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BRITISH AND ANGLOPHONE LITERATURE, 1780 TO THE PRESENT
ENGL 3440 • Tu/Th 9:30-10:50 am • Wooten 214 • Fall 2016
Professor Nora Gilbert
Office: LANG 408-E
Email:
Office hours: Tu/Th 11:30 am - 12:30 pm (or by appointment)
Course description:
In this class, we will read, discuss, and write about a wide variety of literary texts that were written by members of the British Empire from the end of the eighteenth century onward. We will cover three major literary movements—Romanticism, Victorianism, and Modernism—along with other texts that do not fit neatly into any of these categories.We will contextualize these works by learning about the social, political, and cultural forces at play during the times they were conceived, but we will also think about the ways in which the texts’ significance has developed or transformed over time.Though I will certainly guide our class discussions and make sure that we cover all of the textual and historical ground that I consider to be the most interesting and the most important, I will not be lecturing at you. We will be working through these materials together, and your participation and thoughts and questions are not only desired but required.
Texts to purchase:
Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. Oxford World Classics. ISBN: 9780199536276
Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go.Vintage. ISBN: 9781400078776
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Oxford World Classics. ISBN: 9780199537150
Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN:9780156628709
Grade breakdown:
- Participation/attendance/effort:20%
- Reading grade (determined by pop quizzes): 15%
- Historical Context oral presentation: 10%
- Historical Context paper: 10%
- Paper abstract: 5%
- Literary Analysis paper:20%
- Final exam: 20%
Participation, attendance, and effort: Because your participation is so crucial to the fabric of this class, it will comprise 20% of your grade. Attendance obviously affects your ability to participate, so all missed or tardy classes will serve to lower your participation grade. While a good rule of thumb is to avoid missing any more than 2 weeks of classes (in this case, a total of 4 class sessions), I do understand that personal and medical emergencies arise on occasion, and I will try to be understanding about these issues if they do not significantly undermine your ability to learn the materials at hand. You must let me know ahead of time any time you are going to miss class, though; I can only be understanding about absences if I understand what’s going on. I will also take into consideration the effort you have put forth in the class overall when determining this portion of your grade. (If you are absolutely uncomfortable talking in class, you can improve this portion by coming to talk to me about the texts and/or your own work outside of class.)
Reading grade: You cannot participate if you don’t come to class, but you also cannot participate if you don’t do the reading. To give you extra motivation to keep up with the reading on a weekly basis, there will be reading-contentquizzes at the beginning of certain classes scattered randomly throughout the semester. Glancing over a wikipedia plot summary will not enable you to do well on these quizzes; reading the actual texts, however, will make this portion of your grade a breeze. No quizzes may be made up, but the lowest score of the semester will be dropped.
Historical Context presentation and paper: After informing me of your top 5 choices from the list of Historical Context topics listed below, I will assign you one topic to research. You will present your research to the class on an assigned date, in an engaging, 10-minute-long powerpoint presentation that utilizes audio and visual aids. One week after giving your presentation, you will turn in a 3-4 pg. (double-spaced) paper that summarizes your research findings in a clear and cogent manner. Each portion of this research assignment will be worth 10% of your grade.
List of potential Historical Context subjects:
Education/childrearing
Scientific discoveries/developments
British abolition of slavery
Chartist movement
Industrial revolution
Rise of the middle class
Legal developments
The Cult of Domesticity
Crime and punishment
Visual arts
New Woman/British suffrage movement
Aestheticism and decadence
British Imperialism
The Great War
Developments in health care (physical and psychological)
WWII and the end of empire
Sanitation reform
Rise of the periodical press
Transportation and travel
Literary Analysis Paper: The major assignment of this class is a 5-6 pg. (double-spaced) analytic essay exploring one or more of the texts on the syllabus. I will give you a more specific description of what this assignment entails in a separate handout. You will first turn in a 300-word abstract describing your anticipated paper, followed by a full first draft of the paper that I will provide detailed feedback on (but no grade). If you do not turn in a paper by the first draft due date, you forfeit your right to that feedback. You will then revise and resubmit the paper in light of my comments, and I will assign a grade to the final product at the end of the semester.
Final Exam:The final exam will be your way of showing me what you’re coming away with at the end of the semester. It will consist of passage identifications/analyses, character comparisons, and essay questions, and will be given in our regular classroom on 12/15 from 8:00 – 10:00 am.
