English Pre-Romantics

English 317, Autumn 2000

Jack Lynch

Course Description

Go directly to:

September -- October -- November -- December

Office: (973) 353-5279 x 516; 516 Hill Hall.

Hours: Monday, 2:00-4:00, and by appointment (appointments are best).

Home: (609) 882-4642 (before 10:30 p.m.!).

E-mail: jlynch@andromeda.rutgers.edu (the best way to reach me).

Listserv: lynch317@andromeda.rutgers.edu (for the whole class).

Course Requirements

English 317 involves the following responsibilities on your part:

Written Assignments: There will be two papers, the first of five to seven pages, the second of eight to ten. There are also six short "OED Exercises," in which you'll provide one-page reports of your discoveries in the Oxford English Dictionary (we'll discuss these in class).
Final Exam: A final examination will include identification of quotations, close reading, and short essays.
Attendance: Almost any excuse, given in advance (in person, by phone, or by E-mail), will receive my blessing. Absences not excused in advance will be frowned upon (which means a lower final grade). The same policy applies to late papers: I'll grant extensions, but only if you talk to me before the due date.
Class Participation: Regular and active class participation (including doing the readings) is essential, and counts for a large part of your grade.
E-Mail Participation: All students will be required to have an E-mail account by the end of the second week of classes; E-mail participation will count toward the class participation grade, and some essential information will be available only electronically. I'll provide any computing help you need.

Readings

Five books -- Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology (abbreviated ECP); William Godwin, Caleb Williams; Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; and William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads -- are available from New Jersey Books. The remainder of the required readings are available in a photocopy pack or on-line.

Computing

This class has a mailing list called lynch317@andromeda.rutgers.edu; all students are required to have an E-mail account by the end of the second week of classes and to participate in the discussions on the list. Although I have the greatest sympathy for those suffering from technological nightmares, don't expect to use computer problems as an excuse for not doing the reading or writing. If you have a computer problem, contact me.

Schedule of Class Meetings

Wed., 6 Sept.: Introduction (class business, &c.).
Mon., 11 Sept.: Alexander Pope, Windsor-Forest (ECP 102-13), "An Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot" (ECP 155-66).
Wed., 13 Sept.: Jonathan Swift, "A Description of the Morning" (ECP 72), "A Description of a City Shower" (ECP 72-74); John Gay, from Trivia; or, The Art of Walking the Streets of London (ECP 43-58).
Mon., 18 Sept.: Thomas Parnell, "A Night-Piece on Death" (ECP 61-63); Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, "A Nocturnal Rêverie" (ECP 33-35). OED Exercise Due: Report on three words from Pope, Swift, or Gay.
Wed., 20 Sept.: No Class: Get some sleep.
Mon., 25 Sept.: John Dyer, "Grongar Hill" (ECP 228-32); Stephen Duck, "The Thresher's Labour" (ECP 249-56); Mary Collier, "The Woman's Labour" (ECP 257-62).
Wed., 27 Sept.: James Thomson, Spring (ECP 193-220).
Mon., 2 Oct.: Mark Akenside, from The Pleasures of Imagination (ECP 305-21); Addison, selections from The Spectator (photocopies). OED Exercise Due: Report on three words from Parnell, Finch, Dyer, Duck, Collier, or Thomson.
Wed., 4 Oct.: Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard" (ECP 329-33).
Mon., 9 Oct.: Thomas Gray, "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" (ECP 325-27), "The Progress of Poesy: A Pindaric Ode" (ECP 333-38), "The Bard: A Pindaric Ode" (ECP 338-43). OED Exercise Due: Report on three words from Gray's "Elegy."
Wed., 11 Oct.: William Collins, "Ode on the Poetical Character" (ECP 344-47), "Ode to Evening" (ECP 347-49), "The Passions: An Ode for Music" (ECP 354-57).
Mon., 16 Oct.: Joseph Warton, "The Enthusiast; or, The Lover of Nature" (ECP 358-64), "Ode to Evening" (ECP 365); Thomas Warton, "The Pleasures of Melancholy" (ECP 367-74), "Verses on Sir Joshua Reynolds's Painted Window at New-College Oxford" (ECP 378-81).
Wed., 18 Oct.: Christopher Smart, "My Cat Jeoffry" from Jubilate Agno (ECP 387-89); William Cowper, The Task, Book One, The Sofa (ECP 487-505).
Mon., 23 Oct.: James Macpherson, selections from Fragments of Ancient Poetry (ECP 408-11), "A Dissertation concerning the Antiquity, &c. of the Poems of Ossian the Son of Fingal" (photocopy). OED Exercise Due: Report on three words from Gray, Collins, the Wartons, Smart, or Cowper.
Wed., 25 Oct.: Thomas Chatterton, "Mynstrelles Songe" (ECP 412-14), "Stay, Curyous Traveller" (ECP 414-15), "An Excelent Balade of Charitie" (ECP 415-18); William Henry Ireland, An Authentic Account of the Shaksperian Manuscripts (photocopy).
Mon., 30 Oct.: Robert Burns, "To a Mouse" (ECP 459-60), "To a Louse" (ECP 460-62), "Tam o' Shanter: A Tale" (ECP 465-70).
Wed., 1 Nov.: Charlotte Smith, "Sonnet: Written in the Church Yard at Middleton in Sussex" (ECP 514-15), "Sonnet: To Fancy" (ECP 515), "Sonnet: The Gossamer" (ECP 515), "Sonnet: On Being Cautioned against Walking on an Headland" (ECP 516); William Lisle Bowles, "Sonnet: Written at Tinemouth, Northumberland, after a Tempestuous Voyage" (ECP 519-20), "Sonnet: To the River Wensbeck" (ECP 520), "Sonnet: Written at Ostend" (ECP 520); Anna Seward, "Sonnet: To the Poppy" (ECP 527-28). First Paper Due (five to seven pages).
Mon., 6 Nov.: William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
Wed., 8 Nov.: Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (continued).
Mon., 13 Nov.: William Godwin, Caleb Williams, volume 1 (pp. 1-109). OED Exercise Due: Report on three words from Burns, the sonnets, or Blake.
Wed., 15 Nov.: Godwin, Caleb Williams, volume 2 (pp. 111-213).
Mon., 20 Nov.: Godwin, Caleb Williams, volume 3 (pp. 215-337) and Appendix I (pp. 339-46).
Wed., 22 Nov.: No class (Friday schedule).
Mon., 27 Nov.: Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, chapters 1-4.
Wed., 29 Nov.: Wollstonecraft, Vindication, chapters 5-8.
Mon., 4 Dec.: Wollstonecraft, Vindication, chapters 9-13; Anna Laetitia Barbauld, "The Rights of Woman" (ECP 481-82).
Wed., 6 Dec.: William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads: the Advertisement (pp. 3-4), "The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere," "The Foster-Mother's Tale," "Lines Left upon a Seat in a Yew Tree," "The Nightingale," "The Female Vagrant." OED Exercise Due: Report on three words from Godwin or Wollstonecraft.
Mon., 11 Dec.: Wordsworth and Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads (continued): "Goody Blake and Harry Gill," "Lines Written at a Small Distance from My House," "Simon Lee," "The Thorn," "The Last of the Flock," "The Dungeon," "The Mad Mother," "The Idiot Boy," the Preface of 1800 (pp. 133-79).
Wed., 13 Dec.: Lyrical Ballads (continued): "Lines Written near Richmond," "Expostulation and Reply," "The Tables Turned," "Old Man Travelling," "The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman," "The Convict," "Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey." Second Paper Due (eight to ten pages).