ENGL 458 Major Author: Jane Austen CRN 56738 T,Th, 4:30-6:10 p.m. CLASSROOM: Schrader 1
Professor Celia Easton
Spring 2015 THIS SYLLABUS HAS THE CORRECTED DATES
Office: Schrader 131 (Office of Residence Life) Phone 245-5726
Dedicated office hour for ENGL 458: Thursdays 3:30-4:30 p.m.
I can usually also meet with you by request in our classroom immediately before or after class
on Tuesdays or Thursdays or by appointment. Make an appointment by calling my department
office at the number above.
My day job is Dean of Residential Living, so I’m in Schrader 131 (or at meetings around campus)
M-F 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Home (never after 9:00 p.m.) (585) 442-5716. Email: easton@geneseo.edu
INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES
Students in ENGL 458 Major Authors: Jane Austen will
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Have a working knowledge of Jane Austen's complete works.
Be able to situate Jane Austen's work in the context of 18th & 19th-century fiction.
Be able to write critically about Jane Austen's work.
Be able to respond critically to published essays about Jane Austen's work.
These outcomes are addressed and assessed in the following ways:
1. Students participate in class discussions on Jane Austen’s works and related materials.
2. Students write a brief essay connecting Austen’s early and mature work.
3. Students complete a mid-term essay (take-home) on Austen’s works.
4. Students write one longer critical essay that includes primary and secondary source research.
5. Students write a cumulative final exam that addresses all the reading in the course, including
identification of significant quotations from the novels and related materials (only those authored
by Jane Austen).
Accommodations
SUNY Geneseo will make reasonable accommodations for persons with documented physical,
emotional, or learning disabilities. Students should notify the Director in the Office of Disability
Services (Tabitha Buggie-Hunt, 105D Erwin, tbuggieh@geneseo.edu) and their individual faculty
of any needed accommodations as early as possible in the semester.
Required texts:
I have ordered the Penguin Complete Novels. If you want to use other editions, you will need
all six of Austen’s completed novels: Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and
Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion. All are available in free text editions on the
Internet.
In addition, I have ordered Jane Austen’s Manuscript Works (Broadview Press). Although these
texts can be gathered from other sources, I prefer that you have this convenient collection to
keep us “on the same page” for discussions.
Reading: please complete reading assignments prior to class.
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Syllabus-Spring 2015
Date
Reading Assignment
Tuesday
1/20
Intro to the course. Who is Jane
Austen?
Thursday
1/22
Read: Pride and Prejudice (at
least 1/4)
Tuesday
1/27
Read: Pride and Prejudice (at
least 1/2)
Read: Mary Wollstonecraft's
Thoughts on the Education of
Daughters (1787): "Unfortunate
Situation of Females, fashionably
educated, and left without a
Fortune" from JAMW
Thursday
1/29
Something due?
Breadcrumbs
Who is Jane Austen? How is her
fiction situated in the history of
the novel in English? Why is
Austen so popular? Can we
reconcile diverse audience needs
for satire, social commentary,
romance, escapism, and naïve
historicism?
Great houses, Brighton, London,
country vs. city,
military/army/militia, servants,
church/clergy, manufacture,
farming, inheritance, law,
mercantile, transportation,
tourism, gambling, balls/dancing,
music, marriage, sex, fishing
Read: Pride and Prejudice (at
least 3/4)
Read WSJ article on MyCourses
on The Royal Pavilion at Brighton
Tuesday
2/3
Read: Pride and Prejudice (finish)
Thursday
2/5
Read: Juvenilia from JAMW,
Tuesday
2/10
Read: Lady Susan (from either
JAMW or Collected Novels)
Thursday
2/12
Read “Love and Freindship” (sic)
from JAMW
Frederick and Elfrida, Jack and
Alice, Catherine, or the Bower
The tradition of the novel, satire,
comedy, parody, London, country
vs. city, great houses, inheritance,
women's frailty, sex, children,
marriage, courtship
Also, read (very brief) Appendix
C: 'Love and Freindship' (1790)
and Frances Burney's Evelina
(1778) -- From Evelina, ed. Susan
Kubica Howard (2000)
Tuesday
2/17
Read Northanger Abbey (at least
1/3)
Bath, dance, military, clergy,
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Thursday
2/19
Read Northanger Abbey (at least
2/3)
Tuesday
2/24
Read Northanger Abbey (finish)
Thursday
2/26
Jane Austen and Dance.
Guests are welcome.
Read—from MyCourses—short
chapter from Susannah
Fullerton’s A Dance with Jane
Austen.
