Updated
August 27, 2025
Canvas
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Office:
Smith Hall, 07
Office Hours: 2:30-3:30pm
Monday, 8:30-9:30 Tuesday, and by appointment.
Phone: 997-6754 (office)
Email: ruppel@chapman.edu
Class Meetings: Section 1: T-Th, 2:30-3:45pm,
Beckman 206
Section 2: M-W, 1-2:15pm,
Beckman 204
Text:
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 10th edition, Volumes D, E, & F
Announcements
& Events
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Course
Description and Objectives:
This course introduces a wide range of literature written in Great Britain
between 1789 (when William Blake published Songs of Innocence) and the
present (we'll conclude with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “Checking Out,”
published in 2013). An enormous amount of important work was written over these
two-and-a-quarter centuries, and they span four major periods: Romantic,
Victorian, Modern, and Post-Modern. We will read a relatively small,
representative sample, but you will still need to do a lot of reading, and the
poetry, essays, fiction, and drama will require your full attention, so don’t
fall behind. My lectures and our class discussions will be much more
interesting and useful to you if you keep up.
I make significant use of the Web. Our
syllabus will be updated on this Web page, where I will post assignments &
useful Web links. I will also ask you to contribute regularly to threaded
discussions in Canvas, and I may ask you to engage in other online
activities.
Since this course is the third part of a historical survey, we will pay attention to the historical context as we read each of these authors, and we will pay attention to the way British literature changed through these decades. We will become more familiar with the characteristics of the poetry and prose of each period, but we will also pay attention to what makes the work of each of these writers unique.
As
in most literature courses, this class has an important writing component,
including the Canvas threaded discussions, the required essay, and the final
exam. We will devote class time to developing your essay topics, and we
will review the criteria I will use to evaluate your essays. You will
discuss and clear your essay topic with me, and I will accept a revision after
we have had a conference about your essay. You can expect me to read your
essays closely.
English
223 is a required course that may be taken to fulfill the English major. We will pay special attention to numbers 1,
2, 4, and 6 of the English Literature
Program Learning Objectives listed below, and you will be able to develop
and demonstrate these skills in your discussion board responses, formal essay,
and final exam:
1.
Skill in
critical reading, or the practice of identifying and interpreting the formal,
rhetorical, and stylistic features of a text
2.
Ability
to identify and compare key literary movements and genres
3.
Ability
to explain and apply significant theoretical and critical approaches in the
field of English studies
4.
Skill in
writing grammatically, coherently, and persuasively
5.
Skill in
finding, analyzing, and utilizing secondary sources (including the appropriate
methods of citation)
6.
Skill in
crafting a compelling thesis-driven essay, with substantiating evidence
Our Course Learning Outcomes are the
following:
1.
We will
practice critical reading, especially of poetry, leading us to be able to
identify the formal, rhetorical, and stylistic features not only of individual
works but of the works we associate with particular literary movements – this
should help you identify and compare the key literary movements and genres of
the Romantic, Victorian, Modern, and Post-Modern periods.
2.
You will
improve your understanding of the development of English literature from 1789
to the present within its historical context, so you will be able to list some
of the characteristics of the literature in each period.
3.
We will
work on your writing this semester. We
will have writing workshops before the essay is due, and you will be allowed to
revise that essay. You will gain some tools that will help you edit your own
writing.
Weekly Syllabus*
Week 1 – August 25-28: Introduction and William Blake
Week 2 – September 1-4: Blake & William Wordsworth
Week 3 – September 8-11: Wordsworth &
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Week 4 – September 15-18: Lord Byron &
Percy Shelley—Group Work
Week 5 – September 22-25: John Keats
Week 6 – September 29-October 2: Romantics
wrap-up. Introduction to the Victorians, Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Week 7 – October 6-9: Alfred
Tennyson & Robert Browning.
Week 8 – October 13-16: Browning & Christina Rosetti.
Week 9 – October 20-23: Oscar
Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde,” Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Speckled Band,” and Rudyard Kipling, “The Man
Who Would be King.” [Student choice.]
Week 10 – October 27-30: Virginia Woolf,
“The Mark on the Wall.” James Joyce, "The Dead” (Paper
due, October 29 or 30)
Week 11 – November 3-6: Joyce,
"The Dead,” Doris Lessing, “To Room Nineteen.”
Week 12 – November 10-13: Group
Presentations. The Dumb Waiter, a
play, Harold Pinter. Selected poems by Seamus Heaney. “Death by Water,”
Margaret Atwood. “The Prophet’s Hair,” Salman Rushdie. “A Village After Dark,”
Kazuo Ishiguro. “The Waiter’s Wife,” Zadie Smith. “Checking Out,” Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie.
Week
13 – November 17-20: Group Presentations.
THANKSGIVING BREAK
Week 14 – December
1-4: Semester wrap-up.
Week 15 – Final for Section 1: 10:45-1:15pm, Thursday,
December 11.
Final for Section 2: 8-10:30, Wednesday, December 10.
