron's editors given his poetic approach. Friday, February 22 Reading Byron, Don Juan, Dedication and Canto I (569). Assignment Group II Reponse: As you have undoubtedly noticed, Byron's work sounds very different from the "Greater Romantic Lyric" poetry we read in the first part of the course. Comment on specific ways that Byron's approach implies differences from Wordsoworth's and/or Shelley's statements on the nature and function of poetry. Monday, February 25 Reading Byron, Don Juan, from Cantos II, III, VII, and XI (616). Assignment Group III Response: open response. Wednesday, February 27 Reading Felicia Hemans, "Casabianca" (714), "Properzia Rossi" (721), "Indian Woman's Death-Song" (724). Assignment Group I Response: On Friday, we discussed the ways that Byron departed from the Greater Romantic Lyric and its poetic values. Do the same kind of analysis now for these poems by Hemans. What values and strategies does her work demonstrate? How does this work differ from the other poetry we have read in content or technique? Reading Hemans, "The Homes of England" (728) and Jerome J. McGann, "Literary History, Romanticism, and Felicia Hemans" (handout). Assignment Group II Response: respond to McGann's article. You might want to take up his use of multiple narrators, his comments on our ideas of Romanticism, or his narrators' readings of Hemans. Monday, March 4 Reading Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Lady of Shalott" (1189). Assignment Group III Response: open response. Wednesday, March 6 Reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from Sonnets from the Portuguese (1155) and from Aurora Leigh (1158). Assignment Group I Response: open response. Friday, March 8 Reading Robert Browning, "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister" (1349) and "My Last Duchess" (1351). Assignment Group II Response: read the poems aloud. Choose one of them and note two decisions you need to make about your vocal inflection when you read. Write your response about those decisions and how they fit into the poem, and be prepared to read the poem aloud in class. Monday, March 11 Reading Thomas Carlyle, all anthology readings (1057). Assignment Group III Response: open response. Wednesday, March 13 Reading All readings from "Perspectives: Victorian Ladies and Gentlemen" (1600). Assignment Group I Response: open response. Friday, March 15 MID-TERM EXAM
SPRING BREAK Monday, April 1 Reading Charles Darwin, all readings from the anthology (1282). Assignment Group II Response: open response. Wednesday, April 3 Reading Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1396). Assignment Group III Response: open response. Friday, April 5 Reading Oscar Wilde, all anthology readings except for The Importance of Being Earnest (1854). Please note the "except for." Assignment Group I Response: open response. Monday, April 8 Reading John Ruskin, from The Stones of Venice (from the section "the Nature of the Gothic," 1560) and from Modern Manufacture and Design (1570). Assignment Group II Response: open response. PAPER PROSPECTUS DUE Tuesday, April 9 by 4:00 p.m. to my office or mailbox Wednesday, April 10 Reading Florence Nightingale, Cassandra (1583). Assignment Group III Response: open response. Friday, April 12 Reading Matthew Arnold, "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" (1656) and from The Study of Poetry (1687). Assignment Group I Response: open response. Monday, April 15 Reading William Morris, all anthology readings (1727). Assignment Group II Response: open response. Wednesday, April 17 Reading Rudyard Kipling, all anthology readings (1789). Assignment Group III Response: open response. If you want me to look at a thesis paragraph or a draft of your paper, turn it in to me by today. Friday, April 19 Reading Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, pages 2018-56. Assignment Group II Response: open response. Monday, April 22 Reading Conrad, Heart of Darkness 2056-end and companion readings. Assignment Group II Response: open response. Wednesday, April 24 Reading Speeches on Irish Independence (2295) and William Butler Yeats, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (2308), "Easter 1916" (2310), and "The Second Coming" (2312). Assignment Group III Response: open response. Paper due Thursday, April 25th, by 4:00 pm to my office or mailbox Friday, April 26 Reading Yeats, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" (Handout). Assignment No responses: we will do an in-class writing exercise in preparation for the final exam. Monday, April 29 Reading James Joyce, "The Dead" (2352). Assignment Group I Response: open response. Reading Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway on Bond Street" (2455) and The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection (2461). Assignment Group II Response: open response. Friday, May 3 Reading Virginia Woolf, from A Room of One's Own (2464). Assignment Group III response: open response. Monday, May 6 Reading T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (2420), companion readings (2423), and "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (2447). Assignment Group I Response: open response. Wednesday, May 8 Reading Samuel Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape (2747). Assignment Group II Response: open response. Friday, May 10 Last day: wrapping up, etc. FINAL EXAM: 9:00 a.m., Wednesday, May 15th
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