English 223, Sections 1&2: Survey of British Literature, 1789-present

Dr. Richard Ruppel: Department of English

Updated August 4, 2025

Canvas
Assignments

Useful Links
 

Office: Smith Hall, 07
Office Hours: 8:30-10am, Monday & Tuesday, and by appointment.    
Phone: 997-6754 (office)
Email: ruppel@chapman.edu
Class Meetings: Section 1: T-Th, 2:30-3:45pm, Hashinger 150
                          Section 2: M-W, 1-2:15pm, Argyros 202

Text: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 10th edition, Volumes D, E, & F

Announcements & Events

. 


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 8October 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. (Paper 2 due, December 5) 
Week 15Final 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. 


Course and Paper Requirements

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.

If you anticipate having trouble submitting an assignment on time, let me know in advance. Unexcused late papers or projects will be marked down one letter grade per week.

You will be allowed 3 free absences through the semester. Any absences after that will affect your grade, and you will fail this class if you miss 5 or more classes unless you provide a compelling reason for your excessive absences. 

Keep on top of the reading and other work through the semester. If you haven't read the assignment, you will find our class discussion both incomprehensible and dull. 

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 reflections 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. 


Assignments

 

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:  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 Wednesday or Thursday, September 3 or 4. 

 

For Monday or Tuesday, September 8 or 9:  Read the introduction to Samuel Taylor Coleridge (441-44) and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (448-464).  

 

For Wednesday or Thursday, September 10 or 11:  Read Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” (464-466). 

 

For Monday or Tuesday, September 15 or 16: Read the Lord Byron introduction (608-12) and “She Walks in Beauty” (613-14), “Darkness” (614-15), and Act 3, Scene 4 of Manfred (664-668). No class meeting. 

 

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).

 


 

Useful Links

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

·       A reading from Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, by a fine actor, Ralph Cotterill, filmed in what we might call a Romantic garden. 

·       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

·       The Dumb Waiter. 

 

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. 

·       CBS interview. 

·       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. 

·       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

 


 

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