British Literature - Fall 1998

Sense and Sensuality introduces students to a set of problems central to eighteenth-century literature, moral philosophy, and political thought: what is the relationship between self-interest and the public good? Does the body drive human appetitiveness, or do "higher" values, like reason, commerce, and familial love? Is property necessary to the good ordering of society, and what does it mean to have "property rights"? What is the relationship between the physical "senses" and such popular eighteenth-century notions as "common sense," "good sense," and "sensibility"? Why is it that for every human emotion that seems to contribute to the welfare of the nation (affection, ambition, individualism), there is a darker "Passion," (lust, envy, greed) that defies "Reason"? When does national "prosperity" spill over into "luxury"? What are the consequences for masculinity of the eighteenth-century's emphasis on the cultivation of "feeling" and the decline of classical models of heroism and masculine achievement? And are the new "liberties" (consumer, professional" available to women productive for or antithetical to an emergent feminist ideology?

This class is not a survey of eighteenth-century literature; rather, it offers the opportunity to explore in detail one theme--the relationship between reason and human passions or appetites--running through the period's literature (and to a lesser extent, philosophy and political theory). No prior experience with eighteenth-century literature will be assumed. Although the works under study range from 1679 to 1798, the class will focus most closely on works written between 1700 and 1750; hence, the course fulfills the pre-1750/ pre- and early modern requirement of the literature department.

After an introduction to the period's history and political thought, we will read excerpts from philosophical texts by Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Hume, and Burke, in addition to novels by Defoe, Cleland, Mackenzie, and Wollstonecraft. We will also read Rousseau's Discourse on the Origins of Inequality and Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman. At least one play will be included on the syllabus, along with poetry by Rochester, Thomson, Collins, and Gray. A secondary work, G.J. Barker-Benfield's "The Culture of Sensibility," will help introduce students to the historical and cultural background of each writer, and we will return to it periodically throughout the term. Students will be expected to attend class, participate in discussions, answer assigned reading questions, and write three papers of approximately five pages. There will be a final examination. In all of these exercises, close reading will be emphasized alongside a broader cultural, aesthetic, literary, and historical survey of the problem of "sense and sensuality" in the eighteenth century.

This senior seminar will focus on the issue of text for performance in relation to the four Roman plays of Shakespeare: Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Titus Andronicus. Students will study the plays as performance texts (with some attention to film and video versions), but in the context of learning about the history of the texts, the current theoretical arguments about the nature of editing, and the practice of the editors in the editions assigned.

Although most students will probably possess copies of these plays already, I intend to make some specific very recent editions the objects of study; other previously acquired copies will be useful for acts of comparison, but the assigned texts will be required.

Since this is a senior seminar, enrollment is limited to 22 students. Some prior experience of studying or performing Shakespeare is desirable but not essential. Each student will be required to complete a substantial major writing project appropriate to a senior seminar (about 25 pages); some assigned exercises will make up part of that project.

Books will be ordered through The Literary Guillotine, and will include:

• William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, ed. David Bevington (The Cambridge Shakespeare, 1990)
• ________________, Coriolanus, ed. R. B. Parker (the Oxford Shakespeare, 1994)
• ________________, Julius Caesar, ed. A. R. Humphreys (The Oxford Shakespeare, 1984)
• ________________, Titus Andronicus, ed. Jonathan Bate (The New Arden Shakespeare, 1995)
• McDonald, Russ, The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: an Introduction with Documents
• Jerome McGann, A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism
• G. Thomas Tanselle, A Rationale of Textual Criticism
• There may be a reader assigned for the course. Additional material may be provided by xerox.

Revised 7/19/04.