Tuesday
3/3
Read Persuasion (at least 1/3)
Thursday
3/5
Read Persuasion (at least 2/3)
Tuesday
3/10
Read Persuasion (finish)
Thursday
3/12
Read Sense and Sensibility (start
the novel)
3/17-19
SPRING BREAK
Tuesday
3/24
Read Sense and Sensibility (at
least 1/2)
Thursday
3/26
Read Sense and Sensibility (at
least 3/4)
Tuesday
3/31
Read Sense and Sensibility (finish)
Thursday
4/2
Read Mansfield Park (at least
1/4)
Tuesday
4/7
Read Mansfield Park (keep
going)
Thursday
4/9
Read Appendix A: Austen's
Letters about Fiction
To Anna Austen, Wednesday 10Thursday 18 August 1814
To Anna Austen, Friday 9-Sunday
18 September 1814 (from JAMW)
Read Mansfield Park (keep
going)
Tuesday
4/14
Read Mansfield Park (finish)
inheritance, great houses,
tourism, transportation, alcohol
consumption
FIRST PAPER
DUE.
Wear comfortable
shoes. We’ll dance
in the classroom.
Really.
War, military, Bath, history, Royal
Navy, tourism, Portsmouth, Lyme
Regis, hunting, clergy, old age
(aging), great houses, children
Midterm Due
London, country v. city, enclosure,
great houses, inheritance, music,
courtship, children, women’s
frailty, hunting, hunting dogs
Slavery, courtship, divorce,
Portsmouth, Royal Navy, alcohol
consumption, clergy, theater,
transportation, inheritance, great
houses, colonialism, gambling,
balls/dancing
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Thursday
4/16
Read Sanditon in JAMW.
Tuesday
4/21
GREAT DAY NO CLASSES
Thursday
4/23
Read Emma (at least 1/4)
Tuesday
4/28
Read Emma (keep going)
Thursday
4/30
Read Emma (keep going)
Tuesday
5/5
Read Emma (finish)
Monday
5/11
FINAL EXAM FOR ENGL 458,
3:30 – 6:30 p.m. in Schrader 1.
Tourism, health, asses milk, hobby
horses, hypochondria
Agricultural documents, courtship,
class, old age, hypochondria,
children
FINAL PAPER
DUE THURSDAY
5/7/2015 by
4:00 p.m. in
Schrader 131.
Other web resources:
At the site, The Republic of Pemberley –pemberley.com—(which, like AUSTENBLOG, is basically
fan site), you’ll find a useful “Jane Austen Information Page” that includes electronic texts and a
search engine to search for particular words in the novels or letters. There are other free
internet sites, as well, that offer such a “concordance.”
How the class works:
This class is based on discussion of texts that you must prepare prior to class. Please email me if
you are ill, but check with other students in the class to find out what you missed. My
expectation is that, except for such emergencies, you will attend every class and you will
participate in class discussions. Since you cannot participate if you are not in class, absences
will affect your participation grade.
You have four written assignments: a short comparison essay, a take-home midterm, a paper
that engages literary criticism, and an in-class final exam.
Plagiarism: I abhor plagiarism, and so should you. Geneseo treats plagiarism as a double offense—it is
an academic offense, with academic consequences, and it is a conduct offense, considered through the
campus conduct system. If you plagiarize any assignment for this course, you will receive a zero on that
assignment. If I permit you to revise a plagiarized assignment, you can earn up to a “D” (65) for the
assignment. Evidence of the plagiarism will also be sent to the Dean of Students. What do we mean by
plagiarism? All of the following:
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Copying or paraphrasing passages/sentences/phrases/keywords from another source (published
or non-published), and representing them as your own.
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Using ideas that are not your own in a paper without attributing the source, thus implying that
they are original.
Turning in work that someone else has done and claiming it as your own.
This applies to both exams and papers. Plagiarism is more than simply “forgetting” to cite a source. If
you take notes on a source and those ideas get into your paper, you need to frame them rhetorically as
well as provide parenthetical citations. For example, if you have been reading Northrup Frye’s Anatomy
of Criticism, you might say something like, “Frye’s view of narrative as seasonal structures suggests that
the comedy of Emma has a ‘summer’ quality—growth, ripening, and life-bearing.” I haven’t actually
quoted or paraphrased Frye here, but I let my reader know the source of the idea by mentioning Frye
(whose book is included in my “works cited” list). Since this is a broad concept in the book, I’m not even
including a page citation. You would include a page citation for most particular references.
How your grade is calculated:
Numerical grades:
Active class participation
5%
90 or above, “A” range
Comparative paper
20%
80 or above, “B” range
MIdterm
15%
70 or above, “C” range
10-page paper
30%
60 or above, “D” range
Final exam
30%
59 or below, failing
What happens if you miss a deadline? If an emergency arises, provide documentation to
request an extension on your paper. The following are not emergencies:
1. My computer crashed. You will not lose any work because you will back up all your
work on your College file server space, the cloud, portable drives, etc. If you don’t know
how to access your file space, call the CIT Helpdesk. If you lose your work because your
computer fails, and you did not back up your files, remember, you were warned.
2. My printer broke. There are lots of printers on campus. Do not try to print out your
paper fifteen minutes before it is due.
