Syllabus for English 202-E
Survey of British Literature II
Spring 2008

 

Instructor:

Dr. Little

Office:

232 Belk Hall

Telephone:

(864) 379-8849

E-mail:

little@erskine.edu

Office Hours:

11:00 AM-12:00 PM on MWF

 

l:30-4:30 PM on TuTh

Required Texts:

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. II,  8th ed.

 

Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte, ed. V. S. Pritchett

 

Major Barbara, G. B. Shaw, Penguin edition

 

Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett

Recommended
Web Site:

 Voice of the Shuttle

 


 

Catalog Description:

Prerequisite: 102.  A chronological survey of the major works and writers in British literature from the Romantic through the Modern periods.


 

Course Goals:

The chief course goal is for the student to become familiar with the masterpieces of British literature from the Romantic through the Victorian and Modern periods.  Additional goals include the student's becoming conversant with literary types, forms, and styles as well as gaining an appreciation of his/her cultural heritage as it is expressed through literature.  The works selected for study will be some of the best and most representative poems, plays, stories, and novels drawn from the three periods of literary history covered in the course.  To achieve the desired course goals, emphasis in study will be placed upon literary theory, i.e. the ars poetica of each writer as it is reflected in specific works of literature, and also upon critical analysis.  The student will become acquainted with additional works of fiction and drama not included in the required texts through the preparation of one collateral reading report. 


 

Grading:

Grades will be based on study questions and classroom participation (10%), 3 quizzes (20%), 1 essay (10%), 2 exams (20% each), 1 collateral reading report (10%), and 1 oral report (10%). 


      

Grade Scale:

A=100-90, B=89-80, C=79-70, D=69-60, F=50.


 

Jan. 30

Introduction to the Course: Syllabus and Background for the Romantic Period (1785-1830).

 

Feb. 1

"The Romantic Period (1785-1830)" in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. II, pp. l-22; Blake, pp. 76-79, 81-97.  Focus on "Introduction," p. 81; "The Lamb," p. 83; "Introduction," p. 87; and "The Tyger," p. 92.  Write 10 study questions and their answers for each class assignment.

 

Feb. 4

Blake: "Holy Thursday," p. 86 and "Holy Thursday," p. 90; "London," p. 94; "The Garden of Love," p. 94; "Ah, Sun-flower," p. 93; and "The Sick Rose," p. 91.

 

Feb. 6

Wordsworth: "Introduction," pp. 243-245; "Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1802)," pp. 262-274; "Tintern Abbey," pp. 258-262.

 

Feb. 8

Wordsworth: "Ode: Intimations of Immortality," pp. 306-312.

 

Feb. 11

Wordsworth: The Prelude, pp. 322-324, 331-336, 343-347, 385-389, 378-381.

 

Feb. 13

Essay #l (on Blake and Wordsworth).  Video: The Worship of Nature from Civilization: A Personal View by Sir Kenneth Clark.

 

Feb. 15

Coleridge: "Introduction," pp. 424-426; Biographia Literaria, pp. 474-483; "Kubla Khan," pp. 446-448.

 

Feb. 18

Coleridge: "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," pp. 430-446.

 

Feb. 20

Coleridge: "The Eolian Harp," pp. 426-428; "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison," pp. 428-430; "Frost at Midnight," pp. 464-466.

 

Feb. 22

Quiz #1 (on Romantic Period, Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge).

 

Feb. 25

Keats: "Introduction," pp. 878-880, 940-955; "Ode to a Nightingale," pp. 903-905, "Ode on a Grecian Urn." pp. 905-907.

 

Feb. 27

Keats: "Ode on Melancholy," pp. 907-908; "To Autumn," pp. 925-926.

 

Feb. 29

Keats: "La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad," pp. 899-900; "The Eve of St. Agnes," pp. 888-898.

 

Mar. 3

Bronte: "Introduction," in Norton, pp. 1311.  Wuthering Heights (first half of the novel--to the death of Catherine Earnshaw Linton).

 

Mar. 5

Bronte: Wuthering Heights (second half of the novel).

 

Mar. 7

Bronte: Wuthering Heights.

 

Mar. 10

Mid-term  Exam

 

Mar. 12

"The Victorian Age (1830-1901)," pp. 979-999; Tennyson: "Introduction," pp. 1109-1112; "Ulysses," pp. 1123-1125; "Tithonus," pp. 1125-1126.

 

Mar. 14

Tennyson: "The Lotos-Eaters," pp. 1119-1123; "The Lady of Shalott," pp. 1114-1118.

 

Mar. 17

Browning: "Introduction," pp. 1248-1252; "My Last Duchess," pp. 1255-1256; "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister," pp. 1253-1255.

