Updated December 1, 2011
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Office: 24A - Wilkinson
Office Hours: Tuesday
& Thursday, 9-11am & by appointment
Phone: 997-6754 (office)
Email: ruppel@chapman.edu
Class Meetings: Tuesday: 2:30-3:45am.
Wilkinson 210
Text: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 8th edition, Volumes D, E, & F
Course Description and Objectives:
This course introduces a wide range of literature written in Great Britain
between 1789 (when Blake published Songs of Innocence) and the present
(we'll conclude with a Harold Pinter play: The Dumb Waiter). An enormous
amount of important work was written over these two centuries, and they span
four major periods: Romantic, Victorian, Modern, and Post-Modern. We'll read a
relatively small, representative sample, but you'll 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.
This is a blended course. Normally, we
will meet once a week, on Tuesday, though we may decide to meet occasionally on
Thursday. (I’ll let you know well in
advance.) 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
Blackboard, and I may ask you to engage in other online activities.
Since this course is the second part of an historical survey, we'll pay attention to the historical context as we read each of these authors, and we'll pay attention to the way British literature developed through these decades. We'll become more familiar with the characteristics of the poetry and prose of each period, but we'll also pay attention to what makes the work of each of these artists unique.
Like all literature
courses, this class has an important writing component. We will devote
class time to developing your essay topics, and we'll go over the criteria I'll
use to evaluate your essays. You will discuss and clear your topics with
me, and I will accept a revision of one of your essays. You can expect me
to read your essays closely.
Finally, 238 is one of
the electives you may take to fulfill the English literature 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 essays, and essay exams:
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
Weekly Syllabus*
Week 1
- August 30-September 1: Introduction and William Blake
Week 2 - September 6-8: Blake
Week 3
- September 13-15: William Wordsworth
Week 4 - September 20-22: Wordsworth &
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Week 5 - September 27-29: Wordsworth,
Coleridge
Week 6 - October 4-6: Coleridge and Percy Bysshe Shelley (Discussion of paper topics - Essay writing
workshop)
Week 7 - October 11-13: John Keats.
(Paper 1 due, October 13)
Week 8 - October 18-20: Alfred Tennyson
Week 9 - October 25-27: Robert Browning
Week 10 - November 1-3: G B Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s
Profession
Week 11 - November 8-10: Oscar
Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest.
Week 12 - November 15-17: W. B.
Yeats, Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own.
Week 13 - November 22: A Room of
One's Own. James Joyce, "The Dead" Thanksgiving.
Week 14 - November 29-December
1: Doris Lessing, "To Room Nineteen,"
Harold Pinter, The Dumb Waiter. (Paper
2 due, December 1)
Week 15 - December 6-8: Last words, preparation for final.
Week 16 - Final: Friday, December 16: 8-10:30am.
*These
dates may change, but I'll give you plenty of notice, and I'll keep the syllabus
updated on the Web. Remember that we
will not meet in class most Thursdays.
I’ve included the Thursday dates on the syllabus in case we make use of
one or more.
Grades:
Assignments & Participation*: 25%
Essay 1: 20% (5-6 pages)
Essay 2: 25% (6-7 pages)
Final: 30%
*This
is primarily your grade on the Blackboard 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.
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.)
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.
For Thursday, September 1: Read the introduction to William
Blake (76-79) and his Songs of Innocence & Songs of Experience
(81-97).
For Tuesday, September 6: By 9am Tuesday,
September 6, write a brief response to one of Blake's Songs of Innocence or Experience.
For Thursday, September 8: Reply to
one of your classmate’s responses to the Blake question – due Thursday, Sept.
8, by noon, and respond to the next questions about Blake’s “Book of Thel” (97-102) and “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”
(110-120) – due Sunday, Sept. 11, by noon.
For Tuesday, September 13: Read the
introduction to William Wordsworth (243-245), and read “Simon Lee,” 245, “We Are Seven,” 228, & “Tintern Abbey,” 258.
