ENG 206-051 British Literature II

UNION COUNTY COLLEGE

ENG 206 British Literature II

Spring 2008

Tues/Thurs 11:00am to 12:20pm, H- 216

Click here for a link to the revised syllabus (as of 3 April 08)

Dr. Susannah Chewning
Office: H-125

	Office Hours
M & W		11:15am-12:30pm
T & R		1:00pm-3:00pm

Office Phone (908) 709-7182
chewning@ucc.edu

Course Description:

This course will be a study of the major British and Irish poets and prose writers from the pre-Romantic poets to the present, studied in their historical context and in their aspects of enduring merit. Prerequisite: ENG 101 (or ENG 112) and ENG 102.

Course Objectives:

To provide a sense of chronology and historical continuity as a basis for the study of English literature, so that writers and their works may be observed within their cultural milieu and moment.
Through an examination of the literature and culture of England from the eighteenth through the twenty-first centuries, to obtain a broad understanding of the tradition of British literature.
To develop techniques of accurate and appreciative interpretation through the practice of critical thinking and writing.
To examine the power and presence of British literature throughout the modern period. We will be reading texts that will address such issues as heroism, human relationships, spirituality, gender issues, justice, love, literacy, and morality as they were represented in the literature of these periods in an effort to make connections with the cultures of previous writers and our own lives.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature 8e

A Writer's Reference With Writing About Literature.

Required Texts: Please note: you must buy the books or borrow them from a library and bring them to class each week. They are not all available online. Purchasing the books is not optional.

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Ed. Beth Newman. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1996. Any edition of Jane Eyre will do.

Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, volume 2. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007.

Hacker, Diana. A Writer's Reference. Sixth edition. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008.

Course Requirements: For policies please click here.

Reading assignments. Please make sure you read all the assignments on time. You will also be expected to discuss what you have read at length in class. Participation, which is 20% of your grade, includes being in class, taking quizzes, and being prepared to participate.

Four papers: three shorter papers, of approximately 750 words, due February 12, march 20, and April 22, and one longer paper of at least 1,200 words (five typed pages) due May 15. Topics will be assigned and discussed at length in class. All papers written for this class must be typed and must conform in style and format to the MLA System of Style and Documentation. Late papers will not be accepted and cannot be revised.

Response Papers: Twenty-four short response papers based on your readings, each of at least one hundred words. These are informal papers in which you discuss your response to the readings we do for class. It is the best way for you to communicate with me and, at least on paper, participate with the class in your discussion of what you have read. These papers will not be accepted late and cannot be revised. Most days you will be reading more than one text. You can write one hundred words on one text, on all of the assignments combined, or on each text. You may write as many additional response papers for extra-credit as you like, but please turn in the minimum required. Please note that responses are not due on the days papers are due, but you may turn them in for extra-credit.

Mid-term and final exams in class.

Breakdown of Grades: Participation 20%; Paper 50%; Exams and Quizzes 30%

Grading Scale: 100-92 A; 91-87 B+; 86-82 B; 81-77 C+; 76-70 C; 69-66 D+; 65-62 D; below that F. Please see my handout on grading for specific rubrics for each grade.

Writing Expectations: This is not a writing class, but in a sense all college English classes are writing classes. This is a class in which your writing will be closely examined and in which you will be expected to express your opinions of the texts we will read in writing. Thus I have fairly high standards which I expect you to meet in your written work. All papers must conform to the MLA System of Style and Documentation. They must also be free of careless grammatical errors and typos. I strongly urge you to meet with me when your papers are due--if necessary, to show me outlines, rough drafts, and other pre-writing--so you can be sure that your writing is at the level that I expect for this class. You are also strongly urged to pursue assistance from writing tutors (available in the ALC office in the Library).

How to reach me: Phone: (908) 709-7182. E-mail chewning@ucc.edu. Webpage: http://faculty.ucc.edu/english-chewning. Regular mail:

                                Dr. Susannah Chewning
                                Department of English
                                Union County College
                                1033 Springfield Avenue
                                Cranford, NJ    07016

My mailbox on campus is in the Nomahegan Faculty Lounge. Because of my very busy schedule, it is difficult for me to return telephone calls. You are much more likely to get an immediate response from me if you e-mail me during the hours of 9am and 5pm. I cannot accept e-mailed or faxed papers, nor can I relay grades (including final course grades) via e-mail or phone. No exceptions. My office hours are Monday and Wednesday, 11:15am-12:30pm; Tuesday and Thursday, 1pm-3pm, and by appointment, but please feel free to drop by my office before or after class to discuss your progress in this course.

