English 427W:
Topics in Romantic Literature
Reading the Literary Manuscripts of the Romantics
Instructor: M. Levy
Summer 2015
Instructor: Michelle Levy
Meeting Time: HC 2235
E-mail: mnl@sfu.ca
Time: M 9:30 am – 1:20 pm
Telephone: 778-782-5393
Office Hours: M 1:30-2:30 pm
Office: HC 2156
and by appointment
The recent publication of many major Romantic-era literary manuscripts in digital
form has greatly expanded the possibilities for engagement with archival materials
(materials that are typically held in special collections, in the US and the UK, and
accessible only to senior experts in the field). In this course, we will closely read and
interpret a range of these digital manuscripts to ask a series of questions about
them, including: What can we learn -- about literary history, authorship, and the
texts themselves -- by studying original manuscripts? How does reading a text in its
original manuscript form (via a digital copy) differ from reading a printed text? How
successfully do digital editions represent the original manuscripts? Our readings
will focus on the manuscripts of Jane Austen, Lord Byron, John Keats, Mary Shelley,
and Dorothy Wordsworth. Some of the specific questions we will ask are: How (and
why) did Jane Austen have to modify her style and subject matter to get her fiction
into print? What strategies did Byron use to negotiate the problems of censorship,
as his texts moved from manuscript to print? Did Percy Shelley improve or diminish
Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, with his extensive edits? Why are there so few
corrections to Keats’s poetic manuscripts? Why did Dorothy Wordsworth publish so
little of her writing during her lifetime? In addition to focusing on these authors, we
will also explore the manuscript writings of many other more obscure or unknown
authors of the period. We will also study theories of textual editing and digital
remediation. For their final project, students can choose between creating an
annotated and contextualized digital or print “edition” of a manuscript text, we read
in class, or a research essay.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Jane Austen, Manuscript Works (Broadview) 9781554810581
Lord Byron, Byron’s Poetry and Prose (Norton) 9780393925609
John Keats, Keats’s Poetry and Prose (Norton) 9780393924916
Mary Shelley, The Original Frankenstein (Vintage) 9780307474421
Dorothy Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth (Longman) 9780321277756
Many other course readings will be available online via the SFU library website and
canvas; students must have web access to obtain these materials.
RECOMMENDED TEXTS:
Diane Hacker, A Canadian Writer’s Reference (3rd)
M.H. Abrams, Glossary of Literary Terms
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
15% Participation
15% Presentation #1 (secondary material on an author we are reading that week)
[throughout term]
10% Presentation #2 (Final Project Presentations & Peer Review) [July 27]
15% Essay (5-7 pages; can be related to one of your presentations; can be used in
your final project) [due June 22]
15% Final Project Proposal (3-5 pages) and an Annotated Bibliography (min. 10-12
sources) [due July 13]
30% Final Digital Editorial Project/Print Editorial Project/Research Paper [due
August 10]
Reading Schedule
[week 1] May 11: Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journals
Reading:
· Dorothy Wordsworth, Grasmere Journals (Longman), 25-88
· Marta Werner, “‘Reportless Places': Facing the Modern Manuscript’”
After reading Dorothy’s journals in the Longman, everyone (during class) will be
given one entry from the original manuscript of the Grasmere Journal (found here).
Working in pairs, you will compare the entries in manuscript with the edited
version we read, to answer the following questions: (1) what are the differences
between the manuscript and print versions?; (2) what has been omitted, how are
omissions noted, and why do you think these omissions have been made?; (3) what
are the differences you experience while reading the two versions?; (4) if you were
editing the manuscript, how would you go about it, and why? would you make
different choices than what you find in the Longman?
May 18: Victoria Day, class cancelled
[week 2] May 25: Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journals and William Wordsworth’s
Poems; Dorothy’s Poetry
Reading:
· Grasmere Journal, Woof, 1-137
· Read 4-5 poems by Dorothy (Longman 177-221)
· Anna Chen, In One's Own Hand: Seeing Manuscripts in a Digital Age
Presentations:
#1: Lucy Newlyn, “Dorothy Wordsworth’s Experimental Style”
#2: Mary Ellen Bellanca, “After-Life-Writing: Dorothy Wordsworth's Journals in the
Memoirs of William Wordsworth”
Last week, I will have assigned you to one of the following journal entries (by
Dorothy) and paired to a poem (by William). Here are the questions to consider
when comparing D’s journal to W’s poem: (1) How would you describe the textual
relationship between the two texts? How are they different/similar? (2) What
does/might the textual relationship between the two tell us about the
personal/emotional relationship between brother and sister? (3) In what other
ways, in terms of subject matter/style, are brother and sister aligned, or not? (4) Is
one clearly the product of manuscript/manuscript culture, the other of print/print
culture, and if so, why?
