English 252 Professor David Richter
Fall 2011 Survey of English Literature II
Syllabus
Chronology: This half of the course covers the period
from the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 to the death of Queen
Required Texts:
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Eighth Edition, volumes C (The Restoration and Eighteenth Century), D (The Romantic Period), and E (The Victorian Age).
Learning Goals: To become familiar with some of the
most important canonical texts in English literature 1660-1901 in their
biographical and historical contexts, and to develop a sense of literary
history, including the ways in which later writers build their innovations upon
the scaffolding provided by earlier traditions.
PLAS
Boilerplate: English 252 fulfills
the Perspectives ( PLAS ) requirement in the area of Reading Literature.
Students will become familiar with the disciplinary norms associated with
literary reading. They will learn to pay close attention to language and be familiar
with the reasons for the writer’s particular choice of language. They will
learn how the writer uses the techniques and elements of literature and the
particular resources of genre to create meaning. They will learn how
texts differ from one another and how they interact with the larger society and
its historical changes.
Tentative Schedule:
The following list is of required readings for each day and you need to keep up with the class. We have limited class time but need to read the major figures of two and a half centuries, so not everything can be covered in class. Those texts that will definitely be discussed in class are listed in boldface red but other texts may be discussed, and in any case all listed readings are required readings and regardless of whether or not they are gone over in class they will appear on your online quizzes and your final examination.
Monday,
August 29: Introduction to the course. A quick overview of
Wednesday, August 31: Poets within politics. Text: John Dryden: “Absalom and Achitophel: A Poem,” p. 2087. Also read: Dryden: “Mac Flecknoe,” p. 2111. Aphra Behn: Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave., p. 2183.
Monday, September 5th: Labor Day, College Closed
Wednesday,
September 7: Restoration satire on society, science and reason. John Wilmot, Earl of
Monday, September 12: Restoration satire once more. Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub. Full text will be available at Deep Singh’s Tale of a Tub site (unless something happens to the Lehigh website) and the part we will be closely reading in class, chapter IX, “A Digression Concerning the Original, the Use, and the Improvement of Madness in a Commonwealth,” should be there but is definitely at p.2315
Wednesday, September 14: Swift: Gulliver’s Travels. P. 2323. The section that we will be discussing in class is Book IV, the Voyage to Houyhnhnmland, in your text, p. 2418.
Monday, September 19: Sex and Satire. Alexander Pope: “The Rape of the Lock,” p. 2513. Jonathan Swift, “The Lady’s Dressing-Room,” p. 2590; Alexander Pope, “An Epistle to a Lady: Of the Characters of Women,” p. 2597; Mary Leapor, “An Essay on Woman,” p. 2608.
Wednesday, September 21: The Augustan Vision: Alexander Pope: Book I of Essay on Man, p. 2540
Monday, September 26: Crime and Politics: John Gay: The Beggar’s Opera, p. 2613. Film versions available outside class.
Wednesday, September 28 --- No classes
Monday, October 3: The Great Cham of Literature: Samuel Johnson: “The Vanity of Human Wishes,” p. 2666; Rambler #4 [On Fiction], p. 2743; Preface to A Dictionary of the English Language, p. 2749; Letter to Lord Chesterfield, p. 2787; Rasselas, p. 2680, Preface to The Plays of William Shakespeare, p. 2755; from Lives of the Poets, p. 2766.
Wednesday, October 5: Writing Lives: James Boswell: from The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D., p. 2778.
Monday October 10: No classes.
Wednesday,
October 12: Switch to your next
textbook, volume D: The Revolution and the Rights of Man: Edmund Burke: from Reflections on the Revolution in France,
p. 152; Mary Wollstonecraft: from A Vindication of
the Rights of Men, p. 158; Thomas Paine, from The Rights of
Man, p. 163; William Godwin, from Political Justice, handout, Helen Maria
Williams, from Letters from France, handout. 134; Arthur Young: from The
Example of
Monday, October 17: William Blake: Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, pp. 81-97.
Wednesday October 19: William Wordsworth: "Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey," p. 258; "She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways," p. 275; "Three Years She Grew," p. 275; "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal," p 276; "Michael,” p. 292.
Monday, October 24: Wordsworth: Preface to Lyrical Ballads, p. 262; "Ode: Intimations of Immortality,” p. 306; “The Prelude” selections from Book Eleventh, p. 374, from Book Twelfth, p. 378, from Book Fourteenth, p. 385..
Wednesday, October 26: Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Frost at Midnight,” p. 464; “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” p. 430; “Kubla Khan,” p. 446
Monday, October 31: Coleridge: “Dejection: An Ode,” p. 466; Biographia Literaria, p. 474; from Lectures on Shakespeare, p. 485
Wednesday, November 2: George Gordon, Lord Byron: “She Walks in Beauty,” p. 612; “So we’ll go no more a-roving,” p. 616; Selectionns from Child Harold’s Pilgrimage and D on Juan, Dedication and Canto 1, p. 617-634, 669-696.
Monday, November 7: John Keats: “On First Looking into Chapman34’s Homer,” p. 880; “The Eve of St. Agnes,” p. 888; “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” p. 899.
Wednesday, November 10: Keats: Ode to a Nightingale, p. 903; Ode on a Grecian Urn, p. 905; Ode on Melancholy, p. 906; To Autumn, p. 925; “Bright Star” p. 898, Letters to Benjamin Bailey, p. 940, and to George and Thomas Keats, p. 942.
Monday,
November 14: Switch to volume E. Industrial
Wednesday, November 16: Alfred, Lord Tennyson: “Mariana,” p. 1112; “The Lady of Shalott,” p. 1114; “The Lotos-Eaters,” p. 1119; “Ulysses,” p. 1123; “Tithonus,” p. 1125; Songs from The Princess: “Tears, Idle Tears,” “Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal,” p. 1135-36, and “Come Down O Maid” handout.
Monday, November 21: Tennyson: “In Memoriam A.H.H.” p. 1138; from Idylls of the King, “The Passing of Arthur,” p. 1201.
Wednesday, November 24: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Aurora Leigh,” p. 1092. Robert Browning: “Fra Lippo Lippi,” p. 1271. (Portraits of the Artist)
Monday, November 28: Robert Browning: “My Last Duchess,” p. 1255; “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church,” p. 1259; “Andrea Del Sarto,” p. 1280; “Caliban upon Setebos, or Natural Theology on the Island,” p. 1296.
Wednesday,
November 30: Matthew Arnold: “
Monday, December 5: Algernon Charles Swinburne: “Hymn to Proserpine” p. 1496; Gerard Manley Hopkins: “God’s Grandeur” p. 1516; “Spring and Fall,” p. 1521; “The Windhover,” p. 1518; Rudyard Kipling, “The Man Who Would Be King,” p. 1794; “The White Man’s Burden” p. 1821.
Wednesday, December 7: Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, p. 1645.
Monday, December 12: Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest, p. 1698.
December 14-20: Final Examination
Grading: Class discussion 20%, Online quizzes, 30%, Final Examination 50%.
Contact Information: My office is Klapper 639; telephone # (718) 997-4667; fax 997-4693; e-mail via internet is david.richter@qc.cuny.edu My departmental webpage is http://people.qc.cuny.edu/Faculty/david.Richter/Pages/Default.aspx My scheduled "office hours" are 12:30 to 1:30 on Monday and Wednesday, but I am usually in or around my office all day.