English 456.01    Restoration and Eighteenth Century: Desire and Exchange in the 18th-Century Novel               Spring 2016                             
Dr. Stephan Flores (sflores@uidaho.edu)                                                   
2:00pm-3:15pm Tues.-Thurs. (TR)   TLC 032                                                               
Dr. Flores's main website: http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~sflores/                                                  English Department: 885-6156
Department of English, Faculty Profile: http://www.uidaho.edu/class/english/faculty-staff/stephan-flores
Office hours: W 2:30pm-4:00 p.m. & by appt.                                            Office: Brink 125

This course focuses on four highly interesting, serious to comic novels written by men and by women, from early in the 'rise of the novel' to the end of the eighteenth century; we'll study how and why these works engage with desire, pleasure, sexuality, and gender (relations), alliances of class, status, and family, and forms of commercial and contractual exchange in public and ostensibly private spheres. We shall attend to how the novels--whose genres and tones range from dark satire and tragedy to serio-comic modes of engagement--are profoundly interested in writing itself and related processes of identification and re(con)figuration of identities and social relations. At the start of the semester, we'll look at how a short work (30 p. 'novella') by Eliza Haywood, helps to inaugurate and participates in the strands of interest evident in the four main novels. The pace of reading (and writing) is demanding but should be manageable if you are diligent and plan as best as possible.

Written work includes nine Inquiry-Starter questions/comments (200-250 words each) posted on Bblearn, a Critical Analysis (4-5 pages), a Critical Essay (5-6 pages), and a Term Essay (10-12 pages--this Term Essay can extend prior work from the Critical Analysis or the Critical Essay, or it may be about a new topic/novel. Our studies and your writing includes substantial engagement with scholarly essays on each of the primary texts and related topics and cultural/historical contexts of these novels. 

For literature and creative writing emphases, this course satisfies the 400-level course in literature before 1800 requirement; or for literature emphasis, satisfies the upper-division course in literature before 1900 requirement.

Four main novels in these specific editions:

Defoe, Daniel. Ed. Melissa Mowry. Roxana or, The Fortunate Mistress [1724] (Broadview P, 2009)
Richardson, Samuel. Clarissa: Or, The History of a Young Lady (1747-48) abridged version (Broadview Press, 2011).
Burney, Frances. Evelina; Or, A Young Lady's Entrance into the World.[1778] (Broadview P, 2000)
Edgeworth, Maria. Belinda.[1801] Ed. Kathryn J. Kirkpatrick. Oxford University Press; Reissue edition (February 15, 2009)

See much further below some blurb/notes on the main texts, to provide a notion of what these wonderful, provocative, compelling, and engaging novels are about!

Also made available by weblink in a Bblearn folder for our course, Eliza Haywood's Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze (1725). There's a wealth of secondary criticism on each of the novels and some related primary documents from the period, in folders on Bblearn.

Other secondary works on library reserve and PDF documents (including scholarly articles/essays on each of our texts) in folders/course Bblearn site.

Login to Bblearn by using your UIDAHO NetID. You can update your password at http://help.uidaho.edu/. If you haven't already, setup your NetID at www.vandalsetup.uidaho.edu. If you continue to experience problems accessing BbLearn after changing your password, please contact the ITS Help Desk by email helpdesk@uidaho.edu, or phone (208)885-HELP.
Student Help using BbLearn

Requirements:

1. Nine written Inquiry Starters: a thesis/problem-driven, question-posing response (at least 200-250 words each) informed by some aspect of the text under discussion as well as any assigned criticism/commentary (from articles that I've made available in Bblearn resource folders for the selected texts--see two examples via this weblink--these examples are for/from my Shakespeare class, but they'll give you some notion ...). Inquiry Starters present a means for you and the class to share enthusiasms and questions as you delve into the text’s significance, methods, and effects, and to learn from others' comments (a version of Graff's "They Say, I Say" exchange, see Bblearn). No late entries —Inquiry Starters are due/posted on the Bblearn discussion thread (see left side menu on Bblearn, click on that, then find appropriate thread for each IS, and post an entry and provide a "title" for your entry) before class (by 12:30 pm on the due date). Each IS posted after (or during!) class will lose four points--plan ahead to keep up with this series of focused reading and writing assignments. Come to class prepared to talk about your ISs/ideas; at times we'll spotlight individual ISs, using the projector to introduce the ISs via Bblearn to facilitate discussion, so keep in mind that you may be called upon in class to comment further upon your IS. I advise that in part, you think abou these Inquiry Starters as 'quizzes' in which you demonstrate that you've completed and reflected thoughtfully upon the assigned reading. The first IS on each novel should be focused on the novel, though your comments may be informed by secondary reading of a scholarly article; the second IS on each novel should focus on a crtitical scholarly essay on the novel from the respective Bblearn folder on the novel--the IS must include some selective summary of an argument, idea/point of analysis/interpretation that you found useful, compelling or problematic----and we'll try to avoid two much 'duplication' so that everyone is not reading the same article or book chapter. Missing or late inquiry-starter entries will be counted against your semester grade (- 4pts for each missing or late entry, see below)--be sure to be diligent in keeping track of when each IS is due.

2. A Critical Analysis of Roxana (4-5 pages, 12 pt Times New Roman font, double-spaced, 1-inch margins, due by 4pm Friday February 19th, hard copy in my mailbox in Brink 200, and electronic copy sent by email to me, in preferably in MS Word or rich text format--the latest this can be turned in late, with penalty points, is the following Tuesday at the start of class): This assignment directs you to explore a significant issue and rhetorical/theoretical strategy/topic that you identify in Roxana, to include a significant citation of and reference to at least one of the critical essays on the novel available in the Bblearn folder. Your incorporation of the secondary essay/criticism should, of course, be relevant to your topic, and thus inform your perspective in support, opposition, as point of departure, and so on. A sharply focused explanation and analysis may contain the kernel of a hypothesis that could serve as the cornerstone or shaping idea for the Term Essay. Your analysis can be quite "thesis-driven"—that is, you may find it effective to compose a thesis for your response that maps out for readers the engaging, important points that you want to develop—or you may prefer a more reflective, question and problem-posing approach. See also general advice for writing a Critical Essay. A word of caution: see guidelines about 'plagiarism/academic dishonesty' further below.

3. Critical Essay on Clarissa (6 pages, see highlighted weblink for fuller advice on writing critical essay/hard copy due Friday April 8 by 4pm---can be turned in no later than start of class the following Tuesday, with penalty points) on Clarissa, six pages for main body of essay, double-spaced (e.g. 12-pt. Times New Roman font, with one-inch margins), with reference to two scholarly articles from Bblearn folder on the novel. The primary aims of this thesis-seeking/problem-posing exploratory essay assignment is to engage with the text and its critical interpretation/reception by identifying problems, developing claims and arguments, and enriching your literary understanding, interests, and commitments. Use/learn Modern Language Association format for any notes and works cited (see, for instance, link to MLA format guidelines further below. For this assignment I encourage you to write an essay in response to one or more specific questions/problems of understanding and interpretation and to engage to some extent in the scholarly conversation and debate on Clarissa. A word of caution: as noted, see guidelines about 'plagiarism'/academic dishonesty, further below.

4. Term Essay on novel or novels (topic) of your choice (double-spaced (12 pt, Times New Roman, 1-inch margins, MLA format, approximately 10-12 pages for main body of essay), with significant reference to at least two secondary works of criticism (selected from folders on Bblearn). This critical essay develops ideas prompted by our study and discussion, by recent scholarship, and by your perspectives. I shall attend to the ways that you select, define, and engage questions and contradictions, and to the clarity, imagination, and grace that you demonstrate in presenting your topic, (hypo)thesis, and argument, and the extent to which your work engages with, explains, and contributes to the larger "conversation" of scholarship on the topic and text(s) under analysis. I do not always expect essays to conclude by "solving" such problems or by "proving" your thesis; I hope that you address interesting topics (questions for debate, interpretation, and analysis) in thoughtful and useful ways. Please feel invited to confer with me during the writing process. See also general advice for critical essays similar to prior advice on the Critical Essay that pertains as well to this Term Essay. You may be interested to write about a novel and topic different than what you addressed in your Critical Analysis and Critical Essay, particularly if you want to focus on Evelina or Belinda, or both of these novels. If you want to write about Clarissa or Roxana, you may draw upon and incorporate your prior work but the substantial, major portion of the Term Essay should be new, either an extension of your prior writing or addressing another topic and perspective (thesis) than what you presented in your Critical Analysis or Critical Essay. A word of caution: see guidelines about 'plagiarism'/academic dishonesty, further below.