Plagiarism and Academic Integrity: The first instance of plagiarism or cheating will result in failure of the assignment. A second instance of academic dishonesty will result in failure of the class and possible censure, or dismissal from the College. Plagiarized papers cannot be revised. Please see the attached handout for more specific expectations.

Please bring a pen (or other writing implement), paper, and your book to every class. Let me know if you lose your syllabus or other course materials so I can get you additional copies.

Schedule of Assignments: In addition to these assignments, there may be homework given in class. If you miss a class, you should speak to a classmate (not me) or consult the web board to get the assignment. Not being in class is no excuse for not completing an assignment--please keep in touch with me, especially if you have to miss a class.


Th	1/24	Introduction to class. Film: The History of Britain, episode 7. Thomas Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”
T	1/29	Required: William Blake, “The Lamb,” and “The Tyger.” Robert Burns,” To a Mouse” and “A Red, Red Rose.” Mary Wollstonecraft, “A Vindication on the Rights of Woman,” pp. 174-189. Option 1: William Blake, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” Option 2: William Blake, “The Sick Rose” and “The Garden of Love.” Option 3: Anna Letitia Barbauld, “The Rights of Woman.” Response due. Please look at Blake's artwork at http://www.blakearchive.org/blake/
Th	1/31	“The Revolution Controversy and the ‘Spirit of the Age.’” Response due. Read excerpts from Richard Price, "A Discourse on the Love of Our Country"; excerpt from William Blake's "The French Revolution" and Blake's "London"; William Wordsworth, "Descriptive Sketches" read the last 100 or so lines; Wordsworth, "The Excursion," ll. 706-799; Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from "Religious Musings," ll. 295-408.
T	2/5	Required: William Wordsworth, pp. 274-77 and 305-306. Option 1: William Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads, pp. 263-274. Option 2: Dorothy Wordsworth, all selections. Option 3: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan.” Response due.
Th	2/7	William Wordsworth, “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Frost at Midnight.” Response due.

T	2/12	Required: Edmund Burke, “On the Sublime and the Beautiful.” Choose either The Byronic Hero or The Gothic from WWNorton Online. Option 1: Matthew Gregory Lewis, Anonymous, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, pp. 595-606. Option 2: Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto and Anne Radcliffe, all selections. Option 3: Thomas de Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Paper 1 due. Citation Examples.
Th	2/14	Required: Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Mutability,” “To Wordsworth,” “Ozymandias,” “England in 1819,” and “Ode to the West Wind.” Option 1: Percy Bysshe Shelley, from A Defence of Poetry. Option 2: George Gordon, Lord Byron, “She Walks in Beauty” and “When We Two Parted”; John Clare, “I hid my love.” Option 3: George Gordon, Lord Byron, Manfred. Response due.
T	2/19	Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Mont Blanc.” Response due.
Th	2/21	Required: John Keats, “Ode to a Nightengale” and “When I Have Fears.” Option 1: John Keats, Letters. Option 2: John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Option 3: John Keats, Lamia. Response due.
T	2/26	Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, chapters 1-9. Response due.
Th	2/28	Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, chapters 10-17. Response due.
T	3/4	Spring Break
Th	3/6	Spring Break
T	3/11	In-class assignment.
Th	3/13	In-class essay.
T	3/18	Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, chapters 10-17. Response due.

Th	3/20	Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, chapters 18-30. Response due.Last day to withdraw from a spring semester class. I do not give late withdrawals.
T	3/25	Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, chapters 31-38. Response due. Required: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, pp.1079-1085. Option 1:John Stuart Mill, “What s Poetry?” Option 2: John Stuart Mill, “The Subjection of Women.” Option 3: John Stuart Mill, from Autobiography. Response due.
Th	3/27	Required: Robert Browning, pp. 1253-1256 Option 1: Robert Browning, “Andrea Del Sarto.” Option 2:Robert Browning, “Porphyria’s Lover” and “Love Among the Ruins.” Option 3: Robert Browning, “Caliban Upon Setebos.” Paper 2 due.

