English Pre-Romantics
English 317, Autumn 2000
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).