For Thursday, September 15: Read Wordsworth's "Lucy
poems" (274-79), "Nutting" (279-80), and "Ode:
Intimations of Immortality" (306-12). Respond to the question in the
discussion section of Blackboard (by noon Friday, September 16).
For Tuesday, September 20: Read the introduction to
Coleridge (424-26) and his "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
(430-46) (Iron
Maiden's version,
on Youtube.)
For Thursday, September 22:
Tuesday
October 4: Read Coleridge's "Kubla
Khan" (446-448) & "Christabel"
(449-464). Read the introduction to Percy Bysshe
Shelley (741) and his "Alastor; or, The Spirit
of Solitude" (745), "Mont Blanc" (762) and "Ozymandias" (768). WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS: Four posts will be due at various times
through October 4: The first concerns
Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of
Immortality,” the second concerns Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,”
the third “Kubla Khan” or “Christabel”
(your choice), and the fourth asks that you formulate a topic and thesis for
your first essay.
For Thursday, October 6: Read the introduction to Percy Bysshe Shelley (741) and his "Alastor;
or, The Spirit of Solitude" (745), "Mont Blanc" (762) and "Ozymandias" (768).
For Tuesday, October 11:
Read the introduction to Keats (878-80) and "Chapman's
Homer" (880), "Eve of St. Agnes" (888), "La Belle Dame sans
Merci" (899), and "Ode to Psyche" (901), "Ode to a
Nightingale" (903), & "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (905).
Bring drafts of your first paper to class.
We’ll have a thirty minute editing workshop.
For
Tuesday, October 18: Read the "Introduction" to the Victorian
Age (979-999) and note one comment and question on our Discussion Board.
Read Tennyson's "The Lady of
Shalott" (1114) &
"Ulysses" (1123). And read through the selections from In Memoriam (1140-1159). Select
one Canto and respond to the second Blackboard prompt.
For Tuesday, October 25: Read the introduction to Browning
(1248-1252), and "Porphyria's Lover"
(1252), "Soliloquy in a Spanish Cloister" (1253), "My Last
Duchess" (1255) and "The Bishop Orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church" (1259). Write a brief character
sketch of the speaker of one of these poems in Blackboard.
For Tuesday, November 1: Read Mrs.
Warren’s Profession, by George Bernard Shaw (1746-1790). Answer the question about the play’s
antagonist by 9am Tuesday.
For Thursday, November 3: No new assignment. (Remember that we
will have class November 3.)
For Tuesday, November 10: Read Wilde's The
Importance of Being Earnest (1698-1740). I'll
show the film in class Tuesday, so please arrive 10 minutes early, at 2:20.
For Tuesday, November 15: Respond to the Blackboard
question about similarities and differences between Mrs. Warren's Profession
and The Importance of Being Earnest by midnight, November 12.
Bring an idea for your second essay to class Tuesday. Read the
Introduction to W. B. Yeats (2019) and his “The Stolen Child,” 2022, “When You
are Old,” 2026, “Adam's Curse,” 2028, “No Second Troy,” 2029, “September 1913,”
2030, and “Easter 1916,” 2031. (Remember
that we won’t have class November 10th, but we
WILL have class November 17th.)
For Thursday, November 17: Read Yeats' “The Second Coming,”
2036, “Leda & the Swan,” 2039, and “Sailing to Byzantium,” 2046.
Read the introduction to Virginia Woolf (2080-82) and the first two chapters of
A Room of One's Own (2092-2113). Bring your ideas for your second
essay – topics and, if possible, theses.
For Tuesday, November 22: Read the third
chapter of A Room of One’s Own
(2113-2122 and Joyce’s “The Dead” (2172-2199).
If you haven’t cleared your thesis (or project) with me, you can do it
in class Tuesday.
For Tuesday, November 29: Read “To Room
19,” by Doris Lessing (2544-65).
Electronic and hard copies of your second papers are due December
1.
For Thursday, December 1: Read Harold
Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter
(2601-22).
For Tuesday, December 6: Answer the last
Blackboard post question by 9am Tuesday.