British Literature I Professor Mead
ENG251 Spring 2021
Syllabus
January
19 T Introduction: Roman Britain, “The Ruin, “The Ruin,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvtVLa4uOYc
http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/sechard/oeruin.htm
Roman Baths and Roman Villas
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Roman+Villas+in+England&qpvt=Roman+Villas+in+England&FORM=IGRE
21 R NA 3-11, Bede and Caedmon’s Hymn NA 30-33; The Dream of the Rood NA 33-37; The Wanderer, The Wife’s Lament NA 110-114. C 1.
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/lindisfarne/accessible/introduction.html
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-ruthwell-cross
26 T Beowulf NA 37-70 http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Sutton+Hoo+Burial+Treasures+images&qpvt=Sutton+Hoo+Burial+Treasures+images&FORM=IGRE
http://www.britishmuseum.org/visiting/galleries/europe/room_41_europe_ad_300-1100.aspx
28 R Beowulf 70-109 http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Fyrkat+Viking+Fortress&qpvt=Fyrkat+Viking+Fortress&FORM=IGRE
February
2 T Essay # 1 due. Anglo Norman Literature 11-14; Marie De France and Romance NA 115-134.
http://www.bayeuxtapestry.org.uk/
4 R Middle English Literature NA 14-20; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight NA 140-166.
9 T SGGK 166-195.
https://www.pinterest.com/andrewnegrey/manesse-codex/
11 R Medieval English 20-26; Geoffrey Chaucer, The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales 195-220. Students can find interlinear translations for all of our Chaucer readings on the Harvard Chaucer Webpage: http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/ See the pilgrim portraits from the Ellesmere manuscript at:
http://hdl.huntington.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15150coll7/id/2367/rv/compoundobject/cpd/2838 http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/luttrell/accessible/introduction.html https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/ellesmere-manuscript#
16 T Essay #2 due. The Miller’s Prologue and Tale 221-237. C 7.
18 R The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale (see Ellesmere Portrait) 237-266.
23 T The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale NA 266-381.
25 R Julian of Norwich NA 297-303; Margery Kempe 303-307.
March
2 T Mystery Plays, Second Shepherd’s Play 308-337. C 3,
4 R Catch-up Day/Workshop
9 T Sir Thomas Malory Morte D’arthur NA 337-357. http://www.medievalcodes.ca/2014/06/the-winchester-malory.html
Essay # 3 due. The Sixteenth Century NA 359-391; Queen Elizabeth NA 403-410; Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder 393-97; Henry Howard Earl of Surrey 397-98; C 14.
11 R Sir Walter Raleigh NA 501-503; Sir Philip Sidney NA 503-509; Mary (Sidney) Herbert, Countess of Pembroke NA 509511. Christopher Marlowe NA 511-513; William Shakespeare NA 554-567 (sonnets 1, 3, 15, 18, 19, 23, 29, 30, 55, 60, 73, 94, 116, 130, 135). C 20. http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portraitZoom/mw06456/Sir-Henry-Unton
http://www.marileecody.com/eliz1-images.html
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw05204/Sir-Walter-Ralegh-Raleigh
16 T The English Bible 399-403; Sir Edmund Spenser 411-13; The Faerie Queene 413-446. Plate C 9, C 10
18 R The Faerie Queene, 446-475.
23 T Doctor Faustus 513-549.
25 R Othello NA 567-606 Acts 1 & 2. Plate C 12, C 13.
30 T Othello NA 606-653 Acts 3-5.
April
1 R The Seventeenth Century NA 655-683; John Donne NA 684-717, “The Flea,” “The Good-Morrow,” “The Sun Rising,” “The Canonization,” “A Nocturnal upon Saint Lucy’s Day, Being the Shortest Day,” “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” Holy Sonnets 7, 10, 14, “Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward.” C 19.
