Shaw University
English 311:  Romantic to Modern British Literature
Spring, 2006

Professor:  Dr. E. Weil     Office:  203 The Cottage     Office Phone:  546-8207
Office Hours:  MWF  11 - 12:00,  MW 1-2:00;   TTh 9:30 - 12  & by appt.
Home Phone:  870-6038; before 10 PM          email:  eweil@shawu.edu
Web:  On Shaw’s home page, click “Faculty Web Sites” then my name.  English 311 link.

Text:  Baym, Nina, et al.  The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 7th ed. Package 2, Volumes A, B, C.  2003.

Course Goals:  We will read and, hopefully, enjoy studying a variety of literary works from the late 18th Century through the 1950’s in British literature.
Additional goals:
1. to become familiar with various literary genres, such as poetry, drama, and prose, including specific genre characteristics such as plot, theme, imagery, & rhyme scheme, etc.
2. to improve the ability to interpret and critically evaluate literary texts through close and careful reading.
3. to apply differing modern literary theories in such a way as to present the possibility of a variety of interpretations of a text.
4. to increase historical, cultural, and contextual awareness and perspective in order to appreciate problems of authorship and audience.
5. to develop an awareness of differing beliefs, values, and ideas, as presented in literary works and to engage in critical analysis of these presentations.
6. to see literature’s relevance to our lives.
7. to see literature as a social act -- to understand how a culture influences literature and how literature influences culture.
8. to improve writing abilities through writing well-organized, coherent, thoughtfully-developed, and carefully-edited research essays.
9. to improve the ability to write extemporaneously by responding to quizzes and examinations.

English 311 is intended to comply with the following “Core Standards for Teachers in North Carolina,” including their accompanying indicators, as approved by the NC State Board of Education March 7, 2002:
Conceptual Framework Theme:  To produce graduates who are critical thinkers and problem solvers with the professional dispositions and technological skills necessary to function as competent and effective teachers in a diverse world.
Standard 1:  Teachers know and understand the English language.
Standard 2:  Teachers know and understand the reading process.
Standard 3:  Teachers know and understand written and oral composing processes.
Standard 5:  Teachers understand the range, impact, and influence of technology, print and non-print media in constructing meaning.
Standard 10:  Teachers use instruction that promotes understanding of varied uses and purposes for language.
Standard 11:  Teachers foster in students an awareness of their own and others’ cultures.
Technology:  Standard 1, Indicator 1:  Teachers demonstrate introductory knowledge, skills, and understanding of concepts related to technology.
Standard 2, Indicator 3:  Teachers identify and locate technology resources and evaluate them for accuracy and suitability.
Standard 3, Indicator 1:  Teachers facilitate technology-enhanced experiences that address content standards and student technology standards.
Core Standard 2, Indicator 8:  Teachers teach communication, thinking, and problem solving skills.
Diversity:  Standard 4, Indicator 3:  Teachers promote appreciation and respect for diversity by rejecting the use of stereotypes.

Attendance:  Attendance is essential.  I expect you to be present, on time, and prepared for class discussion, as I expect myself to be.  We have 31 class meetings scheduled.  Each time you come to class you get 3.23 points (31 x 3.23 = 100.13). Think of it as if you are getting paid for attending class.  You may skip all you like, but each miss costs you 3.23 points.  If you are tardy, you get 1.5 points.  Conduct your personal business at times when you don’t have class; that’s what I do.

Requirements:  There will be two midterms and a final examination.  You will write one research-supported interpretive paper on Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness.  I will post an assignment sheet with the specific requirements for the paper on my website.  There may be quizzes on the readings; you will have 1-page writing assignments due on the day we discuss a work. 

A few words about plagiarism:  There are two kinds of plagiarism, unintentional and intentional.  Unintentional plagiarism is the sloppy, careless, unclear, or incorrect citation of sources.  In other words, unintentional plagiarism happens when you make certain kinds of mistakes.  Avoiding and/or correcting those mistakes is part of what this course is all about.  I hope you will show me a first draft of your paper so that you can earn a better grade on your completed paper.  Intentional plagiarism means cheating -- turning in someone else’s work as your own or copying from sources without providing documentation.  Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to, such activities as buying ready-made term papers, either from a person or from a website; cutting and pasting material (even one sentence) from a website to your essay without proper documentation; having someone else write your paper or revise it for you; turning in a paper someone else has turned in, either for this course or another; turning in the same paper for two different courses.  Please note that anything you can find on the internet, I can find on the internet, whether it’s a term paper mill or a website.  Warning:  an essay which includes any intentionally-plagiarized material fails, scoring 0 points with no opportunity for revision. 

