Tasha Eccles

Office hours: TBA

Margaret Jacks 306

English 162W / Section 3

Spring 2015

TTh 9-10:50am

Wallenberg B-36

Rev. 2/8/15

Austen and Scott

“Read again, and for the third time at least, Miss Austen’s very finely written novel of “Pride and Prejudice.” That young lady has a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The big bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of the description and the sentiment, is denied to me.”

-- Walter Scott, journal, March 1826

“Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. – It is not fair. – He has Fame and Profit enough as a Poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people’s mouths. – I do not like him, & do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it – but fear I must.”

-- Jane Austen, letter to niece Anna, September 1814

Distinguishing his own “Big Bow-wow strain” from Austen’s “exquisite touch,” Walter Scott established a now-familiar binary between miniaturism and maximalism, realism and romance, the domestic and the national-historical, that has defined the reception of the two novelists ever since. This course is about these two competing paradigms of novelistic representation, set by Austen and Scott at the beginning of the 19th century. But we’ll also test this hypothesis in a couple of ways – first, by examining their shared ambitions and techniques (the representation of national character and social change;the constructionof anonymity at the level of narratorial style or authorial persona) and second, by looking critically at how these paradigms were produced, gendered, and revalued over time. Through side-by-side readings of the novelists, we’ll construct a more complex origin story the nineteenth-century novel and develop a deeper understanding of the ambitions and contradictions of novelistic realism.

Primary Texts (available at the Stanford Bookstore):

1)Jane Austen, Persuasion (ISBN 978-0192802637)

2)Walter Scott, Waverley(ISBN 978-0199538027)

3)Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (ISBN 978-0141439808)

4)Walter Scott, Ivanhoe(ISBN 978-0140436587)

Secondary Texts (excerpts available on Coursework, dates TBD):

1)D. A. Miller, Jane Austen, or the Secret of Style

2)Katie Trumpener, Bardic Nationalism: The Romantic Novel and the British Empire

3)Ian Duncan, Scott’s Shadow: The Novel in Romantic Edinburgh

4)Claudia Johnson, Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel

5)GyörgyLukács, The Historical Novel

6)Ina Ferris, The Achievement of Literary Authority: Gender, History, and the Waverley Novels

Recommended Resources:

For MLA documentation and formatting, consult MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th edition (2009) and the Purdue OWL website (

For general guidance on planning and carrying out a research paper, see Wayne C. Booth et. al, The Craft of Research, 3rd edition (2008) – available online through library website.

Major Assignments:

All assignments are due on Coursework by 9am on the dates indicated.

1)3 close readings(2 pages each, due 4/7, 4/14, and 4/21): Choose a textual detail—a sentence, short passage, a syntactic unit, a striking trope—and discuss its significance in the text.

2)Revision of one close reading (due 4/30)

3)Presentation(10 minutes): Introduce the class to a work of criticism you have come across in your research by summarizing its major claims. Then use a particular scene from that week’s reading to “test” the argument, expanding, qualifying, or challenging it inlight of the example you discuss.

4)Final paper(12-15 pages): Develop an argument about an aspect of Austen’s, Scott’s, or Austen’s and Scott’s narrative strategy. With the following preparation:

  1. Annotation of three potentially central passages and a provisional thesis (due 5/7)
  2. A list of 15 possible sources that might help you extend, situate, or refine your argument (due 5/14)
  3. An annotated bibliography of 5 key sources (range of books and articles serving different functions in your argument, culled from the longer list) (due 5/21)
  4. A partial draft of 5-7 pages and an outline of the remaining sections (due 5/28)
  5. A full draft of at least 12 pages (due 6/4)

Grade breakdown:

Class participation and group work – 20%

Presentation – 10%

Close readings (3 + revision) – 20%

Final paper preparatory assignments and drafts– 20%

Final paper –30%

Students with Documented Disabilities
Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Office of AccessibleEducation (OAE). Professional staff will evaluate the request with required documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, andprepare an Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in which the request is being made. Students should contact the OAE assoon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations.

OAE contact information:
563 Salvatierra Walk

650-723-1066

Honor Code
The Honor Code is the University's statement on academic integrity written by students in 1921. It articulates University expectations of studentsand faculty in establishing and maintaining the highest standards in academic work:

The Honor Code is an undertaking of the students, individually and collectively:

  1. that they will not give or receive aid in examinations; that they will not give or receive unpermitted aid in class work, in the preparation ofreports, or in any other work that is to be used by the instructor as the basis of grading;
  2. that they will do their share and take an active part in seeing to it that others as well as themselves uphold the spirit and letter of the HonorCode.

The faculty on its part manifests its confidence in the honor of its students by refraining from proctoring examinations and from takingunusual and unreasonable precautions to prevent the forms of dishonesty mentioned above. The faculty will also avoid, as far as practicable,academic procedures that create temptations to violate the Honor Code.

While the faculty alone has the right and obligation to set academic requirements, the students and faculty will work together to establishoptimal conditions for honorable academic work.

CLASS SCHEDULE

The Romantic Literary Field

Tues. 3/31: Waverleythrough I.1 and all prefaces; Persuasionch. 1

contemporary reviews (selections)

Afterlives: 19th and 20th Century Reception

Thurs. 4/2:Waverley throughI.14; Persuasion throughch. 6

selections of major critical statements, TBD

The Secret of Style and Scott’s Shadow: Figures of Anonymity

Tues. 4/7: Waverley through II.4; Persuasion throughch. 10

1st close reading due

Thurs. 4/9:Waverley through II.14; Persuasion throughch. 12

Tues. 4/14:Waverley through II.24; Persuasion throughch. 16

2ndclose reading due

Thurs. 4/16:Waverley through III.12; Persuasion through ch. 18

Narrator, Protagonist, Reader

Tues. 4/21: Waverley through III.18; Persuasion throughch. 22

3rdclose reading due

Thurs. 4/23:finish WaverleyandPersuasion

Tues. 4/28:Mansfield Park through I.11

Thurs. 4/30: Mansfield Park through II.2

revision of one close reading due

National Character and Social Change

Tues. 5/5:Mansfield Park through II.13

Thurs. 5/7:Mansfield Park through III.6

passage annotation + thesis due

Tues. 5/12:finishMansfield Park

Thurs. 5/14:Ivanhoe through I.6

extended bibliography due

Tues. 5/19:Ivanhoe through II.7

Thurs. 5/21:Ivanhoe, through II.16

annotated bibliography due

Realism Revisited

Tues. 5/26:Ivanhoe, through III.8

Thurs. 5/28:finishIvanhoe

partial draft+ outline due

Tues. 6/2:partial draft workshops, continued

Thurs. 6/4:full draft due

Rev. 2/8/15