6 T Aemilia Lanyer NA 717-726. Mary Wroth NA 739-44.
8 R George Herbert NA 749-764; .Richard Lovelace NA765-766. Katherine Philips NA 767-771. Andrew Marvell NA 771-782.
15 R Essay # 4 due (3 pp). John Milton NA 789-792; Paradise Lost NA 820-864 Books 1 & 2. C 16.
20 T NA 864-893. Books 3 & 4 and Plates C10, C 18.
22 R NA 893-936, Books 8 & 9; Final Essay Assigned C 22.
27 T NA 936-953, Books 10, 11, 12. and Plates C8 and C 14
29 R Catch-up/Workshop.
Paper #1: Pair four or five lines from an Anglo-Saxon text to the same number of lines from Beowulf. Write an argumentative, interpretive essay that demonstrates either how both texts promote the same idea, OR how each text challenges the idea of the other. 3 pages.
Paper #2: Choose a brief passage from Chaucer, the Gawain Poet, and Marie de France and write an essay arguing how each author complements or challenges the others in regard to ONE of the following: loyalty, faith, wisdom, charity, prowess. 4 pages.
Paper #3: Genre. Margery and Julia use prose; Chaucer is poetry; The Second Shepherd’s Play is drama. How do the three different structures influence that tale-telling? Be sure to use at least three quotations to make your point (you may want to use as many as nine). 4 pages.
Paper #4: Choose any two of the following: The Faerie Queene, Othello, a selection of short poems from the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Argue what you think is the primary object of uncertainty in Renaissance writers, based on analysis of chosen passages. 4 pages.
Final, research paper: Option 1: rewrite and expand any earlier paper. Option 2: Argue the Milton’s Paradise Lost is either an apt summing up or a repudiation of every(or most)thing we’ve read this semester. Must integrate three peer-reviewed sources not earlier than 2000. 6-7 pages, exclusive of Works Cited. MLA format.
For each paper:
1st Paragraph
I argue that _________________________ .
My argument changes the interpretation of the text(s) from _________
to ____________________
My method for how I make this argument is to ________________________ .
Body Paragraphs must include
a topic sentence that introduces the paragraph’s ONE idea and explains how that idea contributes to the thesis.
close reading of primary texts (attention to word choice, diction, tone, imagery, sound effects, repetition, alliteration, meter, rhythm, rhyme, syntax, etc.) followed by analysis of how the passages supports the paragraph idea.
Papers are assessed on the thoroughness with which a student engages in the writing process, as well as the excellence of the product.
Plagiarism A word about honesty. Even a cursory look out there will tell you that cheating is everywhere. If you let it into your heart, it will taint your every labor. Decide today what kind of person you are, for that is the person you will be. If I suspect that the work you submit is not yours, you will have to convince me I’m wrong, so keep every draft of your work, so you can demonstrate the process of your work. I love to be wrong in such circumstances, and besides, it will give you practice with presentations and public speaking (“Here, professor, I’ve laid out the changes my thesis went through after the first draft”). The dishonest student will fail the class and be reported to the Provost for further disciplinary action. Please see my blog at http://stephenxmead.blogspot.com/ for important information about class policies and useful resources for reading and writing.
You have asked to be challenged by deciding to pursue a college degree. You may not have imagined what those challenges would look like or how much time and energy you will need to put into meeting those challenges. Please remember that I will always be asking you for your best, asking you to achieve things you have not achieved before, to manage skills you may not have been adept at before. Why else take a class? But please understand that behind my expectations, impelling them, is my desire that you benefit deeply from our collegial inquiry, in preparation for profession life.
The free pursuit of knowledge is your right, as you are a member of this Benedictine community. Therefore, you can expect at college an environment free of harassment, censorship, intimidation, or retaliation. Please consider me an advocate if I may serve you in assuring yourself of what is yours. This also means that if my teaching strategies give you cause for discomfort or confusion, please speak to me. I promise to listen respectfully and to strive to come to a mutually agreed-upon response.
You must submit all work in the class to receive a passing grade.
Students with special needs must inform the instructor in the first week of classes and he will make all reasonable accommodations.
Participation in this class is vital; you cannot receive a sterling grade without regular, informed, and considered interaction with the instructor and your classmates. 20% of final grade. Please be in attendance a few minutes before class time. Have your texts, a notebook, and writing tools with you. Please keep your video on throughout, and your audio on whenever appropriate, which is most of the time.
