Restoration and 18th-century British Literature: Nation, Gender, Class--Fall 1996
Course description:
We'll explore the representaton of various conflicts and contradictions during a period of interesting social and political change in the seventy years that followed the traumatic civil wars and powerful restoration of Charles II in 1660. We shall analyze John Dryden's poems of praise, political advice, and witty satire, and his heroic comedy Marriage a la Mode, the Earl of Rochester's poetic libertinism and political cynicism, the sexual politics of Aphra Behn's poetry, drama, and fiction, Eliza Haywood's tales of women in distress, and Swift's and Pope's preoccupaton with women's bodies, nationalism, trade, colonialism, and monstrous literary progeny. Lots of discussion, reading, research--written work includes succinct newsgroup journal entries, a critical response, a critical summary, and two longer essays, but no exams. Can you identify these quotes?
"The Mighty Mother, and her son who brings / The Smithfield muses to the ear of kings, / I sing."
"In vain he toils, in vain commands; / The insensible fell weeping in his hand."
Required Texts:
John Dryden, Marriage a la Mode (Nebraska, 1981)
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, Complete Works (Penguin)
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko, The Rover, and Other Works (Penguin, 1992)
Eliza Haywood, Three Novellas (Colleagues P, 1995)
Gulliver's Travels (Bedford/St. Martin's, 1995)
Alexander Pope (Oxford, 1994)
Jonathan Swift, Selected Poems (VikingPenguin, 1993)
Requirements:
1. One critical response (approx. 425 words, single-spaced, titled, on one page) that prompts you to identify and to address interpretive and critical issues that these texts present. You may choose a study question to suggest a topic or problem to explore in your response, or you may develop your own topic or approach to the work in question. Your observations and analyses should be succinct and sharply focused, with potential for substantial further development.
2. One summary and critical review (450 words total). This two-step assignment is similar to the critical response, but includes a concise summary or abstract of a critical essay (approx. 300 words) followed by an analytical/evaluative/explanatory response or review of the essay (approx. 150 words)--try to fit all this onto one page (cut/paste, reduce slightly), then bring copies to class to share on the designated due date.
3. Participation in class and group discussion (including informal writing). Please take advantage of the opportunity small groups may provide to discuss your reactions, share your insights and research, and to listen and reply to others' ideas. I shall call regularly upon groups to facilitate class discussion, with each group leading off discussion (10 minutes) on specific texts and critical readings three or four times during the term. On these days I expect the group scheduled for that day to be prepared to lead off our discussion by presenting their positions on the material (with some brief summary, focus on key points in the reading, perhaps some incorporation of secondary criticism or historical research), or you might consider the pedagogical or practical implications of what we're discussing. I hope this strategy will enable you to move the class in directions you find most helpful, give you opportunities to develop critical skills through collaboration, and prevent me from dominating class discussion while still providing occasions for sharing my perspectives with you.
4. Participation via local online discussion newsgroup, with special emphasis upon focused journal entries posted to the newsgroup. I encourage you to contribute a paragraph or more to the conversation once a week, posting your entry to the current week's discussion by 9 a.m. each Wednesday morning. You are expected to post ten succinct yet substantive journal entries (approximately 100 words each) on selected figures/works over the course of the semester. I will evaluate and grade five entries by midterm, and evaluate the rest just before the end of the semester.
5. Two double-spaced essays or critical projects: the first, 6 pp., the second, 8-10 pp. More on these later, but in general these essays enable you to explore an interpretive/contextual problem, try out a critical approach/hypothesis, and help to express ideas prompted by your reading and discussion of a work from our syllabus. I am interested in seeing the ways that you select, define, and engage questions and contradictions, and I attend to the clarity, imagination, and grace that you demonstrate in presenting your topic, thesis, and argument. I do not always expect an essay to conclude by "solving" such problems or by "proving" your thesis; I do hope that you address an interesting topic in thoughtful and useful ways. If you want to explore and to develop a teaching project, the work might include a brief course description, syllabus, sample assignments, and an extended explanation of one's teaching philosophy and goals. I welcome discussing other possibilities for completing this assignment. Please feel invited to confer with me during the writing process.
6. Due dates: All required work is due at the beginning of class on the due date--work turned in later will be marked late and graded accordingly. All required graded written work will be downgraded one notch (for example, B+ to B, converted to points for each assignment) for each weekday late (not just days classes meet but counting just one day for a weekend). Work more than a week late will not be accepted. I will grant short extensions for medical and family emergencies--but talk with me as soon as possible to request an extension. ALWAYS KEEP EXTRA COPIES OF YOUR WORK.