3. The library did not get my resources in on time. Ask for them early.
If your assignment is late because you planned poorly, you will lose 4 points per day off your
grade. I am, nevertheless, quite sympathetic to illness, family emergencies, etc. Please request
an extension for such reasons.
FIRST ESSAY. Due: 2/26/2015. Brief Comparative Essay. In a paper approximately five pages
long, examine topics coincidental to both Lady Susan and Pride and Prejudice and discuss how
Austen approaches them differently in her early and her more mature work.
The MIDTERM exam. Due 3/12/2015. This is it—right on the syllabus that you are receiving on
the first day of class. DUE: Total LENGTH: approximately 5-6 pages, typed, double spaced.
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Hand in a stapled hard copy. You must answer both the questions. This is an open-book
exam, but you should not consult secondary sources. I am interested in your interpretation,
not interpretations you find through research. Over the course of the exam, you must address
PP, NA, & PER or SS. You may also refer to any of the juvenilia.
1. Argue one side of the following: Jane Austen’s novels glorify/do not glorify romance and
marriage.
2. Argue one side of the following: Jane Austen prefers/does not prefer “sensible”
characters over emotionally-driven characters.
Final researched paper. Due Thursday May 7, 2015 by 4:00 p.m. (no classes on this day—
Study Day is May 6). Feel free to submit it earlier.
Your final essay also satisfies the prompt of the Jane Austen Society of North America’s 2015
essay contest. Your essay for our class must discuss at least two novels and must include a
discussion of relevant secondary sources (literary criticism). You are not required to submit
your essay to the contest, but I encourage you to do so. What is the prompt this year?
Examine a single Jane Austen novel or several and show different ways characters
engage with their culture, views, mores, or living conditions. How does participation in
their world affect each character’s development? You might look at how a character
approaches material culture, physical or emotional space, interpersonal relations, social
class, wealth, or gender. You may consider elements of Jane Austen’s world that have
inherently negative or positive influences on characters and events in the novels.
Full information can be found at: http://www.jasna.org/essaycontest/index.html
A very good format for writing an essay that engages with literary criticism is described in
Gerald Graff’s book, "They Say / I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. Most
English majors have this book from other courses. If you do not, I recommend purchasing it.
Start researching early just to get a sense of what’s out there. If you read a critic’s essay on
advice books, religion, the military, architecture, economics, agriculture, transportation,
education, etc., you’ll soon get pointed into additional directions by that critic’s bibliography—
even if you haven’t read all the Austen novels cited by the critic.
Checklist for your essay (hint—this is my grading rubric):
 1. Do I have a thesis—a point I am arguing in this essay?
 2. Have I articulated what relevant critics (from secondary sources) have to say about this topic?
 3. Have I differentiated myself from those critics? Use the Graff and Birkenstein “They say/I
say” formula. That is, make sure you understand the criticism you read, and make sure you are
analyzing it—not just reporting it. Make sure your argument controls your essay.
 4. Have I supported my assertions with textual examples and (where appropriate) examples
from primary sources, such as letters, conduct books, children’s primers, etc.? Don’t quote
excessively (sometimes a paraphrase will do), but do base your argument on text analysis.
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 5. Have I cut mere plot summary out of my essay? You should refer to the novels, not describe
them as though your reader is not familiar with the books.
 6. Can I say something at the conclusion of this essay that I couldn’t have said before presenting
all my evidence?
 7. Have I properly introduced all quotations? Never simply “drop” a quotation into your essay.
Always use a lead-in phrase. A proper introduction is minimally, “Tony Tanner asserts that….”
See your writing handbook for help avoiding “dropped quotations.”
 8. Have I written as precisely and succinctly as possible? See the Geneseo Writing Guide,
http://writingguide.geneseo.edu/?pg=topics/luciditysimplicity.html.
 9. Have I proofread for spelling, mechanics, and grammar?
Final researched essay format:
 This paper should be approximately 10-12 pages, double spaced.
 Put your name and the paper’s title on the first page of your essay. Do not create a
separate cover sheet.
 Make sure every page (except for the first page) has your last name and the page
number in the upper right hand corner.
 Use parenthetical citations throughout your paper, following MLA style, for quotations,
paraphrases, and acknowledgment of idea sources.
 Put a “works cited” page at the end of your essay to indicate the works you actually cite
in your essay, following MLA style.
For more information on MLA style, see the writing handbook you probably bought for a
writing seminar, or Geneseo’s online writing guide: http://writingguide.geneseo.edu/.
The final exam-May 11, 2015, from 3:30-6:30 p.m. The final exam will be in two parts. The
first is identifications (40 points)—I’ll supply 20 quotations and you’ll write 2-3 sentences
identifying the source (one of Austen’s works, not other readings), the context, and the
quotation’s significance. After you turn in the IDs, you will receive the essay questions. You’ll
need to answer two comprehensive questions (60 points).