Keep copies of all work submitted. Keep copies of enough drafts of each paper so that, if I suspect your work is not original, you can show me the growth of your idea through the drafts, and shame me into silence. Which I would love.
More than four absences (defined as not attending or attending but neither speaking nor participating) will seriously deflate your participation grade.
Office Hours as this class is online, you can either turn up early before our class meetings or stay after the meetings to chat. If You need more time or if these times are not good for you, we can arrange another time to zoom.
How to Use Quotations in Literary Papers
As a writer, you use a quotation to examine the connection between the use of language and a text's larger themes. In other words, a quotation introduces a linguistic argument, an argument in which you will show how form contributes to content, how the author's use of language supports your thesis.
DO NOT use quotations merely to summarize, exemplify, or restate the plot or action in a text.
Normally, quotations are followed by your commentary, a discussion in which you teach the reader the significance (vis-à-vis your thesis) of the quoted passage's tone, diction, word choice, imagery, syntax, etc.
Remember that quotations do not speak for themselves: a quotation followed by no or insufficient commentary makes no sense in the essay; the reader does not know why it is there.
EXAMPLE: Let us suppose that you are writing an essay on Shakespeare's Macbeth. Your thesis involves an assertion that Macbeth's evil brings about a self-knowledge whereby he is more keenly aware of the consequences of his crimes as his crimes become worse and worse. You choose the following quotation to support your argument:
that which should accompany old age,
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have.
(v.iii.24-26)
Your task now is to show how Shakespeare's use of language supports the thesis. You might want to mention that Macbeth is here viewing his crimes in light of his relationships with others. Earlier his soliloquies have largely concerned only his relationship with his own soul: words like honor, love, and obedience imply relationships outside of the self, as the word accompany more explicitly signifies relationship. You might want to point out how troops is ironic, as hostile troops are now assembling outside Macbeth's castle. The word must implies a kind of imperative, a suggestion that Macbeth's crimes have gradually taken from him any option of choice. These ideas are only a few ways to talk about the use of language in the passage. You could also talk about the syntax (how Macbeth puts the main clause, with his own personal pronoun, at the end of the sentence), the notion of expectation and knowledge ("I must not look to have" instead of the simpler "I cannot have" or "I must not have").
FORMAT: Remember that poetry, unlike prose, is written in lines. If you are quoting two lines or less of poetry, keep the quotation within quotation marks in your own margins, making sure to signify line breaks with a spaced slash. More than two lines of poetry should be indented ten spaces, single-spaced, without quotation marks, preserving the poetic lines (see Macbeth quotation above). The same general rule applies to prose passages, except, of course, there is no need for the slashes or line breaks.
TWO LINES OR LESS OF POETRY INTRODUCED WITH MAIN CLAUSE:
Antony's funeral speech immediately commends the attention of the crowd: "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears; / I come to bury Caesar" (III. 73-4).
Remember that a comma precedes the quotation if that quotation completes the clause that introduces it.
MORE THAN TWO LINES OF POETRY COMPLETING A CLAUSE:
Antony subtly undermines Brutus' reputation when he suggests that,
The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it.
(III.ii.77-80)
Notice how the lines of the quotation stop where the poetic line stops. the indented quotation uses no quotation marks.
In Elizabethan drama, citations are normally made with Act (large Roman numerals), scene (small Roman numerals), and line (Arabic numerals: separated by periods (no spaces). When quoting novels or other works in which lines are not numbered, cite with the page number (using "p" is unnecessary) in parentheses, followed by the terminal punctuation. EXAMPLE: Ed appears to be smugly aware that he has been living a life of "antifriction" (55). When quoting poetry, use line numbers, not page numbers, unless there are no line numbers.
Place citation at the end of sentences, even if you use a quotation at the beginning of a sentence. EXAMPLE: Living a life of "antifriction," Ed seems nevertheless eager to meet whatever challenge Lewis puts to him (55).
Make sure to give a quotation in its context. Let there be no doubt where the quotation has come from and why it is in this part of the essay.
Finally, quotation is a noun. Do not use quote (a verb in formal English) when you mean quotation.
No comments:
Post a Comment