ENGL 2122
Dr. David Janssen
TR, 3:30-4:45
Spring 2014
Office: Honors House, Office 2
Office Hours: TR, 2-3 and F, 8-2
Phone: (678) 359-5093, office
E-mail:
Required Texts: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. II, 9th edition
Frankenstein, Norton Critical Edition
Jane Eyre, Norton Critical Edition
Objectives
This course is designed to provide you with an overview of major works, currents, and trends of English Literature from the early nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. The first major goal of the course is to develop your critical acumen so that you may better understand and interpret complex and challenging works of literature; the second is to help you communicate your insights through dialog and writing. Needless to say, we will be doing a lot of reading and writing in order to accomplish those goals. Yet, as the Roman poet Horace argued, the purpose of literature is to delight and instruct. Therefore, you are required to enjoy this experience because above all you do not want to upset Horace. Aside from appeasing Horace, however, the loving work of reading does not merely consist of a digestion of information, for that is the lowest mark. No, when confronted by active eyes, these words that make up our course of study form worlds of their own, and my hope for you this semester is that you will begin to see how these living works contribute to the continuous reformation of our world. And perhaps most importantly, may you discover that your participation in our literary heritage is the next necessary step in this story, making it your story too.
*Note: Reading assignments from the above texts will be assigned every Wednesday for the upcoming week, in accordance with the schedule listed on the calendar below.
Policies
Absences: In order to succeed, you need to be here. Accordingly, if you miss more than four days, your final grade will be dropped by one letter. If you miss more than eight, it drops two, and so on. If you do miss class, it is also your responsibility to contact me in order to help you catch up, not the other way around.
Late Work: Late work will be deducted 5 points for each calendar day that it is late. This includes exams and oral presentations.
Plagiarism: If you are caught plagiarizing, you automatically fail the course.
Cell Phones: Please turn off your cell phones before entering class.
Classroom Deportment: As a professor, I have dedicated my life to the academic pursuit. The classroom is my workspace, and I regard that space with reverence and sanctity. As a student in my class, I expect you to help me maintain the dignity of the classroom by respecting its collegial environment. If environmental problems do occur, I will address them accordingly. If such problems do persist, offenders may be asked not to return to class. Also, please keep in mind that this is your classroom as well, your environment, your college experience. And, while I intend to instill in you that same sense of reverence I feel for the classroom, I also hope to demonstrate and help you to discover that working in a healthy academic environment can be a blast.
ADA Services: To qualify for ADA Services, you must get approval and documentation from Student Affairs-Counseling. The office is located in the Student Center, second floor, and the phone number is 678-359-5585.
Assignments
You will have one essay to write that will be due at the end of the semester, along with an annotated bibliography based on secondary sources from our two Norton Critical Editions. There will be a midterm and a final exam. Every student will need to give a 10-minute presentation on a poet and poem from one of the eras we will be studying this semester; the material contained in these presentations will form a portion of the content for the final exam. A written report of the poem will also be due on the day of the presentation and will be distributed to the class.
Assignment Percentages
Midterm Exam: 25%
Final Exam: 25%
Poem Report and Presentation: 15%
Annotated Bibliography: 10%
Final Essay: 25%
Schedule
Jan. 9 Introduction
14 Poem Report Workshop
16 William Blake: Songs of Innocence
Songs of Experience
21 William Wordsworth: Lyrical Ballads, 272-288
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
23 “Tintern Abbey”
“The Solitary Reaper”
“London, 1802”
28 “The Ruined Cottage”
“Ode: Intimations of Immortality”
30 Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
“Kubla Khan”
“The Eolian Harp”
Feb. 4 “Christabel”
“Frost at Midnight”
“Dejection: An Ode”
6 Lord Byron: “Prometheus,” Darkness,” “She Walks in Beauty”
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, 622-637
11 Manfred
13 Don Juan, 672-726
18 Mary Shelley: Frankenstein
Percy Bysshe Shelley: “Ozymandias”
20 Frankenstein
Percy Bysshe Shelley: “Mont Blanc”
25 Frankenstein
Percy Bysshe Shelley: “To a Skylark
27 John Keats: “Ode to a Nightingale”
“Ode on a Grecian Urn”
“To Autumn”
March 4 Midterm Review
6 Midterm
11 Spring Break
13 Spring Break
18 Matthew Arnold: “Dover Beach”
Tennyson: “Ulysses,” “The Lady of Shalott”
Browning: “My Last Duchess”
Christina Rosetti: “Goblin Market”
20 Charlotte Brönte: Jane Eyre
25 Jane Eyre
27 Jane Eyre
April 1 Jane Eyre
3 Jane Eyre
8 Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness
10 Heart of Darkness
15 Heart of Darkness
Thomas Hardy: “The Darkling Thrush,” “Channel Firing,
17 William Butler Yeats: “The Second Coming”
James Joyce: “Araby”
Virginia Woolf: “A Room of One’s Own”
T.S. Eliot: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
22 T.S. Eliot: The Wasteland
24 The Wasteland
29 Final Review
Essays Due
May 6 Final Exam, 2:45-4:45