English 353 ENGLISH LITERATURE II [from Romanticism to the present] SYLLABUS
Dr. Dorothy M. Sutton Case Annex
378 phone: 623-6071 e-mail:
dorothy.sutton@eku.edu
Office Hours TBA
Text: The Norton Anthology of English Lit. 7th ed.; On Reserve: Yeats books
for paper; Read James Joyce A Portrait of the
Artist
(and Joyce bio. in text); Keep brief notes for
everything you read by date (I'll check some at random, the rest when
you come to take final test). Take more
extensive notes of first chapter of Portrait. You can find copies of
Portrait in world lit.
book and on Internet Bibliomania.com
GOALS OF CLASS: This
literature class concerns (1) subject matter: understanding ourselves and other
people and other times through literature, with GOALS of : UNDERSTANDING and
AWARENESS OF OURSELVES AND OTHERS. (2) gaining
knowledge of technical aspects of writing to understand great literature
better, and to make our own writing more effective, powerful, and
persuasive.
Theme of course: What new
philosophy, values, religion can replace the old ones lost? How did these
writers create a new and personal philosophy to live by and how is this search
reflected in their work? What makes literary excellence on the "lasting
literature" level? 1) PROFOUND,
SIGNIFICANT SUBJECT MATTER about complexities of the human spirit (not simple
and
obvious); revealing writer's startling
intelligence, knowledge (facts), wisdom, and ability to think. No
sentimentality (unearned
emotion) or propaganda 2)
STATED IN BEST POSSIBLE WAY [most effective and powerful diction, syntax,
original and apt figurative language (analogies), and
allusions]
Students with disabilities: If you are registered with the Office
of Services for Individuals with Disabilities, please make an appointment with
me to discuss needed accommodations; for example, this syllabus can be made
available in alternative forms. If you are not registered and wish to be, you
may do so by going to first floor of the Turley House or by telephone at 859-622-1500 V/TTY.
ROMANTIC
Read ALL biographies carefully. Work of authors in
parentheses dealt with more briefly
WEEK
1 Intro. Romanticism; (Neo-Classic/ Romantic dichotomy, then
"Background Romantic Period" immediately following this syllabus);
William Blake pp. 41, 42; The Lamb, The Little Black Boy, The Chimney
Sweep, The Tyger, The Book of Thel, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell &
"QUOTATIONS (not in book) to know" further down on this web site.
2 Mon 21st holiday; Wed. & Friday: Continue Blake as necessary;
(Robert Burns); (Mary Wollstonecraft, from Vindication of
the Rights of Women, read excerpts from Chapt 2
and Chapt. 4); IntroWordsworth
3 Wm.
Wordsworth "Tables," "Tintern Abbey," def. poetry &
lang. proposed from Preface to Lyrical Ballads; "Immortality" Ode;
"The World is too much with Us";
from Prelude p. 360 and 369 (spots of time); (Lord Byron Don Juan,
Canto 2, sections 177-181 and 202-204); Percy Shelley
"Ode West Wind"; Intro. to
"Prometheus" (pp.732-733).
4 John Keats, "Grecian Urn,"
"Nightingale," letters 1-7 and 9.
Week 5 Mon. Finish Keats letters; (Mary Shelley, bio); Intro. VICTORIAN period:
"Evolution" and
VICTORIAN, con't.
Week 5, con't. (Fri. 15 Feb) Thomas
Carlyle; 3 parts Sartor Resartus
Week 6 ( Mon.18th is holiday) Wed. 20th Finish Carlyle; Cardinal Newman,
from The Idea of a University (and my handout); Fri. (John Stuart Mill from
Autobiography [Crisis in Mental History] p.1166, 69, 70, 72); Evolution,
Darwin, natural selection, Origin of Species p. 1679-81, 85-86 The Descent of
Man pp. 1686-93.
Week 7 Tennyson In Memoriam; "Charge of
Light Brigade"; Wed (Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat);
R. Browning "My Last Dutchess";
"Home Thoughts"; "Fra Lippo Lippi."
8 (A.Clough, "The Latest Decalogue"); Matthew
Arnold, "Dover Beach"; purpose of education and how to achieve it
(definition
of literature) from Literature & Science p.
1545; (Thomas Huxley bio.; p.1566 definition of agnosticism; and1690-93 on
Wilberforce debate).