*These authors or works may change, but I'll give you plenty of
notice, and I'll keep the syllabus updated on the Web.
Final
drafts of your papers should be submitted via email. I will accept a revision of your essay, but
you must schedule a conference with me to discuss that revision before you
submit it. I will average the grade of the original paper and the
revision.
I will both grade and mark
essays earning a grade of C- or higher. I will not put
a grade on an essay that earns a grade lower than C-. If I
return an essay to you that does not include a grade, I am treating your
submission as a draft, not as a final copy.
You will need to make an appointment to see me so we can go over the
essay together and work out a revision strategy.
Grades:
Discussions & Participation*: 20%
Minutes: 10% (Beginning week 2, each
student will work with a partner to keep the week’s minutes)
Essay: 25% (1750-2150 words, or about 5-6 pages, due the end of Week 10)
Group Project: 15%
Final: 30%
*This is primarily your grade on the Canvas Discussion Board
posts. Here are my criteria for
evaluating your posts:
1. The posting should respond as specifically as
possible to the prompt (or you should indicate why you’re modifying the
prompt).
2. The posting should reveal close engagement with the work under discussion.
3. The posting should contribute to the discussion, so later postings should
not simply repeat earlier postings, and they should reflect some engagement
with earlier postings.
4. Postings should be substantive.
I will post grades in Canvas, which will
calculate your overall grade for the class. The official grades are those I
calculate myself, and these are nearly always the same as those Canvas
creates. If there is a discrepancy
between the grade you see in Canvas and the grade I have in my gradebook,
however, the gradebook grade is the one that is correct. I am always happy to
discuss your grades with you.
Chapman University Academic Integrity Policy:
Chapman University is a community of scholars
that emphasizes the mutual responsibility of all members to seek knowledge
honestly and in good faith. Students are responsible for doing their own
work, and academic dishonesty of any kind will be subject to sanction by the
instructor and referral to the university's Academic Integrity Committee, which
may impose additional sanctions up to and including dismissal. (See the
Undergraduate Catalog for the full policy.) Though I am not requiring you to submit your essays via Turnitin,
I am an expert at finding sources, online and otherwise, so I will notice if
you make unacknowledged use of someone else’s work or make inappropriate use of
an LLM. And if I have doubts, I will submit your work to Turnitin or
to a service that detects the likelihood a paper was generated by an
LLM. So please save both of us from trauma and write your
Canvas Discussion posts and essays yourself.
ChatGPT and other Large Language Model (LLM)
chatbots:
1. Typing
a prompt into an LLM chatbot, copying the response, and then submitting that
response for an assignment is an obvious form of academic
misconduct. Don’t do it.
2. Chatbots
are often inaccurate. Two years ago, when I asked ChatGPT for a
biography of Richard Ruppel, a Chapman English professor, I found that I was
born in Fairview (false), had been an expert on the Holocaust (mostly false),
had graduated from Yale and Harvard (false), and was now dead (demonstrably, I
hope, false). ChatGPT has improved – a more recent search provided
more accurate information, but all LLMs continue to hallucinate. If
I suspect that you have pasted in a response
produced by an LLM, I will check the various services designed to detect
this. If those services confirm my suspicion, I will call you in for
a conference. If I am convinced you made improper use of an LLM, I am
required to report the case to our Academic Integrity Committee.
3. Chatbots
can be inaccurate, but they do offer clear, useful information which users
should check. These are early times, but through this semester (and
through your academic career) we will all discover ways to help you use them to
enhance your learning.
The following discussion of the use of LLMs in
academic settings was developed by Dr. Nora Rivera, a professor in Chapman’s
English department:
|
Acceptable Uses of
LLMs |
Not Acceptable Uses
of LLMs |
|
·
To improve your work ·
To brainstorm ·
To explore potential counterarguments ·
To fine-tune research questions ·
To draft an outline to organize your thoughts ·
To check grammar and style ·
To check format ·
To translate words and phrases |
·
To replace your work ·
To cheat on the writing & research process ·
To obtain answers to assessments ·
To generate a full draft of your work ·
To generate large chunks of text with little or no input
from you as an author |
·
Students must cite AI technologies
when appropriate (e.g., when using images generated by AI technologies, when
referencing an answer provided by AI technologies, et cetera)
·
Copying works entirely
generated by AI technologies and submitting them as original content is
considered an academic
integrity violation
·
Always revise your work
before submitting it. You are responsible for any inaccurate, biased,
offensive, or otherwise unethical content you submit regardless of whether it
originally comes from you or an AI model.
In-Class use of laptops, tablets, and phones:
You may use a laptop to take class notes only when
you are one of the week’s note-takers. Otherwise, laptops and
tablets must remain closed, and you may not consult your phone during
class. If you have a reason to consult one of these devices during
class, you must receive my permission to do so beforehand. If I see
you consulting your phone during class, I will mark you absent.
