Early British Romantic Writers

Course Goals:

The Romantic Era, 1789-1837, was one of great ferment, both politically and in the arts. In this class, we will examine the early part of this period: from the French Revolution (1789) to the battle of Waterloo (1815), Napoleon's ultimate defeat. We will look in detail at the philosophical ideas accompanying and sometimes propagating the great revolutions that made America into an independent Republic and toppled the monarchy in France. According to the Romantics, everyone is (or has) a genius. Though the stereotypical Romantic genius is a loner, many of these writers implicitly or explicitly connect genius to geniality, to friendliness, and therefore to the overcoming of prejudice which they see broadly as the propensity to pre-judge people. Most of these writers -- with the exception of Jane Austen, whose work may be in some respects "anti-romanitc"-- also see or try to see people as radically equal. We will examine several Revolutions in literary form: the overturning of poetic conventions and turn to the "ordinary"; the Ballad and Sonnet revivals; the emergence of the Jacobin (i.e., politically radical and utopian) novel as well as the novel of psychological realism (Austen); the assault in memoirs, pamphlets, and poems against British oppression, including one of its most egregious manifestations, the slave trade. How, one might ask, do formal and political innovations go together? Barbauld says explicitly that genius can only reside within the "Spirit of Liberty," and William Hazlitt definitively links the politically radical "Spirit of the Age" to great artistic creativity. How do you define "good" art, and do you think freedom necessary to the creation of good art? Do you think our current political scene, whether national or global, is hindering your genius? your geniality or friendship with humanity? both necessarily together?

In addition, I would like to ask questions that interest you. If you successfully formulate them in class discussions and/or on the listserv, I will write them up as paper topics and exam questions.

Required Texts:

Favorite Works of William Blake (Dover edtion)

The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Volume 2A: Romantics and Their Contemporaries, third edition

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, (ed. Johnson and Wolfson, Longman Cultural Edition)

Some texts are only available on line. Access this syllabus on line (http://www.users.muohio.edu/mandellc/eng339/339aSyllSpring2006.htm) in order to get to them by clicking on their links.

Work Required:

Students should actively participate in class as well as post thoughts to the class listserv: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/eng339a.html. Any respectful, thoughtful commentary, on whatever topic, is welcome on the listserv.

Completing this course requires taking two exams, a midterm and a final, and writing four papers. Though you will receive a zero for any missed assignment or exam, you should also realize that I will not give you a grade in this course if any papers or exams are missing: you will receive an incomplete. I do not give make-up exams except for a University-excused medical absence, so you must just show up to take those, and you must indeed take both to get a grade for the class. Papers can be late but will be graded down for lateness unless, again, you have medical reasons for lateness.

Grades:

To receive an A in Class Participation, you must come prepared and make at least one thoughtful comment per class meeting.

I will grade each paper based on what you are able to achieve with your writing, both stylistically and conceptually. That is, each paper or assignment to receive an A will reveal that its writer is really trying to think about a question or problem, using writing as a tool to do so. Language is a precision instrument: you can think better if you define your terms -- not according to any dictionary definition, but in accordance with the way you perceive the word to be operating in the texts you are analyzing. It may take a whole paper to define a term: it would take at least ten paragraphs to define what Barbauld means by the word "prejudice"; her 'definition' of it involves what causes it and its effects. You can also think better if you use strong verbs, minimize nominalizations, clarify references (avoid "This shows" and "That means"! Who is "he"? "they"? "it"?), and make visible the connections (sometimes logical ones) between one idea and another. Obviously, in writing papers, there are not many "right" or "wrong" ideas. -- I mean this precept within reason: obviously Donald Duck doesn't appear in Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey"! But again, within reason, ideas expressed in papers are either more or less convincing. In commenting on your written assignments, I will sometimes write, "What makes you think that Elizabeth Bennet is prejudiced?" I may actually agree with you about Elizabeth (I do!), but my question indicates that your claim has not been effectively made in the paper itself.

Exams will ask you to identify quotations and write short essays on them.

A+	97-100	C	73-76
A	93-96	C-	70-72
A-	90-92	D+	67-69
B+	87-89	D	63-66
B	83-86	D-	60-62
B-	80-82	F	0-59
C+	77-79

10%	Class Participation
10%	Listserv Participation
50%	Papers (averaged)
30%	Exams (10% midterm; 20% Final)

Attendance Policy:

The bottom line: this is not a correspondence course!

Miami University Academic Regulations Section 701 states that "Every student is expected to attend every class session for which the student is duly registered." Attendance is especially important in classes that meet TR. However, things happen in life: missing three classes will not affect your grade (except, perhaps, for participation). Since three absences are allowed, there is no need to tell me why you have missed those classes, though of course you are welcome to do so.

All absences, whether medically necessary or not, count towards these three. That is, you cannot take three absences for other reasons and then give me a doctor's note for a fourth absence to have it excused: it would only be excused if you have a doctor's note for ALL FOUR absences. So please, save your absences for when you really need them.

Four to five absences will seriously affect your grade. If you have more than five absences, you will be dropped from the course. The university has recently changed regulations so that, after a certain date, dropping a class results automatically in an F.

Attention all Seniors with Senioritis: I won't give you a passing grade in this class just because you need it to graduate. You must actually have taken the course to get credit for it. Show up. Do the work. "Enough, too much!" (Find this quotation in our readings for extra credit.)

Teacher Availability:

You may call, come by the office, email me, contact me online through AOL Instant Messenger (LauraMiam5) and Microsoft Instant Messaging (find me by my email address). I am happy to discuss paper topics, and, if you meet with me face-to-face, to look over drafts. I won't of course tell you what grade I would give your essay; I will suggest ways of improving it. Please don't ask me to look over a draft unless you intend to work more on your it, nor run a thesis by me if you are not prepared to revise it, since that wastes time for both of us.