9 (Walter Pater"Conclusion" to
The Renaissance, (pp.1642-1644); Hopkins "God's Grandeur,"
"Spring," Binsey Poplars,"
"Spring & Fall," & the four "terrible" sonnets:
"Carrion Comfort," "No Worse, There is None, "I Wake and
Feel the Fell of Dark," and "Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord." (Lewis
Carroll "Jabberwocky" & note from
Through Looking Glass)*; (
WEEK 10 Spring Break
11
(Mon 25 Mar) TEST 2 ; learning poems by memory
TWENTIETH CENTURY
Week 11 Wed. & Fri. Introduction to Twentieth Century, text &
handout; A. E. Housman "Loveliest of Trees," "To An
Athlete"
and "Terence, "From Far, From Eve and
Morning" [handout from A Shropshire Lad]; Intro.
to WW I, Wilfred Owen "Dulce
Et Decorum Est"
WEEK 12-13 W. B. Yeats (See p. 2914 for bibliography for paper): bio. and poems
beginning with main words: Stolen Child,
Down By Sally Gardens, LakeIsle
Innisfree, When You are Old, Man Who Dreamed [place
names only], Adam's Curse [lines
on writing and love], Fascination, Wild Swans,
Easter 1916, The Second Coming, A Prayer, Sailing, Among School Children,
A Dialogue of Self and Soul, For Anne, Crazy
Jane, Circus, Under Ben Bulben. Prose:
Reveries...beginning on p.2124 & from
The Trembling of the Veil beginning on p.
2127
WEEK 14 Virginia Woolf "S'peare's
Sister" (p.2177-8)from A Room of One's Own; 2 things women need p.2214;
possibly
handout from To the Lighthouse; James Joyce,
bio., A Portrait of the Artist, Chapt. 1 in detail & my handout with discussion of rest; brief outline
& focus (from Joyce bio.) of Ulysses.
Weeks 15-16 T.S. Eliot "Prufrock"; The Waste Land;
Beckett (bio in text); brief discussion "Waiting for Godot"
if time (you
have journal with notes);W.H. Auden "Museé," "Lullaby," & "In Memory of
WBY"; Dylan Thomas, "Fern Hill," "Do Not Go
Gentle Into That Good Night" (Seamus Heaney
bio., possibly handout, if time)
750-1,250 word PAPER ON YEATS OR JOYCE
DUE Fri. 26 April (mainly on primary sources; can be a
critical analysis of one or several different Yeats poems, or apply some
background / characteristics of 20th century to his work) You must use at least
one secondary source. Use MLA style.
Week l7 Fri. 10 May 10:30-11:30 a.m. TEST 3; Bring notes of Portrait and literary journals to be
checked; POETRY MUST
BE SAID BEFORE THIS DATE. See above.
[END OF CALENDAR SYLLABUS]
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Regarding Grades: One hour exam (short essay, passages to identify or
explain) after each of the three periods. The three tests count 75% of your
grade, the term paper 20%, the notebooks & quizzes 5%. Other work will help
me decide between grades, but cannot lift you to passing from failing. A =
95-100 (there is no A+); A- = 92-94; B+ = 90-91; B =
86-89; B- = 83-85; C+ = 80-82; C= 76-79; C- =
73-75; D+=70-72; D =67-69; D- = 64-66; F= 63 and
below. Return of first test gives standing before mid-term. Please memorize any
12 lines of poetry from Yeats. Always be ready for spotlight or quiz.
Departmental policy: more than 4 absences is failure. No make up tests without
Doctor's excuse or copy of obituary (I check), nor after one week for any
reason. Return of test 1 gives your standing before mid-term.
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Neo-classical and Romantic Dichotomy:
Over-simplified contrast between Neo-classical and Romantic value systems:
NEO-CLASSICAL static mechanism (everything stays the
same) symbol: watch
1. conformity--everything
conforms to a pattern
2. Perceived “imperfection” is
simply misunderstanding on your part, world is as it should be.
3. Everything judged by its ability
to submit to the world and fit into a pre-conceived pattern, wants to fit into
society and be accepted.
4. Values: perfection,
changelessness, uniformity, rationalism, order, safety,
security.
5. Intellectual, moral, social, religious
structures (conventions) for most people.
6. Being: world is complete. Literature as finished product-- final answers are known.
7. World as perfect
machine. 8. Absolutes.
9. Glorification of reason--the mind; Excessive passion is bad.
10. Answers outside ourselves.
(Externals) Priest, Rabbi, Pastor, Pope. Ways to
salvation in books, plans and laws.
11. Style of writing: set forms (poems usually heroic couplet); Literature as
finished PRODUCT (see # 6); moralistic, preaching, propaganda (with all the
answers).