7. Attendance is required--your in class participation is a crucial part of a collective learning experience. Excellent attendance is rewarded; poor attendance is penalized. If you have no absences by the term's end (excused or not), you will receive four bonus points. With one absence you will receive two extra points. Two to three absences will not affect your semester grade. But four unexcused absences will lower your semester total by ten points with six point reductions for each additional absence (for example, five absences=minus 16 points and so on). Almost all absences will be counted--excused or not--if something extraordinary occurs, talk to me.
8. Grades: Ten Newsgroup journal entries (5 pts each, but I'll assign up to 25 points collectively for the first five, and up to 25 pts. for the last five); One Critical Response (25 points); One Summary/Critical Review (15 points); Essay 1 (100 points); Essay 2 or Critical Project (125 points). These required assignments add up to a maximum of 315 points. Thus 284-315 points equals an A, 252-283 equals a B, 221-251 equals a C, 189-220 equals a D, and anything below 189 merits an F. I shall also reserve a potential four bonus points based on my perceptions of the strength of your participation and efforts over the semester.
9. Office hours. I encourage you to confer with me--especially before assignments are due--to talk about your interests, intentions, and writing strategies. My office is not accessible to the handicapped, so please let me know if you need to meet me elsewhere. If you cannot make my regular hours, we can usually arrange another time. I also welcome communicating with you by e-mail (sflores@uidaho.edu, or just sflores if you are on any Nest machine, e.g., Raven).
10. Prospectus (approx. 450 words, single-spaced) for Essay 2--ungraded, but potentially useful and important for consulting with me on your final major assignment.
ENGLISH 456 SYLLABUS--Fall 1996
August
8/27 Dryden, Heroic Stanzas and To His Sacred Majesty (handouts)
8/29 Rochester, A Satyr Against Mankind (72); ; "Upon Nothing" (201); "The Maimed Debauchee" (87); "Love and Life" (197)
September
9/03 Rochester, "The Imperfect Enjoyment" (28); Artemisa to Chloe. A Letter from a Lady in the Town to a Lady in the Country concerning the Loves of the Town (49); A Ramble in St. James Park (31); "To the Postboy" (195)
9/05 Journal entry due; Rochester (if necessary); Dryden, Marriage a la Mode; Astraea Redux(handout)
9/10 Marriage a la Mode
9/12 Journal entry due; Marriage a la Mode
9/17 Behn, "The Disappointment" (331); "To the fair Clarinda, who made Love to me, imagined more than Woman" (343); "On Desire: a Pindaric" (344); "The Golden Age" (handout)
9/19 Behn, The Rover
9/24 Journal entry due; The Rover
9/26 The Rover; Behn, Oroonoko
October
10/01 Critical response due; Oroonoko
10/03 Journal entry due; Oroonoko
10/08 Swift, Gulliver's Travels, Part I, A Voyage to Lilliput (39-89)
10/10 GT, Part I; "Introduction: Biographical and Historical Contexts"
10/15 Essay 1 due; GT, Part I
10/17 GT, Part II, A Voyage to Brobdingnag (91-147)
10/22 Journal entry due; GT, Part II; "A Critical History of Gulliver's Travels" (269-96)
10/24 GT, Part III, A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib and Japan (149-203); Fabricant, "History, Narrativity, and Swift's Project to 'Mend the World'" (348-65)
10/29 Journal entry due; GT, Part IV, A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms (205-66); Nussbaum, "Gulliver's Malice: Gender and the Satiric Stance" (318-34)
10/31 GT; Castle, "Why the Houyhnhnms Don't Write: Swift, Satire, and the Fear of the Text" (379-95); Barash, "Violence and the Maternal: Swift, Psychoanalysis, and the 1720s" (442-64)
November
11/05 Haywood, The Distress'd Orphan
11/07 Journal entry due; Haywood, The Double Marriage
11/12 Haywood, The City Jilt
11/14 Journal entry due; Haywood continued
11/19 Pope, The Rape of the Lock
11/21 Journal entry due; The Rape of the Lock; "Epistle to Miss Blount, on her Leaving the Town after the Coronation"; recommended: "An Epistle to a Lady" and Eloisa to Abelard
11/26 Prospectus for Essay 2 due; The Dunciad, Books 1-2
December
12/03 Journal entry due; The Dunciad, Books 3-4
12/05 Swift, "The Lady's Dressing Room"; "A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed"; " The Progress of Beauty"
12/10 Swift, Cadenus and Vanessa
12/12 Essay 2 due; Swift, "Strephon and Chloe"; "Cassinus and Peter"
Click here to access the newsgroup for this course (uidaho.class.eng.456.sf). Available only to users on the UI campus, and intended for those enrolled in this class. Go to Stephan Flores' Home Page.