 

Mar. 19

Browning: "Andrea del Sarto," pp. 1280-1286; "Fra Lippo Lippi," pp. 1271-1280

 

 

 

SPRING BREAK

 

Mar. 31

Browning: "The Bishop Orders His Tomb," pp. 1259-1262; "Rabbi Ben Ezra," pp. 1305-1310.

 

Apr. 2

Quiz #2 (on The Victorian Age, Tennyson, and Browning)

 

Apr. 4

Arnold: "Introduction," pp. 1350-1354; "Dover Beach," pp. 1368-1369; "To Marguerite--Continued," pp. 1355-1356.

 

Apr. 7

Arnold: "The Buried Life," pp. 1356-1358; "The Scholar Gypsy," pp. 1361-1367.

 

Apr. 9

Collateral Reading Report Due.  Video: Heroic Materialism from Civilization: A Personal View by Sir Kenneth Clark.

 

Apr. 11

Hopkins: "Introduction," pp. 1513-1516; "God's Grandeur," pp. 1516; "The Windhover," pp. 1518; "Spring and Fall: to a young child," pp. 1521; "Pied Beauty," p. 1518.

 

Apr. 14

Hopkins continued.

 

Apr. 16

Shaw: "Introduction," in Norton, pp. 1743-1746; Major Barbara, Acts I and II.

 

Apr. 18

Shaw: Major Barbara, Act III.

 

Apr. 21

Shaw: Major Barbara, videotaape.

 

Apr. 23

Quiz #3 (on Arnold, Hopkins, and Shaw).

 

Apr. 25

"The Twentieth Century," pp. 1827-1847; Joyce: "The Dead," pp. 2163-2168, 2172-2199.

 

Apr. 28

Joyce continued.

 

Apr. 30

Yeats: "Introduction," pp. 2019-2022; "Sailing to Byzantium," pp. 2040; "Among School Children," pp. 2041-2042.

 

May 2

Eliot: " Introduction," pp. 2286-2289; "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," pp. 2289-2293.

 

May 5

Beckett: "Introduction," pp. 2393-2394 in Norton; Waiting for Godot.

May 7

Beckett continued.


 

                                                               


 

Policies

I. 

Attendance and participation in class discussions are requirements of the course.  If a student has a legitimate absence, he or she is still responsible for the material discussed in class and for written assignments missed.  Each student will be limited to three unexcused absences. Six or more absences of any kind (excused or unexcused) will result in either a reduction of his or her final grade by at least one letter or failure of the course.

II. 

Essays and Other Written Assignments

 

A. For exams, put your name, the course name , and the date on the first page. Write on both sides of the page.  Blue books will be used for assignments (except quizzes) written in class.

 

B. For essays prepared outside of class, write a title page, an outline, and five typed pages of text.  Use the form recommended in The Bedford Handbook on pp. 667-697.  The essays required in this course are not research assignments.  They are critical analyses that do not require documentation of secondary sources.  A student will need to support his or her ideas with quotations from primary sources.  These quotations should be documented.

 

C. All written assignments must be handed in for you to pass the course.

 

D. Late Assignments: A student has one week beyond the due date to turn in a late assignment.  His or her grade will be reduced by one letter grade unless he or she has a legitimate excuse.  Any assignment turned in later than the allowed extension will receive a zero.  The number of extensions may be limited at the instructor's discretion.

III. 

No incomplete will be offered unless the student has consulted the instructor before the end of the semester and has gained the instructor's approval.


 

Collateral Reading List

 

Novels:

 

Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice

 

Emma

 

Sense and Sensibility

Sir Walter Scott

The Heart of Midlothian

 

Ivanhoe

William Thackeray

Henry Esmond

 

Vanity Fair

Charles Dickens

Great Expectations

 

Oliver Twist

 

David Copperfield

 

BleakHouse

 

The Tale of Two Cities

Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre

George Eliot

Adam Bede

 

The Mill on the Floss

 

Middlemarch

E. M. Forster

A Passage to India

Thomas Hardy

Far from the Madding Crowd

 

The Mayor of Casterbridge

 

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

 

Jude the Obscure

Joseph Conrad

Lord Jim

 

Nostromo

D. H. Lawrence

Sons and Lovers

 

The Rainbow

 

Women in Love

Aldous Huxley

Point Counter Point

 

Brave New World

James Joyce

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Virginia Woolf

Mrs. Dalloway

Plays:

 

Oscar Wilde

Lady Windermere's Fan

 

The Importance of Being Earnest

John Millington Synge

The Playboy of the Western World and Riders to the Sea

(count as one play)

Sean O' Casey

Juno and the Paycock

George Bernard Shaw

Arms and the Man

 

Mrs. Warren's Profession

 

St. Joan

T. S. Eliot

Murder in the Cathedral

 

Family Reunion

 

The Cocktail Party

Samuel Beckett

Endgame

Tom Stoppard

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

 

Arcadia