ROMANTIC Dynamic organism
(everything changes) symbol: tree
1. Nonconformity–ignore pre-existing
patterns
2. Imperfections exist and should be corrected.
3. Everything judged on an
individual basis. Continuous adaptation to the world;
or refusal to submit or adapt.
Alienation--the romantic as a rebel.
4. Values: imperfection,
growth, change, diversity. Each person and work of art [such
as literature] is unique; Creative imagination, unconscious, striving,
yearning, reaching. Disorder painful but sometimes
necessary.
5. "Finer minds" above
conventions; tear down structures because they are arbitrary anyway.
Every decision based on new and different set of standards; humans must be FREE.
6. BECOMING: world is still being made.
Literature as process--search for answers.
7. World is alive, can never be
perfect.
8. Relativism; no such thing as
absolute or "The Truth" or
"Only One Right way"
9. Intuition, imagination, spontaneity;
knowledge is from the
subconscious, emphasis
on the emotions, feelings and the senses. Passion is good.
10. Answers within ourselves.
(Internal) Must work out our own salvation.
People are a religion unto themselves, a law unto themselves.
11. For literature & the other
arts: Experiment: fit form to content; many different forms; literature as PROCESS (open-minded searches, but no
final answers).
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BACKGROUND
OF ROMANTIC PERIOD (oversimplified)
(Political, industrial, economic, religious)
Refer to Rom/Neo Dichotomy sheet to see contrast
between 18th and 19th centuries. How did the turmoil
and conflict of the 19th century CAUSE the literature we're studying to be
written, how does the literature REFLECT this background?
REFORM AND REVOLUTION:
Two of the main ideas of Romanticism are
reform and revolution. A background phenomena that
gave birth to Romantic reform and revolution was the rise of the Middle Class,
partly a result of insistence on THE INHERENT VALUE OF THE INDIVIDUAL.
I. REFORM: 2 REFORM BILLS
1. Reform Bill of 1832. First
important reform bill. It had to do with politics: for first time,
common people could have a voice in government. It eliminated
"pocket" and "rotten" boroughs. (pocket-patron
designated) (rotten-number of votes for a region set
by Medieval population pattern.
2. Reform Bill of 1833 shows how badly reform
was needed and why revolution were taking place.
It had to do with working conditions and education. Part of it called The
Factory Act (applied only to textile trade):--Children under 9 not allowed to
work; --ages 9-13 work only 12 hours a day; --2 hours of schooling a day
required for children under 13 (beginning of universal education)
II. REVOLUTION
Two kinds: POLITICAL AND INDUSTRIAL
1. POLITICAL: 1762 Rosseau
published The Social Contract stating that the only power a ruler has is
given by the people.
Two POLITICAl
revolutions: American 1776, French 1789, influenced thought and writing in
2. INDUSTRIAL: began in late 18th cent.,
culminated in 19th
Definition: Transformation of most of
--Steam engine by James Watt, late 18th century
(1765)
--locomotive, Stevenson, early 19th (1814)
--telegraph, mid 19th century (1844)
ECONOMIC BACKGROUND: Adam Smith pub Wealth of Nations 1776, propounds idea of Laissez-faire individualism (free enterprise); Government hands off
RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND: Minorities in 18th
cent., Pantheism (God in all things) and Deism (God as nature) grow. Science
questions earlier beliefs in myths, miracles, and superstitions. Gradual shift
FROM EXTERNAL PERSONAL GOD (Absolute Authority who cares about individuals
personally) to INTERNAL PERSONAL GOD (Sacredness of self and all other people;
every person a law, religion to him/her self) and humanism (emphasis on human).
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QUOTATIONS [not in the book]
to know:
Romantic:
"To see the world in a grain of sand /
Heaven in a wild flower /
To hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / and Eternity
in an hour." William Blake "Auguries of Innocence"
"He
who binds to himself a joy / Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies / Lives in eternity's sun
rise." William Blake [from Blake's notebooks]
Victorian:
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, "it means just
what I choose it to mean--neither more, neither less." "The
question is," said
"Life is much too important to be taken seriously." --Oscar Wilde
"If you can meet with Triumph and
Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same."
--Rudyard Kipling "If"
Twentieth Century:
Three quotations from W.B. Yeats:
"My business [as a poet] is not reformation
but revelation." (from The Unicorn and the
Stars)
"It is out of our quarrel with others we
make [political] rhetoric; out of our quarrel with ourselves we make
poetry."
