English 221: Survey of 19th and Early 20thcentury British Literature
Spring Semester, 2016 MWF 11:30-12:35
Instructor: Darby Lewes, Professor of English (Office D324)
Tel. 321-4114 (O); 546-7521 (H); Email: lewes@lycoming.edu
•Course Information
English 221 is the literary equivalent of a whirlwind European tour which
visits fifteen countries in fourteen days. We will examine over thirty authors
in the space of a semester, using close reading of representative works of
nineteenth-century English Literature--essays, poems, and fiction. These will
be the subjects of discussion, brief lectures, tests, quizzes and essays.
•Learning outcomes
Students will become more accomplished and active readers who are able to
appreciate ambiguity and complexity, and articulate their own interpretations
in oral and written work. They will gain a knowledge of the major
traditions of Romantic, Victorian and Modern British Literature and will
learn to read texts in relation to their historical and cultural contexts. They
will be able to identify topics and formulate questions for productive
inquiry, and evaluate critically the sources they find; and they will use their
chosen sources effectively in their own writing, citing all sources
appropriately.
• Required Texts
· The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 8th ed.
• Highly Recommended Texts
·A good dictionary and thesaurus.
·A style manual (MLA preferred)
• Requirements
Attend class regularly. Class participation will make up a considerable portion
of the final grade; more than three undocumented absences will each lower the
final grade one-half a letter grade, and students with more than six
undocumented absences will fail the class. Documented absences must be
made up with written assignments.
·Turn in all assigned work on time. There are no late papers in this
class: only timely papers and “F” papers. Extensions may be arranged, IN
ADVANCE, if the situation warrants.
·Expect surprise quizzes on a regular basis. Grades for these quizzes will be
averaged into the class participation grade.
·Score an overall average of at least “D-” on the examinations.
• Grade Distribution
· Two examinations, 40 points each
· Final examination, 60 points
· Three essays (3-5pp) 40 points each
· Class participation, 40 points
· Twenty response papers, 40 points
• Students with disabilities
Lycoming College provides academic support for students who officially disclose
diagnosed learning, physical, and psychological disabilities. If you have a diagnosed
disability and would like to seek accommodations, please contact Jilliane BoltMichewicz, Assistant Dean of Academic Services/Director of the Academic
Resource Center. Dean Bolt-Michewicz will help you arrange for appropriate
academic accommodations. She can be reached by calling (570) 321-4050, emailing
michewicz@lycoming.edu, or visiting her office (Academic Resource Center, 3rd
Floor of Snowden Library).
• Course outline and Assignments
Week #1
11 January
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
Course introduction: Introduction to Romantic period
Intro to close reading; Shelley: “Hymn to Intellectual
Beauty”
Blake: “Songs of Innocence”; “Songs of Experience”
Week #2
18 January
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
Wordsworth: “Michael” “Nutting”
Preface to 1802 Lyrical Ballads
Wordsworth:”Tintern Abbey” “Intimations of
Immortality”
Week #3
25 January
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
Coleridge: “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”; “Christabel”
Byron: Shorter poems 555-563
Shelley; “England in 1819”;
“Ode to the West Wind,” “Ozymandius”
Week #4
1 February
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
Shelley: Defence of Poetry
Keats: The Great Odes, pp 788-797
Individual Student Meetings
Week #5
8 February
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
EXAM #1 The Romantic Period
Introduction to the Victorian Period
Carlyle: Sartor Resartus,”Everlasting Yea”, (handout)
“Natural Supernaturalism”
Week #6
15 February
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
Newman: Idea of a University
Mill: “On the Subjection of Women”
Tennyson: “Ulysses,” “Lotus Eaters,”
Essay #1 due in Turnitin by 4PM
Week #7
22 February
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
Tennyson: “Lady of Shallot,” “Locksley Hall”
Browning: “Fra Lippo Lippi,” “Andrea del Sarto”
Barrett-Browning: Aurora Leigh I
Week #8
29 February
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
D.G. Rossetti: “The Blessed Damozel,” “My Sister's
Sleep”
Christina Rossetti “Goblin Market”
Individual meetings
Week #9
7 March SPRING BREAK
Week #10
14 March
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
Industrialism
Evolution
The Woman Question
PAPER #2 due in Turnitin by 4 PM
Week #11
21 March
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
Ruskin: "Stones of Venice"; Pater: "The Renaissance"
Student meetings
No Class: Good Friday
Week #12
28 March
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
Arnold: “Function of Criticism at the Present Time,”
“Dover Beach”
Hardy: "Hap,” "Darkling Thrush";
Hopkins: "God's Grandeur,” "Windhover,” "Pied Beauty”
Introduction to the Modern Period
Week #13
4 April
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
EXAM 2 The Victorian Period
Yeats: selections
Woolf TBA; Eliot: Prufrock
Week #14
11 April
Monday
Brooke: "The Soldier"; Owen, "Dulce et Decorum Est,”
others TBA
Auden: "In Memory of W.B. Yeats,” "Musée des Beaux
Arts”; Wilde TBA
Joyce TBA
PAPER #3 due in Turnitin by 4 PM
Wednesday
Friday
Week # 15 Date TBA:
FINAL EXAM
Extra stuff
Study Partners
List the name, phone number, and e-mail address for a “study partner” here:
Name ________________________________ phone number
_______________________ email address ____________________________.
Just in case you and your partner are absent on the same day, you should get a third
partner as a backup. Name ________________________________________
phone number _________________________ email address
_________________________________.
Academic Conduct
You are expected to altogether avoid any sort of academic misconduct. You must
never seek to claim credit for the work or efforts of another without authorization
or citation; you must never use unauthorized materials or fabricated data; you must
never intentionally impede or damage the academic work of others; (or assist other
students in doing so); you must never cheat on an examination; submit a paper or
assignment as your own work when a part or all of the paper or assignment is the
work of another; or submit a paper or assignment that contains ideas or research of
others without appropriately identifying the sources of those ideas. You must never
submit a paper which was written for another class unless you clear it with me
first.
Classroom Environment
You should be prepared to speak often in class, to participate in class activities
beyond simple note-taking. Classes will be conducted seminar-style, with much
small group discussion and active participation in large group discussion being
expected of each student. I do not merely want bodies in attendance; I expect to
see prepared and thinking students. This means that you will bring the required
materials and complete any assignments due for that particular day. You should
read the assignments listed on the syllabus before class. In addition to doing well
on the exams and the paper, the best way to illustrate that you are an active,
engaged, and interested student is by contributing regularly to class discussions. I do
not want to lecture; I want you to participate actively in creating a learning
environment in the class by constantly challenging each other and supporting each
other's learning.
Reading
You should expect to do plenty of reading—generally roughly 20-30 pages per
class. Since you signed up for this course, I expect you to fulfill the very least of your
responsibilities: complete the readings listed on the syllabus before you come to class-not just by skimming the material but by actively and carefully reading each
assignment. Take notes in the margin and look up unfamiliar words.
Yeah, it sounds pretty grim. But we’ll have some fun—I promise.