British Literature - Spring 1998

• Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent (Signet Classics)
• E.M. Forster, A Passage to India (Harvest Books)
• Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (Harvest Books)
• D. H. Lawrence, Portable D. H. Lawrence Viking Penguin.
• James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist (Signet Classics)
• Joyce Cary, The Horse's Mouth Harper
• Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat & Dust Simon & Schuster

• D.H.Lawrence, Sons & Lovers (Signet Classics)
• Hana Wirth-Nesher, City Codes, Johns Hopkins University Press

Week 1. Introduction. The English novel in the 20th century, literary history, and the question of modernism.

Week 2. Conrad's City. The Secret Agent.

Film: The Secret Agent, Nostromo

Week 3. Empire, Home, Intimacy. London as a world city. Conrad & Forster. A Passage to India

Film: A Room With A View

Week 4. Urban & Other Landscapes: Forster's panoramas. Paper: On Conrad & Forster, 3 - 5 pages

Film: A Passage to India

Week 5. The City of Inner Lives: Class & Virginia Woolf. Mrs Dalloway

Film: Orlando

Week 6. The City of Inner Lives: Class & Eros via D. H. Lawrence. Portable D.H. Lawrence, Selections

Film: Women in Love

Week 7. The City of the Artist: James Joyce; Portrait of the Artist

Film: The Dead Paper: on Woolf, Lawrence, & Joyce, 4 - 6 pages.

Week 8. Artist of the City: Joyce Cary The Horse's

Mouth Film: The Horse's Mouth

Week 9. Immigrants, Empire, & the City. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat & Dust

Film: Heat & Dust

Week 10. Conclusion: PostModernism, the English Novel, & the 21st Century.

Final Paper. 10 pages.

In this senior seminar students will read five or six plays from the period 1576 (the building of The Theatre) to 1642 (the closing of the playhouses by government action). The syllabus will certainly include plays by Marlowe, Jonson, Middleton, and Ford; there will be a play by a fifth author, probably John Webster, but I have not yet made a decision.

The course will focus on two main subjects: first, the relation of text and performance (then and now), especially with regard to the stages of the period; and second, the theory and practice of editing in relation to the printed texts of the period, and to our current editions.

Since this is a senior seminar, enrollment is limited to 22 students. Each student will be required to complete a substantial major writing project (at least 25 pages) which will consist of an extensive study of a particular play of the period (not one of those which we shall study together); some assigned exercises will make up part of that project.

Since the particular habits of editors and the distinctive qualities of editions are a subject of the course it is essential that all students work from the following editions, all paperback and all to be ordered by The Literary Guillotine on Locust Street:

• Marlowe, Christopher. Tamburlaine the Great. Ed. J. D. Jump. University of Nebraska Press.
• Jonson, Ben. Three Comedies. Ed. Michael Jamieson. Penguin. (We shall study Volpone in this edition)
• Middleton, Thomas. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. Ed. Alan Brissenden. Norton (New Mermaid Edition).
• Ford, John. 'Tis Pity She's A Whore. Ed. N. W. Bawcutt. University of Nebraska Press.
• Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage. 3rd edition (1992). Cambridge U. P.
• McGann, Jerome J. A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism. U. Press of Virginia.
• Tanselle, G. Thomas. A Rationale of Textual Criticism. U. of Pennsylvania Press.

Revised 7/13/04.