Winter 2003

This information effective for Winter 2003. Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.

British Literature

[LTBR-104A]

104A. Reading the Traditional Canon

Winter 2003
Instructor: Jody Greene
jgreene@ucsc.edu
Office Hours: TBA

Syllabus

Textbooks: Available at the Bay Tree Bookstore

1. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, seventh edition, Vol. 1
   
2. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms
   
3. Reader (You’ll need this for the first week of class)
   

Requirements:

1. Regular and prompt attendance at all lectures and section meetings. More than one unexcused absence from section will constitute grounds for assignment of extra work, and more than two absences are grounds for failure. We will keep track of attendance at lecture, and attendance will be factored into the final assessment.
   
2. Prompt and satisfactory completion of assignments.
   
3. Satisfactory completion of midterm and final exams.
   
4. Short quizzes or free writes assigned at the discretion of the section leader.
   

Assignments:

1. Papers: 2 short writing assignments (3-4 pages) due January 31 and March 5.
   
2. A midterm (February 10) and a final. Both exams should present little difficulty to any student who has kept up with the essential reading and has attended class regularly.
   

Course Description:

The main objective of this course is to introduce students to a considerable body of English literature. I conceive the course as primarily serving sophomores and juniors, students at an early stage of the major for whom extensive exposure to a large amount of material should prove useful. The reading list is ample and, at times, quite demanding. My treatment of the material varies from detailed attention to certain isolated works to superficial commentary on others. This course does not aim for deep exploration of every work; rather it exposes you to a lot of material from which you can choose subjects of future study.

Sections:

Sections will be posted after class Monday, January 6. The first section meetings will occur in the week beginning January 6.

The following rules will govern the prompt submission of assignments to section leaders. Papers are due on January 31 and March 5 and are to be submitted promptly on each day. Should a student for any reason be unable to submit a paper on the specific day, s/he may negotiate an extension with the instructor, not the section leader, in advance and never by e-mail. The maximum extension will be four days and the student’s evaluation will reflect the lateness of the paper. Any student who does not negotiate the extension, or having negotiated it, fails to submit the paper by (paper 1) 2/2 or (paper 2) 3/9, shall have automatically failed the course.

Schedule of Readings and Assignments

Week 1. Friday, January 3: General Introduction.

Monday, January 6: The Middle Ages.
Background: "The Persistence of English," pp. xlvii-lxi
"The Middle Ages to ca. 1485," pp. 1-14
Reading: John Guillory, "Canon" (*1)
Marie de France, pp. 126-127; 140-141
ODLT: Canon, Courtly Love, Fable, Lai

Week 2.

Wednesday, January 8: Chaucer.
Reading: Chaucer, pp. 210-215
General Prologue, lines 1-310; 447-478; 717-860
Dryden, on Chaucer, pp. 2121-2122

Friday, January 10: Chaucer.
Reading: The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, pp.253-272

Monday, January 13: Chaucer
Reading: The Wife of Bath’s Tale, pp.272-281
Close of Tales and Chaucer’s Retraction, pp. 310-313
"To His Scribe Adam," pp. 315-316
"Complaint to His Purse," p. 316
ODLT: Complaint, Lyric

Week 3

Wednesday, January 15: Sixteenth-Century Lyric
Background: "The Sixteenth Century," pp. 469-490
Versification (*3)
Reading: Wyatt, pp. 525-527; 533-537
Surrey, pp. 569-571; 574-575
ODLT: Petrarchan, Renaissance, Sonnet

Friday, January 17: Songs and Sonnets: Sidney and Mary Sidney Herbert
Reading: Sidney, pp. 909-911
Astrophil and Stella #1, 15, 20, 31, 39, 71, 74, pp. 916-927
"Leave Me, O Love," p. 933
Mary Sidney Herbert, pp. 957-960
ODLT: Apology

Week 4. Monday, January 20. **Administrative Holiday**

Wednesday, January 22: The Defense Paper — Paper Topics Handed Out
Reading: Sidney, from The Defense of Poesy, pp. 933-954
ODLT: Apology

Friday, January 24: Songs and Sonnets: Queen Elizabeth, Shakespeare, Wroth
Reading: Queen Elizabeth, pp. 593-595
Shakespeare, pp. 1026-1028
Sonnets #15, 18, 20, 35, 94, 129, 130, 138, 144, pp. 1029-1043
Wroth, pp. 1422-1423, 1428-1432

Monday, January 27: Pastoral
Reading: Virgil, First Eclogue (*4)
Spenser, pp. 614-22
Ralegh, pp. 878-879
Marlowe, pp. 970-971, 989-990
Rochester, "Song" and "Song to Cloris" (*5)
Swift, "Pastoral Dialogue" and "Cassinus and Peter" (*6)
ODLT: Convention, Eclogue, Parody, Pastoral, Travesty