5. Participation: Please take advantage of opportunities to share your insights and to listen and reply to others' ideas. I hope that questions and discussions will enable you to move the class in directions you find most helpful, give you opportunities to develop critical skills through collaboration, and provide for a productive, interesting exchange of perspectives among the class. The Inquiry Starters will prompt our discussion periodically, but you should be prepared to comment on the day's reading for every class session--that is, complete the reading and be ready to contribute to each class meeting, including periodic occaions where I'll ask you to write about (in class) some aspect of the reading under discussion for that day. A good way to prepare for each class is to take the time to write a brief note of observation to identify some issue/problem/impression about that day's reading--this is similar to what is required for the Inquiry Starters. And try to bring a piece of paper to each class meeting, in case I prompt you to do some quick, in-class writing in response to that day's assigned reading. We may form small groups from time to time primarily for discussing/sharing Inquiry Starters (as noted above). I'll see how discussion goes, but it is likely that I'll also tap each of you to initiate class discussion at least once during the semester, so that you'll have notice in advance to prepare to faciliate the conversation (typically up to 10 minutes).

6. All required work is due at the beginning of class on the due date—work turned in late will be graded accordingly. 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); note, however, that the Term Essay cannot be turned in late--it is due in class on December 12. Work submitted later than the start of the next class that follows the due date will not be accepted. I will grant short extensions for medical and personal or family emergencies—but talk with me as soon as possible to request an extension. Always keep copies of your work.

7. Attendance: One or two absences will not affect your semester point total; a third absence will lower your semester total by three points, with a three-point reduction for each additional absence (four absences=minus 6 points, five absences = minus 9 points); however, six or more absences is sufficient cause for you to receive a failing grade for the course, regardless of your semester point total. All absences will be counted—excused or not—if something extraordinary occurs, talk to me. In other words, don't miss class unless you are sick or there's an emergency.

8. Grades: Critical Analysis (50 pts); Critical Essay (100 pts); Term Essay (130 pts). These required assignments add up to a maximum of 280 points. Thus 252-280 points equals an A, 224-251 equals a B, 196-223 equals a C, 168-195 equals a D, and anything below 168 merits an F. I shall reserve a potential five bonus points based on my perceptions of the strength of your participation and efforts over the semester; incomplete or missing discussion-starter entries will be counted against your semester grade, with the loss of four points for each missing or incomplete entry, to a maximum loss of 36 points.

9. Office hours. I encourage you to confer with me—especially before assignments are due—to talk about your interests, intentions, and writing strategies. If you cannot make my regular hours (in Brink 125), we’ll arrange another time. I also welcome communicating with you by E-mail (sflores@uidaho.edu).

10. Use of laptops and cell phones during class is prohibited; occasional use of laptops—typically for group work and to access the online components of the class—may be permitted with instructor’s approval.

11. Do not submit work for this class that you have submitted or intend to submit for a grade in another course; as always, be careful to cite anyone else's work that you draw upon. See highlighted link on the class website to a useful guide to avoiding plagiarism, and a link to information on the university's policies regarding plagiarism. University of Idaho Guidelines on Academic Dishonesty (including plagiarism). As noted above, I have provided secondary scholarly articles in Bblearn folders for all texts (also contexts). I expect that if you decide to draw upon any other articles/resources that are in addition to the required minimum sources from the Bblearn folders, you will request permission from me before submitting the assignment.