T	4/1	Option 1: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Mother and Poet” and “Poets and the Present Age.” Option 2: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “To George Sand: A Desire” and “To George Sand: A Recognition.” Option 3: Emily Brontë, all selections. Response due.
Th	4/3	Required: Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach” and “Isolation: To Marguerite.” Option 1: Matthew Arnold, Preface to Poems. Option 2: George Eliot, all selections. Option 3: Thomas Henry Huxley, all selections. Response due.
T	4/8	Required: Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur,” “Spring,” “The Windhover,” and “Pied Beauty.” Option 1: Matthew Arnold, “Culture and Anarchy.” Option 2: William Morris, “The Defence of Guenevere.” Option 3: Lewis Carroll, “Jabberwocky.” Response due.
Th	4/10	The Woman Question, pp. 1581-1607. Response due.
T	4/15	Required: Oscar Wilde, “The Selfish Giant.” Oscar Wilde, “The Critic as Artist” and Preface to The Picture of Dorian Grey. Oscar Wilde, from De Profundis and selected poems from Alfred Douglas. Option 3: Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Response due.
Th	4/17	Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1. Response due.
T	4/22	Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Acts 2 and 3. Paper 3 due.
Th	4/24	Thomas Hardy, “Hap” and “Neutral Tones.” AE Housman, all selections. Response due.
T	4/29	Required: William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming.” Option 1: William Butler Yeats, “A General Introduction for My Work.” Option 2: William Butler Yeats, “Leda and the Swan” and “The Sorrow of Love.” Option 3: “An Imagist Cluster,” pp. 2007-2018. Response due.
Th	5/1	James Joyce, “Araby.” DH Lawrence, “Why the Novel Matters,” “Piano” and “Tortoise Shout.” Response due.
T	5/6	Rupert Brooke, “The Soldier,” Isaac Rosenberg, all selections, Wilfred Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est,” Thomas Hardy, “The Man He Killed.” WWNorton Online, “Representing the Great War: Texts and Contexts." Response due.
Th	5/8	No classes. Required: TS Eliot, “The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock.” Option 1: TS Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” Option 2: Virginia Woolf, “Professions for Women” and “A Sketch of the Past.” Option 3: James Joyce, “The Dead.” Email your response by 4pm.
M Th	5/12 5/15	Final paper due by 4:00pm. Final examination in class, 11:00am.

ENG 206-001 British Literature II Paper Topics

Paper 1, due February 12: No secondary sources for this paper: just you and the text(s).

(a) Choose one or more of the poems we’ve read so far and discuss them giving them a close reading, discussing the meaning, interpretation, and explanation of the poem as thoroughly as possible.

(b) Discuss the nature of the Gothic and how it is expressed in one or more works we have read.

Paper 2, due March 20. Choose one of the following topics and write a paper of at least 750 words; include meaningful quotations from Jane Eyre and at least one other secondary source (not from the Internet). Include a list of Works Cited and document your sources using the MLA Style.

(a) Choose a character from Jane Eyre and write a paper of at least 750 words (approximately three pages) in which you discuss that character's role in the novel and her importance to Bronte's overall theme. Use at least two sources besides the novel, including one electronic source, such as a library database.

(b) Discuss the presentation by Bronte of Romanticism and Victorianism in Jane Eyre. Choose two characters, two places, two themes, or the discussion of two issues (or the same issue two ways) and explain how one is Romantic and one is Victorian. You should begin by defining both terms and both literary concepts and then explaining how Bronte presents them in the novel. You might also want to show how you see Romanticism and Victorianism in two other works (such as poems) to explain your understanding of the concepts).

(c) Compare and contrast two characters from Jane Eyre discussing at least three major points of comparison and demonstrating both similarities and differences in the comparison. Use one of these outline forms for this paper.

Paper 3, due April 22. Choose a topic from The Victorian Age on WWNorton Online: Industrialism, Progress or Decline; The Woman Question; The Painterly Image in Poetry; or Victorian Imperialism. Then chose a topic from the Explorations section of that part of the site – there are dozens to choose from. Please remember to cite your sources carefully.

Paper 4, due May 15: This will be a research paper in which you discuss an issue of interest to you that has been presented in/by one or more of the texts or authors we are reading in this class. Some suggestions: Romanticism or Victorianism, female authorship, heroism, colonialism, good vs. evil, industrialism, sexuality (heterosexual or homosexual), the relationship of literature to film (films such as Jane Eyre, Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Joyce’s “The Dead,” Virginia Woolf and The Hours, or others that focus on texts from 1750 to 1950, such as those made about Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte’s works or lives, ie Becoming Jane or Devotion). In this paper you will discuss the issue upon which you wish to focus and then apply the texts and/or authors you will use to support your opinion. This paper must include the use and documentation of at least five sources (including one from the Internet if you like, but only from sites ending in .gov, .org, or .edu) and must be at least four pages in length. Remember: you must pass this paper with a grade of C or higher in order to pass this class. Click here for possible topics.