Schedule of Readings and Assignments:

Wk	Date	Day	Readings (have these items read by the time class meets)	Assignments Due at the beginning of this Class Meeting
1	1/9	M	Introduction
	1/11	W	Longman Intro. pp. 3-10 William Blake -- Songs of Innocence
	1/13	F	Blake -- Songs of Experience
2	1/18	W	(no class on Monday) Blake -- The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
	1/20	F	William Hazlitt, "On Gusto," "My First Acquaintance with Poets," Longman pp. 1026-1041
3	1/23	M	Wordsworth, "Lyrical Ballads" (except "Tintern Abbey" and Preface), pp. 387-448	Paper 1 Due
	1/25	W	Perspectives: The Sublime, the Beautiful, and the Picturesque, Longman pp. 30-62 Wordsworth, "Tintern Abbey," pp. 404-408
	1/27	F	Wordsworth, "The Immortality Ode," "Solitary Reaper," "Peele Castle" Longman pp. 528-536
4	1/30	M	Longman Introduction, pp. 10-15 Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads Joanna Baillie, "Introduction" to Plays on the Passions, and selected poems, pp. 356-370
	2/1	W	Wordsworth, The Prelude (books 1-2), Longman pp. 452-469
	2/3	F	Perspectives: The Rights of Man and the Revolution Controversy, pp. 92-150	Reading Only: No Class Meeting
5	2/6	M	The Prelude (books 9-10), Longman pp. 489-505
	2/8	W	Wordsworth, The Prelude (books 11, 13), Longman pp. 505-520
	2/10	F	Midterm Exam	Midterm Exam
6	2/13	M	Wordsworth, Sonnets, Longman pp. 449-451
	2/15	W	Charlotte Smith, Elegiac Sonnets and Other Poems, Longman pp. 82-88
	2/17	F	Mary Robinson, Sappho and Phaon, Longman pp. 269-272
7	2/21	T	(no class Monday; exchange day) Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Longman pp. 279-303
	2/22	W	Perspectives: The Wollstonecraft Controversy and the Rights of Women, Longman pp. 319-355
	2/24	F	Wollstonecraft, excerpt from Maria, and responses, Longman pp. 303-319
8	2/27	M	Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from Biographia Literaria, Longman pp. 628-640 Coleridge, "Kubla Khan," Longman pp. 614-615	Paper 2 Due
	3/1	W	Coleridge, "Eoleian Harp," "To Frost at Midnight," "This Lime-Tree Bower, My Prison" Coleridge, Statesman's Manual, Longman p. 627
	3/3	F	Coleridge, "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," Longman pp. 578-597
9	3/6	M	Coleridge, "Christabel," Longman pp. 598-613 Coleridge, Lectures on Shakespeare, Longman pp. 641-616
	3/8	W	Walter Scott, Introduction; excerpt from "The Lay of the Last Minstrel"
	3/10	F	Thomas de Quincey, "Confessions of an English Opium Eater," "What is Literature?" Longman pp. 1042-1073
10			S P R I N G     B R E A K
11	3/20	M	Anna Letitia Barbauld, "A Summer Evening's Meditation" all selections in Longman except "Eighteen Hundred and Eleven," pp. 63-81
	3/22	W	Barbauld, "Against Inconsistency in our Expectations" (online)
	3/24	F	Barbauld, "On Prejudice" (online) Perspectives: Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade, works by Olaudah Equiano Mary Prince, Longman pp. 209-224
12	3/27	M	Anna Letitia Barbauld, "Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation" (online) Perspectives: Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade, works by Dorothy and William Wordsworth, Longman pp. 250, 259-262
	3/29	W	Barbauld, "Eighteen Hundred and Eleven," Longman pp. 69-79 Perspectives: Abolition (cont'), works by John Newton, Thomas Clarkson, Longman pp. 230-231, 250-258
	3/31	F	Barbauld, "Repeal of the Test Act" (online) Perspectives: Abolition (cont'), Longman, works by Ann Comartie Yearsley William Cowper, Longman pp. 231-239
13	4/3	M	Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, pp. 1-37 (vol. 1, chs. 1-7) Money, pp. 344-348	Paper 3 Due
	4/5	W	Austen, Pride and Prejudice (cont'), pp. 37-72 (vol. I, chs. 8-15) Male Character and Conduct, pp. 401-407
	4/7	F	Austen, Pride and Prejudice (cont'), pp. 72-119 (vol. I, chs. 16-23) Marriage and the Marriage Market, pp. 349-372
14	4/10	M	Austen, Pride and Prejudice (cont'), pp. 119-176 (vol. II, chs. 1-12) Marriage and the Marriage Market (cont'), pp. 372-383
	4/12	W	Austen, Pride and Prejudice (cont'), pp. 176-208 (vol. II, chs. 13-19) The Picturesque and Great Houses, pp. 408-424
	4/14	F	Austen, Pride and Prejudice (cont'), pp. 208-249 (vol. III, chs. 1-5)
15	4/17	M	Austen, Pride and Prejudice (cont'), pp. 249-291 (vol. III, chs. 6-12) Austen's letters, pp. 333-343
	4/19	W	Austen, Pride and Prejudice (cont'), pp. 291-329 (vol. III, chs. 13-19) Female Character and Conduct, pp. 384-400
	4/21	F	Reactions to Pride and Prejudice, pp. 425-454	Paper 4 Due
16	4/24	M	Pride and Prejudice (movie excerpts)
	4/26	W	Course Evaluations
	4/28	F	Class Party
FE	5/5	F	FINAL EXAM: DATE: Wednesday, May 3 TIME: 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.. -- you may not stay longer than 7:30, so please be on time PLACE: 339 Upham