12. Classroom Learning and Civility: To support learning and discovery in this course—as in any university course—it is essential that each member of the class feel as free and as safe as possible in his or her participation. To this end, we must collectively expect that everyone (students, professors, and guests) seek to be respectful and civil to one another in discussion, in action, in teaching, and in learning. Because knowledge and learning are constructed and construed through social inquiry and exchange, it is vital that course dialogue and debate encourage and expect a substantial range of reasoned, expressive, and impassioned articulation of diverse views in order to build a stronger understanding of the materials and of one another's ways of knowing. These practices strengthen our capacities for understanding and the production of (new) knowledge. As with the critical writing assignments for this class, our primary aims include engaging with texts and their varied critical interpretations by identifying problems, developing claims and arguments with supporting lines of evidence and explanation, and enriching our literary understanding, interests, and commitments.

Should you feel our classroom interactions do not reflect an environment of civility and respect, you are encouraged to meet with me during office hours to discuss your concern. Additional resources for expression of concern and avenues of support include the chair of the Department of English, Dr. Scott Slovic, the Dean of Students office and staff (5-6757), the UI Counseling & Testing Center’s confidential services (5-6716), or the UI Office of Human Rights, Access, & Inclusion (5-4285).

13. Disability Support Services: Reasonable accommodations are available for students who have documented temporary or permanent disabilities. All accommodations must be approved through Disability Support Services (885-6307; dss@uidaho.edu; www.uidaho.edu/dss) located in the Idaho Commons Building, Room 306 in order to notify your instructor(s) as soon as possible regarding accommodation(s) needed for the course.

Schedule/Syllabus; If we fall behind, then on occasion we may defer or spill over discussion to next day, and adjust accordingly--be sure to have read--at minimum--the assigned pages from the before that class meeting, and any other assigned scholarly criticism. As noted above, it's very important to keep track of the due dates for all work, including the nine Inquiry Starters.

Evaluation/Assessment Rubric for Instructor's Written Responses to Critical Essay and Term Essay, with check mark along a scale of Excellent to Weak, with specific comments to supplement comments/feedback on the texts of the essays themselves:

Rubric for Initial Criteria for Evaluating Critical Writing/Essays:   Excellent          Very Good-Good          Competent-Fair          Weak
Note: Ultimately the evaluation of your work is holistic,
and therefore also intends to register the different, nuanced,
unexpected and evocative effects of your analysis,
exploration, creative expression/affect, and engagement
with learning and discovery.

1. Strength and clarity of (hypo)thesis/focus/introduction

2. Intellectual/conceptual strength and persuasiveness of
main claim as well as ensuing argument/logic/premises/
critical analysis/theory/ideas         

3. Cohesive and coherent development, logical
 organization, including well-structured paragraphs with
clear points and compelling, specific support/evidence

4. Analysis of text’s/topic’s relevant cultural/historical
 contexts and if specified, of related scholarship/criticism;
analysis of text’s rhetorical/persuasive strategies, structure

5. Topic’s depth/complexity, including explanation of
problem to be addressed, recognition of text’s
conflicts/contradictions (ideological/rhetorical),
creativity and sense of discovery/affective engagement
conveyed—the articulated sense of “what’s at stake, why
 all of it matters”

6. Significance/ conclusion

7. Effective sentences, syntax, verbs, diction,
punctuation, complexity, and suitable style: academic,
critical, appropriate to your understanding of the
materials/subjects

8. MLA style—parenthetical citation of sources,
Works Cited; formatting; spelling ungraded but noted

University of Idaho Guidelines on Academic Dishonesty (including plagiarism)

Lessons on Style (general advice/quited dated handout but perhaps worth looking over) [pdf]

Quick Advice on Punctuation (also dated) [pdf]

Summary/Overview of Perspectives on Critical Theory

Full text of Clarissa online (Third ed., 1751) --see also weblink within Bblearn folder on Clarissa

Adam Yaghi's Summary/Response to Lois Bueler's chapter on Clarissa (from past course on full novel)

Clarissa bibliography/resources

Richardson's Revisions

Some ongoing page notes to Clarissa (keeping track of stuff, I will update this soon with page references to our abridged edition)

Other possibilities for abridged path/guide to Clarissa (for anyone who at some point wishes to 'tackle' the full novel but leaving room for own abridgements)

See below some blurb/notes on the main texts, to provide a notion of what these wonderful, provocative, compelling, and engaging novels are about!:

[on Roxana]: Roxana (1724), Defoe's last and darkest novel, is the autobiography of a woman who has traded her virtue, at first for survival, and then for fame and fortune. Its narrator tells the story of her own "wicked" life as the mistress  of rich and powerful men. Endowed with many seductive skills, she is herself seduced: by money, by dreams of rank, and by the illusion that she can escape her own past.  