Chapman Anti-Discrimination Policy:
Chapman University is committed to ensuring equality and valuing
diversity. Students and professors are
reminded to show respect at all times as outlined in Chapman’s Harassment
and Discrimination Policy. Any
violations of this policy should be discussed with the professor, the Dean of
Students and/or otherwise reported in accordance with this policy.
Chapman's Students with Disabilities Policy:
In compliance with ADA guidelines, students who have any
condition, either permanent or temporary, that might affect their ability to
perform in this class are encouraged to inform the instructor at the beginning
of the term. The University, through the Disability Services Office, will work
with the appropriate faculty member who is asked to provide
the accommodations for a student in determining what accommodations are
suitable based on the documentation and the individual student needs. The
granting of any accommodation will not be retroactive and cannot jeopardize the
academic standards or integrity of the course.
It is very important to me
that ALL students feel welcome and encouraged to learn in my classes. If you have any concerns about
participating in class, writing posts or papers, or taking our exam, do not
hesitate to speak with me. I want you to
feel challenged in this class, but if you feel overwhelmed, let me know.
For Wednesday or Thursday, August 27or 28: Read the introduction to William Blake in our anthology,
122-124, and read all the Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience,
127-145. Select one to read out loud to
the class (after explaining, briefly, why you chose it).
For Monday or Tuesday, September 1 or 2: No Monday class. No additional assignment for the Tuesday class,
when we will watch a video introducing the Romantic period. Romantic Poetry, by Adam
Walker.
For Wednesday or Thursday, September 3 or 4: No new reading.
For Monday or Tuesday, September 8 or 9: Read the introduction to
William Wordsworth, 280-282, and “Simon Lee” (285), “We Are Seven” (288), “A
Slumber Did My Spirit Seal” (318), and “Nutting” (319). Respond to the Canvas discussion question
by 10am Monday or Tuesday. Read Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” (464-466). Read the Lord Byron introduction (608-12), “She
Walks in Beauty” (613-14), and Act 3, Scene 4 of Manfred (664-668).
For Wednesday or Thursday, September 17 or 18:
Read the Percy Shelley introduction (763-66) and
“Mutability” (766), “Ozymandias” (790-91), and “Ode to the West Wind”
(806-08). Respond in your groups to the
Discussion prompts once you’ve discussed the Byron and Shelley poems.
For Monday or Tuesday, September 22 or 23: Read the John Keats introduction (950-52), “The Eve of St. Agnes”
(961-71 – the most romantic of Romantic poems), and “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
(972-73).
For Wednesday or Thursday, September 24 or 25:
Read Keats’s Odes: “Ode to Psyche” (975), “Ode
to a Nightingale” (977), “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (979), “Ode on Melancholy”
(981) and “To Autumn” (1000).
William Blake
William Wordsworth &
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
George Gordon, Lord Byron
·
Act 3, Scene 4 of Manfred, whose protagonist is the
archetypal Byronic Hero.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
·
Prometheus’s
curse of his tormenter, Zeus, also from Prometheus
Unbound.
·
“Ozymandias,” with a
video, read by Bryan Cranston. (One of the Breaking
Bad episodes is entitled “Ozymandias.”)
John Keats
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Robert Browning
George Bernard Shaw
Christina Rossetti
· In the Poetry Foundation Web pages, a
very good literary
biography of Rossetti.
· Emily Dickenson’s “I
Heard a Fly Buzz.”
· Elizabeth
Siddle Rossetti (Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s muse and wife).
Arthur Conan Doyle
Robert Louis Stevenson
·
Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1941.
Oscar Wilde
·
Trailer for the 2002 Importance of Being Earnest.
·
The
Importance of Being Earnest, full length.
·
Accessible essay on The
Importance of Being Earnest: “The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
by Oscar Wilde: Conformity and Resistance in Victorian Society”
·
“Synchronicity and
the Trickster in The Importance of Being Earnest” By Clifton
Snider.
Rudyard Kipling
· A fine, literary
biography of Kipling in The Poetry Foundation.
WB Yeats
Virginia Woolf
James Joyce
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Doris Lessing
Salman Rushdie
·
Pdf
of “The Prophet’s Hair.”
·
BBC discussion of the
fatwa against Rushdie, issued in 1989, and its consequences, thirty years
later.
·
Rushdie describes the
Chautauqua stabbing incident to Stephen Colbert.
Zadie Smith
· “The Waiter’s Wife.” In Granta, 1999.
· “The
Fall of My Teenaged Self,” in The New Yorker, November 20,
2023.
· Brief interview at “Pen
& Podium.”
General
·
Romantic Poetry. A video by Adam Walker, via Patreon.
·
Taylor Swift’s “The Lakes,” in praise of
the Romantics and their world.
·
Women’s Suffrage in England
timeline,
illustrated, from 1832. From 1520-1979 (when
Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister).
·
Romanticism Summary PowerPoint.
·
The Victorian Period, introductory PowerPoint.
·
Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations
for Oscar Wilde’s play, Salome. And here.
·
A quotation
from Friedrich Nietzsche in The Gay
Science, 1882.
On Poetry
Irrelevant Dog Picture
