British Literature- Winter 1998

This course has been offered over the years as both English Literature 100A and more recently as Pre and early Modern Literature 166.

The title describes the course accurately: it is primarily a study of works that have been traditionally associated with the idea of a canon of English Literature from Chaucer (late 14c.) to Cowper (d. 1800), but it also concerns the act of reading what has come to be known as the "canon." As such it provides a broad foundation for the study of earlier English literature. But it can also prove invaluable to students of later British and American literature and of Creative Writing by guiding them through many of the works that post-1800 writers and readers knew and know well.

The textbook is the Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume One, because its broad adoption throughout US colleges in its various forms since the early Sixties has given it a status in which it can be seen as contributing to defining what is and is not considered canonical (it has been revised significantly since it first appeared). I supplement the Norton with other material that I shall put on reserve in the library, material written primarily by women in the period but not as yet included in the Norton, works which challenge the idea of "canon"; two years ago that material was in a reader, but the cost was unreasonable, and I shall continue to experiment with this alternative this year.

The course is a survey course and has all the virtues and vices of a survey. Students read a lot of material relatively rapidly. Lectures focus on particular writers, works, and genres; despite the survey mode there is a lot of attention to individual texts. Students will read Chaucer (from The Canterbury Tales), Elizabethan sonneteers (Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare) and pastoral and epic verse (Spenser), some of the the 17c. lyric poets (Wroth, Lanier, Donne, Jonson, Herbert, Marvell, Behn), Milton, 17c. prose writers (Bacon, Bunyan), Dryden, 18c. poets (Finch, Pope, Montagu, Goldsmith, Cowper, Burns), 18c. essayists (Addison, Johnson); and many others. Lectures address not just the interpretation of the texts but also the changes in forms and tastes in poetry and prose, the historical contexts of the works' production, and the physical nature of their publication; sections will provide the opportunity for intense study of particular works in smaller groups. At the end of the course the student should have a good foundation for further study in the period.

Students should have taken the lower division requirements of the major before enrolling; freshpersons are not admitted. LTBR 104 is an excellent course for students in their sophomore or junior years; it is particulary good as a first upper division course in the major. It is an especially valuable course for students contemplating graduate school in any English language literature, for students contemplating becoming high school teachers, and for students expecting to go on EAP to UK/I to study literature.

Two five-page papers, a midterm, and a final.

This course will provide extensive knowledge of the literary productions of twentieth-century Britain in all of the major genres. We will read poetry (by W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, W. H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin, and others), fiction (by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, and Lawrence), and dramas (by Bernard Shaw and Tom Stoppard) in order to examine their treatment of national identity and world war; sexuality and the cult of the body; mass culture, modernism, and the social role of the artist. The focus will be on the close reading of literary texts, although the course will offer historical background and introduce recent theoretical and critical works that have been particularly influential in the study of the period. Students will prepare rigorously for and participate avidly in each class meeting; read and compose brief commentaries on works of literary and cultural theory; and produce an innovative, elegant research paper of ten pages. Required primary texts, in the order in which we will read them, are:

Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy, ed. Dan H. Laurence (London: Penguin, 1957) [ISBN 0-14-045019-X]

M.H. Abrams et al., eds., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 6th ed., vol.2 (New York: Norton, 1993). [ISBN 0-393-96290-3]

Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room (San Diego: Harvest-Harcourt, 1978) [ISBN 0-15-6453742-3]

Inquires welcome at Kresge 174,

T Th 4-5 pm (during fall 1997 quarter)

* a three unit course *

A close reading of Dickens's Dombey and Son (1846-48) with special attention to its narrative form and historical context. This three-unit course will meet once a week for an hour and a half. Enrollment is limited to twenty students and restricted to literature majors only. Requirements include leading discussion during one class meeting and completing a ten-page paper by the end of the term. Reading assignments will follow the original serial format of the novel.

Note: except under extraordinary circumstances, no Incompletes will be permitted in this course.

In this graduate seminar, the following novels will be read in social, historical, critical and theoretical contexts: Elizabeth Gaskell, MARY BARTON, W. Collins, WOMAN IN WHITE, G. Eliot, DANIEL DERONDA, G, Meredith, THE EGOIST, R. Haggard, SHE, G. Gissing, THE ODD WOMAN, O. Wilde, THE PORTRAIT OF DORIAN GREY, T. Hardy, JUDE THE OBSCURE, D. H. Lawrence, WOMEN IN LOVE. MARY BARTON will be discussed at the FIRST seminar meeting. Students who intend to take the course, should contact the instructor for a list of secondary readings.

Revised 7/12/04.