Wednesday, January 29: The Faerie Queene, an Elizabethan epic/romance.
Reading: Spenser, pp.622-41
ODLT: Allegory, Epic, Romance

Friday, January 31: The Faerie Queene, cont.
Paper One Due
Reading: "The Faerie Queene," pp. 783-800

Monday, February 3: 17th Century Lyric Poetry: Donne's Love Poetry.
Background: "The Early Seventeenth Century," pp. 1209-1220
Reading: Donne, pp. 1233-1236 ("The Flea"); 1239-1241 ("The Indifferent"; "The Canonization")
Carew, pp. 1656-1658, 1660-1664
Johnson, pp. 2736-2738
ODLT: Conceit, Metaphysical Poets

Wednesday, February 5: Donne, cont.
Reading: Donne: assorted poems
"The Good Morrow," "The Sun Rising," "Break of Day"
"Air and Angels," p. 1243; "Love’s Alchemy," p. 1245
"The Apparition," pp. 1247-1248;
"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," pp. 1248-1249
"Elegy 19: To His Mistress," pp. 1256-1257
Ralegh, pp. 885-887

Friday, February 7: 17th Century Lyric Poetry: Religious Poetry.
Reading: Donne, Holy Sonnets #10 and 14, pp.1270, 1271
Donne, ""The Language of God", pp. 1278-1279
Herbert, pp. 1595-1602, and Love (3), pp. 1614-1615
Crashaw, "The Flaming Heart" pp. 1640-43
Bernini, Saint Teresa (*9)
Smart, from Jubilate Agno, pp. 2839-2842

Monday, February 10: Midterm Exam

Wednesday, February 12: 17th Century Lyric Poetry: The Social Mode.
Reading: Jonson, pp. 1292-1303; 1393-1401; 1414-1421
Lanyer, pp. 1281-1282, 1287-1292.
ODLT: Country House Poem, Masque.

Friday, February 14: Milton, Revolution, and Poetic Vocation
Reading: Milton, pp. 1771-1774
"On the Morning," pp. 1774-1782
"How Soon Hath Time," p. 1811
"When I Consider," p. 1814"
Matthew 25: 14-30 and Matthew 20: 1-14 (*10)
Milton, "Reason of Church Government," pp. 1796-1801
Cavendish, pp. 1759-1760
ODLT: Anxiety of Influence, Muse

Monday, February 17: **Administrative Holiday**

Wednesday, February 19: Revolutionary Prose
Background: The Revolutionary Era, pp. 1220-1232
Reading: Milton, "Areopagitica," pp. 1801-1811

Friday, February 21: Milton, Paradise Lost — Paper Topics Handed Out
Reading: Paradise Lost, Book 1, ll. 1-330; 622-end
Book 2, ll. 629-897
Genesis 2-3 (*11)
ODLT: Blank Verse, Epic, Epic Simile

Monday, February 24: Paradise Lost, continued.
Reading: Paradise Lost, Book 4, pp. 1874-1890
Book 12, ll. 466-end
Lanyer, pp. 1282-1287

Wednesday, February 26: Satire
Reading: Rochester, "A Satire on Charles II" (*14)
Dryden, pp. 2120-2121
Swift, pp. 2298-2299, "A Modest Proposal," pp. 2473-2479
ODLT: Horatian Satire, Juvenalian Satire, Satire,

Friday, February 28: The Augustans and Wit
Background: Eighteenth-Century Literature, pp. 2060-2070
Reading: Dryden, pp. 2119-2120
Addison, pp. 2494-2498
Pope, pp. 2505-2513
ODLT: Augustan Age, Classicism, Decorum, Neoclassicism, Wit

Monday, March 3: Debating Women: Pope v. Finch (and Irwin)
Reading: Finch, pp. 2291-2293
Debating Women, 2584-2585; 2590-2603

Wednesday, March 5: Debating Women, Debating Satire: Swift v Montagu
Writing Assignment due: 3-4 page paper
Reading: Montagu, pp. 2579-2583
Swift and Montagu, pp. 2585-2590
Swift, 3 "misogynist" poems (*15)
Mary Collier, "The Woman’s Labour" (*17)

Friday, March 7: Samuel Johnson and the Profession of Literature
Reading: Johnson, pp. 2660-2662, 2677-2678, 2712-2715; 2719-2727

Monday, March 10: Slavery and Sensibility
Reading: Slavery and Freedom, pp. 2806-2817
Poems by Wheatley, Cowper, More, and Equiano (*16)
ODLT: Sensibility

Wednesday, March 12: Sensibility
Reading: Gray, pp. 2825-2833
Collins, pp. 2833-2837
ODLT: Graveyard Poetry, Romanticism

Friday, March 14
Reading: Goldsmith, Letter to the Editor (*18)
Goldsmith, pp. 2857-2867
Crabbe, pp. 2867-2874

Final Exam ** TBA **