INFORMATION & SYLLABUS
Gary
Williams ||| Office: Brink 230 ||| Hours: T & W 2:00-3:30 |||
jgw@uidaho.edu
Shawn
Rubenfeld ||| Office: Brink 106 ||| Hours: M & W 2:30-4:00 |||
rube1279@vandals.uidaho.edu
Telephone: 885-6156 (messages)
“Don’t be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.” --George Saunders
Texts:
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
(1609) Signet: 0451521250
Voltaire, Candide (1758) Dover: 0486266893
William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790) Dover: 0486281221
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part One (1808) Penguin: 0140449019
Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience" (aka "Resistance to Civil Government,"
1849)
Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899) Bedford 031246052
Franz
Kafka, The Metamorphosis (1915) Dover: 0486290301
Virginia Woolf,
To the Lighthouse (1927) Harvest 0156907399
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
(1955) Vintage 0679723161
Chris Ware, Building Stories (2012)
Pantheon 0375424334
. . . and a few justly famous short POEMS by Wordsworth, Keats, Dickinson,
Hopkins, Arnold, Yeats, and Millay
EXAMINATIONS: Four exams. Dates are shown on the reading schedule. They test your memory for detail and fact, as well as your ability to write confidently about literature. Taking notes about class discussions, particularly about particular passages in the texts, is an essential preparation for doing well on exams.
PAPERS: Two five-page papers; topics assigned; due March 7 and May 2.
OTHER REQUIREMENTS:
10-minute reports/recitations.
GRADING: Exams are worth 50% of your grade–two are worth 10%, two are worth 15%. The papers are worth 20% each. Report/recitation 5%. Attendance matters and is worth 5%: however, if you miss more than three classes, the highest grade you can receive is a C.
OBJECTIVES AND EXPECTATIONS: The course is designed to acquaint you with culturally important literature of the Western world from the 17th century to the present. Particular texts are chosen to reflect various literary and intellectual movements, time periods, genres, and national literatures. Exams and papers are intended to improve your writing skills, particularly your skills in writing about literature. See here for a statement of specific knowledge, skills, and values goals for English 258.
I expect that you'll be in class most days--here not just physically, but actively (speaking, responding, taking notes, etc.). I expect that your writing will be thoughtful and a pleasure to read, not glib. I expect that it will be spell-checked and carefully proofread.
Above all, I hope you will ENJOY READING THESE GREAT TEXTS!
ENGLISH H-258 / SPRING 2013 / READING AND ASSIGNMENT SCHEDULE
|
Jan 10
Introduction: Who’s in the group?
How did YOU come to be in the group?
Why literature? Bakhtin: two lives.
Course mechanics.
Scope of the course.
Final Narrative exercise. |
15
Shakespeare, Overview.
The Tempest, Act 1
Reading issues, Acts 1 and 2
|
17 Tempest, Acts
2 & 3 (27-62); sources (91-102); Montaigne, “On
Cannibals.” |
22
Tempest, Acts 4 & 5 (63-87); Leininger, “The Miranda Trap”
(146-55) |
24
Contemporary reproductions of The Tempest (Mazursky 1982,
Greenaway 1991, Mirrin 2010) ;
Gielgud,
Prospero’s final speech
|
29
Voltaire, Candide (1-19).
Voltaire issues
MINI-EXAM ON
SHAKESPEARE |
31
Candide (20-87);
excerpt
from Pope’s “Essay on Man”;
“Make Our Garden Grow” from Leonard
Bernstein’s Candide |
Feb 5
Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell |
7
Marriage.
Wordsworth,
“The World Is Too Much With Us”; lines from “Intimations …”
|
12
Goethe, Faust Part One (12-41, up to Faust’s Study I );
first few pages of introduction (xxiv-xxxiii).
Excerpt
from Book of Job
|
14
Faust (41-101, up to At the Neighbor’s House; OK to skip
Auerbach’s Cellar, 69-81);
Keats,
“Ode to a Nightingale”
|
19
Faust (101-168; OK to skip Walpurgis Night’s Dream
152-58);
summary
of Part Two (online).
Finale
of Charles Gounod’s opera Faust
|
21
EXAM ON
VOLTAIRE, BLAKE, GOETHE
Assign first paper. |
26 Thoreau,
“Resistance to Civil Government”(aka “Civil Disobedience”) |
28 Arnold, “Dover
Beach” [Report: Tyler
Jaszkowiak, Josh Holden]; Hopkins, “Carrion
Comfort” [Report: Josh
Hill, Miller Sartori]; Dickinson,
poems about God [Report: Dayton Rue, Brandon Arakawa];
Yeats, “The
Second Coming” |
Mar 5 Chopin,
The Awakening, 29-88 |
Mar 7
The Awakening, 88-147
FIRST PAPER
DUE |
12
SPRING BREAK |
14
SPRING BREAK |
19 Kafka, The
Metamorphosis (Part One)
|
21 The Metamorphosis (Parts Two and Three); Millay, “Sonnet XIX” [Emily Rousos, Allie Pfeiffer]
Assign second paper. |
26 Ware, Building Stories
introduction |
28
MINI-EXAM ON THOREAU, POEMS, CHOPIN |
Apr 2
Woolf,
To the Lighthouse, 3-82 |
4
To the Lighthouse, 82-143 |
9
To the Lighthouse, 145-209. Excerpt
from
"A Room of One's Own" [Report: Courtney Flynn, Scott Kozisek].
Eileen Atkins portraying Woolf |
11
|
16
Lolita, 62-142 |
18
Lolita, 145-216 |
23
Lolita, 216-309 |
25 Building Stories |
30
Building Stories |
May 2
Building Stories
SECOND PAPER
DUE
|
Final Exam
Friday May 10, 10-12 |
|