Almost three hundred years after its first publication, Roxana continues to challenge readers, who, though compelled by Roxana's story, are often baffled by her complex relationships to her children, her fortune, and her vices. As one of Daniel Defoe's four major fictions, Roxana has long been understood as central to the history of the novel, and provides readers with Defoe's sharpest and most specific commentary on the complexities of life in seventeenth-century London. This edition offers a range of contemporary documents that will help readers understand the struggles of Roxana's life as series of metaphoric engagements with pressing issues of her time.

"The introduction details Roxana's place in Defoe's career and the ways the novel evokes his Dissenter politics, while also shedding new light on the novel's imbrication in debates about political sovereignty, feminism, and prostitution. . . . the inclusion of some of the alternate endings written for Roxana, along with a brief reception history of Defoe's work, invites speculation about changes in the representation of gender and sexuality over the course of the long eighteenth century in Britain." - Scarlet Bowen, University of Colorado

[on Clarissa]: Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an untrustworthy rake whose vague promises of marriage are accompanied by unwelcome and increasingly brutal sexual advances. And yet, Clarissa finds his charm alluring, her scrupulous sense of virtue tinged with unconfessed desire. Told through a complex series of interweaving letters, Clarissa is a richly ambiguous study of a fatally attracted couple and a work of astonishing power and immediacy. A huge success when it first appeared in 1747, and translated into French and German, it remains one of the greatest of all European novels.

This classic novel tells the story, in letters, of the beautiful and virtuous Clarissa Harlowe's pursuit by the brilliant, unscrupulous rake Robert Lovelace. The epistolary structure allows Richardson to create layered and fully realized characters, as well as an intriguing uncertainty about the reliability of the various "narrators." Clarissa emerges as a heroine at once rational and passionate, self-sacrificing and defiant, and her story has gripped readers since the novel's first publication in 1747-1748. This new abridgment is designed to retain the novel's rich characterizations and relationships, and reproduces individual letters in their entirety whenever possible. This Broadview Edition provides a uniquely accessible entry point for readers, while retaining much of the powerful reading experience of the complete novel.

"Clarissa is one of the towering masterpieces of the eighteenth century, and it is impossible to understand the literature of the period and the rise of the novel without it." - Thomas Keymer, University of Toronto

"Arguably the best novel published in Great Britain in the eighteenth century and an undisputed landmark of European literature . . . . this edition makes Richardson's masterpiece accessible to twenty-first century students." - Albert J. Rivero, Marquette University

The Guardian newspaper compiled a list of the 100 greatest novels, with Clarissa listed at #6 with this comment: "One of the longest novels in the English language, but unputdownable."

[on Evelina]: Evelina, comic and shrewd, is at once a guide to fashionable London, a satirical attack on the new consumerism, an investigation of women's position in the late eighteenth century, and a love story.

The reputation of Frances Burney (1752-1840) was largely established with her first novel, Evelina. Published anonymously in 1778, it is an epistolary account of a sheltered young woman's entrance into society and her experience of family. Its comedy ranges from the violent practical joking reminiscent of Smollett's fiction to witty repartee that influenced Austen.
Evelina remains, quite simply, the most accomplished and insouciant comic novel written by an Englishwoman before Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and coruscates anew in the handsome presentation it is given here." - Terry Castle, Stanford University

[on Belinda]:

The lively comedy of this novel in which a young woman comes of age amid the distractions and temptations of London high society belies the challenges it poses to the conventions of courtship, the dependence of women, and the limitations of domesticity. Contending with the perils and the varied cast of characters of the marriage market, Belinda strides resolutely toward independence. Admired by her contemporary, Jane Austen, and later by Thackeray and Turgenev, Edgeworth tackles issues of gender and race in a manner at once comic and thought-provoking. The 1802 text used in this edition also confronts the difficult and fascinating issues of racism and mixed marriage, which Edgeworth toned down in later editions.