Course policies:
Email: I will, at times, send important messages via my official class email list; please begin checking your UNT email address on a regular basis if you are not already doing so. On the other end of the equation, I make it a policy to respond to student emails within 24 hours except on weekends; if by any chance you do not receive a response within that time frame, please resend your email to make sure it did not somehow disappear in the internet ether.
Laptops and cell phones: Because this class is discussion/idea-based (rather than lecture/fact-based) and because you are required to purchase hard copies of all the assigned novels and I will provide handouts of all the assigned shorter readings, you will be freed from the modern dependence on technology for the three hours you are with me each week. If you plan to take notes, bring a pen!
Plagiarism: If you fail to give full credit to the sources you are citing, lift a paper off of the internet, reuse a paper that was written for another class, or have someone else write any part of your paper for you, you are plagiarizing and I will catch you doing so. (All papers must be uploaded to turnitin.com via the course’s Blackboard page.) Plagiarism will result in failure of the course and permanent documentation on your academic record. Zero tolerance policy.
Students with Disabilities: Anyone with a disability requiring accommodation must present a written accommodation request to me within eleven days of the first class session. Copies of the school’s ADA Compliance Policy, Policy on Auxiliary Aids and Reasonable Accommodation, and the ADA Grievance Procedures are available through the main office of the School of Library and Information Sciences (940-565-2445). It is also recommended that you register with the Office of Disability Accommodation (940-565-4323).
Discussion Schedule:
8/30: Course and student introductions
William Blake, inSongs of Innocence: “The Chimney Sweeper,” “The Little Boy Lost” and “The Little Boy Found”; in Songs of Experience: “The Chimney Sweeper” and “A Little BOY Lost”
9/1: Introduction to Romanticism
William Gilpin, from “On Picturesque Beauty”
William Wordsworth, “Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey”
9/6:Mary Wollstonecraft, from A Vindication of the Rights of Men
Thomas Paine, from The Rights of Man
Mary Wollstonecraft, from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Anna Letitia Barbauld, “The Rights of Women”
9/8:Samuel Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
John Keats, “La Belle Dame Sans Mercy”
9/13:Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Preface – Volume II, Ch. 5)
9/15:Frankenstein (Volume II, Ch. 6 – end)
9/20:Olaudah Equiano, from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
Mary Prince, from The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave
Thomas Clarkson, from The History…of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade
9/22:Introduction to Victorianism
Henry Mayhew, from London Labour and the London Poor
Samuel Smiles, from Self-Help
Charles Darwin, from The Descent of Man
9/27:Thomas Hood, “The Song of the Shirt”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point”
9/29:Sarah Stickney Ellis, from The Women of England
Caroline Norton, from “A Letter to the Queen”
Florence Nightingale, from “Cassandra”
John Stuart Mill, from “The Subjection of Women”
10/4:Charles Dickens, Hard Times(Book the First: Sowing)
10/6:Hard Times (Book the Second: Reaping)
10/11:Hard Times (Book the Third: Garnering)/ Midterm reflections
10/13: Library research day
10/18:Robert Browning, “Porphyria’s Lover”
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “Jenny”
10/20:Alfred Lord Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott”
Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market”
10/25:George Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Warren’s Profession
10/27:Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
11/1:Benjamin Disraeli, from “Conservative and Liberal Principles”
David Livingstone, from Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa
Mary Kingsley, from Travels in West Africa
Rudyard Kipling, “White Man’s Burden”
11/3:Introduction to Modernism
James Joyce, Arabyand Eveline
* Bring in 3 copies of paper abstract to workshop with peers
11/8:Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, Part 1
11/10:Mrs. Dalloway, Part 2
Siegfried Sassoon, “Glory of Women” and “They”
Wilfred Owen, “Dulce Et Decorum Est”
11/15:W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming” and “Leda and the Swan”
D.H. Lawrence, “How Beastly the Bourgeois Is”
Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”
* Submit first draft of literary analysis paper to Blackboard by midnight
11/17:George Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant”
Elizabeth Bowen, “The Demon Lover” and “Mysterious Kôr”
11/22:Derek Walcott, “A Far Cry from Africa”
W.H. Auden, “Partition”
NgugiwaThiong’o, from Decolonizing the Mind
Salman Rushdie, “Chekov and Zulu”
* Papers returned with feedback
11/24:Thanksgiving
11/29:* Peer workshopping of papers (bring in 3 copies of complete draft)
12/1:Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (Ch. 1 – 14)
12/6:Never Let Me Go (Ch. 15 – end)
12/8:Class wrap-up, final prep
* Final papers must be submitted to Blackboard by midnight
12/15:Final exam, 8:00 – 10:00 am in regular classroom