Your Final Grade:  This will be determined by the number of points you earn during the semester.  The midterm and final exams will be worth 50 points each, and the paper will be worth 100 points.  Quizzes will be worth 10 points and 1-page writings 10 points each (your lowest of these grades will be dropped).  Attendance is worth 100 points.  When the total number of possible points for the semester is determined, 90% will earn an A, 80% a B, 70% a C, and 60% a D.

Readings & Assignments
During the semester, you will write at least ten 1-page writings as preparation for our class meetings.  Simply write a page in response to the question or prompt listed for that date.  You may do more than ten if you wish (what the heck, do all of them!).  Each will be graded on a ten point scale and I will count your best ten (100 points total possible) as part of your final grade.  I prefer these responses printed via word processor, but I will accept these writings hand-written (please be legible & neat).  The highest possible grade for a hand-written sketch is 9.  I will not accept any 1-page writing after the class period when we discuss the work listed on the syllabus for that day if you were present.  I will not accept more than three of these writings in one week.  The whole idea is for you to respond in writing to many of the works we read because studies have shown that writing about literature helps you to do the kind of thinking that enhances learning (and test performance).   Please remember to read the introductory material for each author or work.

Th Jan 12:  Intro to the course, the book, and a quick overview of Britain in the late 18th C.

T Jan 17:  William Blake: Songs of Innocence; What does Blake mean by “innocence”?  Explicate a poem to illustrate the definition you write.

Th Jan 19:  Blake: Songs of Experience; Some of these poems are “partnered” with poems of innocence.  Pick a pair and explain how they illustrate two aspects of some idea or theme or situation.

T Jan 24:  Robert Burns: “Holy Willie’s Prayer,” “Tam O’Shanter,” “Song:  For a’ that and a’ that,” and “A Red, Red Rose”; Choose either of the first two poems and write a page summarizing the plot of the story.  Include a couple of sentences about technique.

Th Jan 26:  William Wordsworth: “We Are Seven,” “Expostulation & Reply,” “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”; In ‘Tintern Abbey,” explain Wordsworth’s concern with the relationship between past, present, and future.   “I wandered lonely as a cloud,” and “Ode:  Intimations of Immortality”; The poems are largely about the consolations of memory.  Explain.

T Jan 31:   Wordsworth, Sonnets:  “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge,” “It is a beauteous evening,” “London, 1802,” and “The world is too much with us”; Choose one, and write a page discussing both technique and theme.

Th Feb 2:  Samuel Taylor Coleridge:  “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”; Write a page explaining why the mariner is cursed and why the curse is lifted.  What is the stanza form that Coleridge uses?

T Feb 7:  Coleridge:  “Kubla Khan,” “Frost at Midnight,” and “Dejection: An Ode”; Choose a poem and explicate it; discuss both theme and technique.

Th Feb 9:   George Gordon, Lord Byron: “Written After Swimming from Sestos to Abydos,” “She walks in beauty,” “They say that Hope is happiness,” and Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage Cantos 1 and 4; Why does Byron try to put down his feat in “Written After Swimming”?

T Feb 14:   Percy Bysshe Shelley: “Mont Blanc,” “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty,” “Mutability,” “Ozymandias,” and “Ode to the West Wind”; Look up the word “sublime.”  “Mont Blanc” is often discussed as an example of a poem striving for the “Romantic Sublime.”  What do you think that means?

Th Feb 16:  Shelley: “Adonais”; The intro material tells you this is a “pastoral elegy” and delineates its parts.  Add additional detail and discussion of these conventions from your own understanding of the poem.

T Feb 21:  John Keats: “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer,” “When I have fears that I may cease to be,” “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” “Ode on Melancholy,” and “To Autumn”; The latter two poems argue that we should strive for happiness even in situations that evoke sadness.  Why?