"Be secret and exult, / Because of all
things known that is most difficult." From "To a Friend Whose Work
Has Come to Nothing"
"I have been a king, / I have been a slave,
/ Nor is there anything, / Fool, rascal, knave, / That I have not been " --from "Mohini Chatterjee" (poem, 1928)
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Dorothy Sutton's
BRIEF BACKGROUND TO TWENTIETH CENTURY IN LITERATURE
Victorian era had been quiet, stable. Death of
Queen
Two of the main INFLUENCES on 20th
Century Literature:
I. LEGACY OF
I. LEGACY OF DARWIN (including LYELL on
geology)
interpretation of the Bible: Exposed
rock strata of earth showed it to be much older than originally thought, not
created in seven days, and fossils found there revealed that some species had
become extinct.
II. WORLD WAR I [originally called
"The Great War" ] 1914-1918 true date for
ending of old world cultures and values. Began Aug. 4, 1914.
In 1916, 1/10 of young men of
THREE
PEOPLE IN EARLY 20TH CENTURY WHO INFLUENCED LITERATURE
1899- FREUD published Interpretation of Dreams, in some ways his
fundamental work. Father of psychoanalysis [association].
Introduced idea of subconscious, which led to stream of
consciousness in writing. Instead of external details and description
[as realism/naturalism period] and characters speaking dialogue aloud, we read
thoughts as they flow through a character's mind. (Freud against repression as
harmful to psyche) Examples: Joyce's Portrait of Artist, Eliot's
"Prufrock" and
1905- EINSTEIN published his ideas
about Theory of Relativity. Loss of Absolute can lead to "situation
ethics" (started with Romantics--as individualism, each person a law,
religion unto him/her self)
HENRY FORD with his mass production assembly line, division of labor, a
hero/villain of this new world which started with Industrial Revolution in 19th
century. Technological society, people as machines.
Charlie Chaplin "Modern Times" movie of man caught in wheels of
industry. Kafka's Metamorphosis a good example of a
person dehumanized by technology).
Background for literature, rest of modern
period:
1920's disillusionment caused by WW I. Stock market
crash '29 and worldwide Great Depression in the 30's;
World War II 1939-45. [
SIX CHARACTERISTICS
OF 20TH CENTURY LITERATURE
1. Redefining the words “RELIGION,” “God,”
“Sacred”: Loss of TRADITIONAL belief systems: Legacy of Darwin [See
other side]. Science now explaining religion's earlier
mysteries. Search for a substitute for a supernatural that no
longer seemed viable [Nietzsche's "God is
Dead" meant old concepts of God were dead].
Attempt to establish a sense of values, meaning in a world with no absolutes.
Humanism [shifted emphasis from supernatural to humans & their
relationships].
2. Modern writer's DESIRE TO STARTLE,
SHOCK THE READERS. Why? To wake them out of their lethargy,
to force them to recognize their involvement. [Example: Kafka's
Metamorphosis]
3. SUBJECT MATTER OF LITERATURE ENLARGED
EVEN MORE, beyond what realists and naturalists had done, became MORE HONEST
& ACCURATE [to real life], EXPLICIT, MORE INCLUSIVE: abortion, homosexuality
in The Waste Land, Yeats's "Crazy Jane"
poems (sex and excrement).
4. CONTINUED SHIFT FROM RURAL TO URBAN
ENVIRONMENT (had begun with Industrial Revolution). Urban now
in majority for first time in history. Problems
of technology. Example: The
5. STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS LITERARY
TECHNIQUE: record of a person's thoughts as they "flow" through the
mind. Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist; Eliot's "Prufrock" and The
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Towards the end of the 20th century FEMINISM is ADDED AS A CRITICAL APPROACH: new
awareness of women: an attempt to see the world and literature from female
point of view (Example: "Shakespeare's Sister" section of Virginia
Woolf's A Room of One's Own). Please keep this approach in mind as you read ALL
the material.
Neo-Classicism (18th century): there are
choices but others make many of them for us. Naturalism (19th century): life is
predestined, pre-determined. EXISTENTIALISM (simplified)
(1) an important philosophy in modern literature which is a
reaction against Naturalism (which implies that there are NO choices)
It's obvious we are victims of heredity and environment to a certain extent BUT
people are what they make themselves to a certain extent also. There is no
INHERENT meaning in the universe, but PEOPLE ARE PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF CREATING
THEIR OWN MEANING. Humans have large brains, can think and reason. Humans can
EMPATHIZE, and are therefore capable of sympathizing with, caring for (loving) other
people, and of controlling our actions. We don’t
always have to do what nature urges us to do. Existentialism says
that people do have some freedoms and choices, and that people are what
they make of themselves. For example, all people choose their own values
to live by. Constant choices must be made (life is made up of
"decisive moments"--EVERY moment a "moment of truth.")
Examples:
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