Th Feb 23:  Keats: “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and “Ode to a Nightingale”; “Grecian Urn” is one of the most famous, influential, and vexing poems ever written.  Wrestle with it.  What is Keats saying?  What is meant by the last two lines?

T Feb 28: Midterm #1 (50 points)

Th Mar 2:  Charles Dickens: “A Visit to Newgate” and George Eliot: from The Mill on the Floss; Summarize Dickens’ description of Newgate Prison.

T Mar 7: Alfred, Lord Tennyson:  “Ulysses,” “Locksley Hall,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” and “Crossing the Bar”; “Ulysses” picks up where Homer’s Odyssey leaves off.  What does Tennyson imagine as Ulysses’ future?  OR Summarize the story told in “Locksley Hall.”

Th Mar 9:  Tennyson:  selections from In Memoriam, A.H.H. (to be announced).  This elegy expresses many ups and downs of despair and hope.  Find evidence in some of the assigned sections.

T Mar 14:  Elizabeth Barrett Browning:  Sonnets from the Portuguese, 21, 22, 32, & 43; Choose one sonnet and write a page explication both technique and theme.

Th Mar 16:  Robert Browning:  “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister,” “My Last Duchess,” “The Bishop Orders His Tomb,” and both “Home-Thoughts” poems.  The first three poems listed are “dramatic monologues.”  Choose one and write a page explaining what happens in the story and how the speaker reveals his character.

T Mar 21:   Matthew Arnold:  “Dover Beach”  and “Lines Written in Kensington Gardens.” In “Dover Beach” Arnold is concerned about “The eternal note of sadness.”  What does this mean?  How might it be applied to “Kensington Gardens”?  Gerard Manley Hopkins:  “God’s Grandeur,” “The Windhover,” and “Spring and Fall: to a young child”; Hopkins developed a poetic style called “sprung rhythm.”  Feel free to look up this term, but explain its use in one or more poems on your own.

Th Mar 23:   Midterm #2  (50 points)

Mar 25 - Apr 2:  Spring Break:  Read Joseph Conrad’s short novel, Heart of Darkness.  Return safely & on time.

T Apr 4:  Joseph Conrad:  Heart of Darkness; Trace Marlow’s changes in attitude as the story progresses.

Th Apr 6:   Conrad:  Heart of Darkness; What is meant by Kurtz’s last words?  Why does Marlow lie to “the Intended”?

T Apr 11:  Thomas Hardy:  “Hap,” “Neutral Tones,” “The Darkling Thrush,” “The Ruined Maid,” “Channel Firing,” and “Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?”; Choose a poem and write a page explicating it.  A.E. Housman:  “Loveliest of Trees,” “To an Athlete Dying Young,” “With Rue My Heart is Laden,” and “Terence, This is Stupid Stuff”; Housman’s major theme is “loss.”  Write a page using any two poems to explain this idea.

Th Apr 13:  Virginia Woolf:  “The Mark on the Wall.” This story is an example of “stream of consciousness” writing.  Explain.  D. H. Lawrence:  “The Horse-Dealer’s Daughter”; Trace the plot through the changes in the girl.

T Apr 18:   James Joyce:  “The Dead”; Joyce is famous for writing “epiphany” stories.  Look up the word and explain its application to the story.

Th Apr 20:  We will probably miss class due to “Awards Day.”  Your paper on Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is due in my office by noon on Friday, April 21.  (100 points)

T Apr 25:  William Butler Yeats:  “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” “When You Are Old,” “The Wild Swans at Coole,” “September 1913,” and “Easter 1916”; The first three poems deal mainly with the relationship of past to present.  Explain.

Th Apr 27:  Yeats:  “The Second Coming,” “Sailing to Byzantium,” “Leda and the Swan,” “After Long Silence,” and “Under Ben Bulben”; The first three poems deal mainly with Yeats’s personal notions about history.  Choose one and explain.

T May 2:  W. H. Auden:  “Musee des Beaux Arts,” “In Memory of W. B. Yeats,” and “In Praise of Limestone”; Explain why Auden likes limestone.

Th May 4:  Dylan Thomas:  “The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower,” “Fern Hill,” and “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”; Choose a poem and write a page explicating it.

 

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