DW’s Journal (all
references to Pamela
Woof’s edition)
WW’s poems (all references to Poems in Two
Volumes (1815))
1
Jan. 25, 1798 (I: 4)
“A Night Piece” (1815)
2
April 20, 1798 (I: 17)
“The Thorn”(1798)
3
June 4, 1800 (I: 37); May
28, 1802 (I: 124)
“Green Linnet” (1803; 1807)
4
June 10, 1800 (I: 38-40)
“Beggars” (March 13, 1802); “Sequel to the
Foregoing” (composed in 1817; sixth stanza
added in 1827); “To a Butterfly”
(March 1802)
5
Oct. 3, 1800 (I: 50-51)
“Resolution and Independence”
(4 May 1802 – July 4, 1802, written; DW copying
May 8-9, 1802; 1807)
6
Oct 11, 1800 (I: 52-3)
“Michael” (Oct-Nov, 1800; finished 9 Dec. 1800)
7
Feb. 16, 1802 (I: 93)
“Alice Fell” (12-13 March 1802)
8
April 15, 16, 21, 1802 (I:
105-111)
“To the Lesser Celadine” (April 30, 1802)
9
April 15, 1802 (I: 105107)
“I wandered lonely as a cloud”
[week 3] June 1: Jane Austen’s Juvenilia
Reading:
· Jane Austen, Juvenilia (Broadview), 45-204
· Paul Eggert, “Apparatus, text, interface: how to read a printed critical edition”
(PDF)
Presentations:
#3 [two presenters]: Peter Sabor, Juvenilia (Cambridge)
#4: Margaret Ann Doody, The Short Fiction
The week prior, everyone will be assigned one text, about which you are to be the
designated expert. There are two sets of questions to answer. For the first, you
will simply rely on the Broadview printed text. As we have all read these texts,
please focus your responses for discussion on the following questions: (1) These
stories are funny – largely because they parody existing fictional conventions.
Even if you aren’t steeped in the 18th c. fiction Austen was reading, find at least
two comical elements from the stories to discuss; (2) What might make these
stories more suitable for circulation within a family, as opposed to public
circulation via print? Specific examples are helpful. (3) What are some of the
serious elements in this fiction? How does Austen speak to the predicament of
women in her society; or issues of class, or politics, in these works?
Please read your one work in manuscript
(http://www.janeausten.ac.uk/index.html). Then prepare responses for the
following questions: (1) what can we learn about the text and its social function by
examining the manuscript version (that we do not learn reading the print
version)? (2) how are changes/cancellations dealt with in the print version? In the
digital version? (3) how is the reading experience different in print and on screen?
(4) which version of the text do you prefer to read, and why? Please also consider
the general questions, above, in relation to your experience of reading the
manuscript.
Assignments: Frederic and Elfrida; Jack and Alice; Edgar and Emma; Henry and
Eliza; Mr Harley; Sir William Montague; Mr Clifford; The beautifull Cassandra;
Amelia Webster; The Visit; The Mystery; the Three Sisters; Love and Friendship;
Lesley Castle; The History of England; Collection of Letters; The First Act of a
Comedy; Evelyn; Kitty, or the Bower.
[week 4] June 8: Jane Austen and Revision
Reading:
· Jane Austen, Sanditon (205-268); “Plan of a Novel”; “Opinions on Mansfield Park
and Emma”; and Persuasion
· Cancelled Persuasion chapters on http://www.janeausten.ac.uk/index.html and the
substituted chapters (from Chapter 10 to the end), here:
https://archive.org/details/northangerabbey10austgoog.
· M. Levy, “Austen’s Manuscripts and the Publicity of Print”
Presentations:
#5: B.C. Southam, Jane Austen's literary manuscripts: a study of the novelist's
development through the surviving papers
#6: K. Sutherland, Jane Austen’s Textual Lives: From Aeschylus to Bollywood
#7: L. Bree and J. Todd, Later Manuscripts (Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jane
Austen)
This class, we are dealing with our first drafts (as opposed to fair copies) –
Persuasion and Sanditon – which are the only texts of Austen’s we have in both
manuscript and print forms. Please carefully study the revisions to the manuscript,
and be prepared to discuss the nature and significance of the revisions. What do we
learn about Austen’s writing process from examining these chapters? What effect do
the revisions have on the meaning of the story?
We will also be experimenting with Juxta, please click this link to see comparisons
between the two Persuasion texts:
http://www.juxtacommons.org/shares/ZlBzIv
Assignments:
Chapter I Persuasion (1-17)
Chapter II Persuasion (18-34)
Sanditon (Chapter 1, b1-1-16)
Sanditon (Chapter 2, b1-16-25)
Sanditon (Chapter 3, b1-25-b2-1)
Sanditon (Chapter 4, b2-1 -9)
Sanditon (Chapter 5, b2-9 -17)
Sanditon (Chapter 6, b2-17 - 26)
Sanditon (Chapter 7, b2-26 - 40)
[week 5] June 15: Lord Byron, in Manuscript
Reading:
· Lord Byron, “When We Two Parted”; “Fare Thee Well!”; “Epistle to Augusta” (241245); “A Sketch from Private Life”; “To the Po” (373); Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,
Canto III (196-229) [from Norton] and in manuscript
· Jerome McGann, “The Socialization of Texts”
Presentations:
#8: Andrew Stauffer, “The Career of Byron’s ‘To the Po’”
#9: J. McGann, Fiery dust: Byron's poetic development
[week 6] June 22: Lord Byron’s Don Juan
Essay #1 Due
Reading:
· Lord Byron, “Dedication” to Don Juan; Canto I, Don Juan (Norton, 375-426)
· William St. Clair, “Preparatory schools for the brothel and the gallows” (PDF)
Presentations:
#10: Paul Magnuson, “The Dedication of Don Juan” (PDF)
#11: Gary Dyer, “Thieves, Boxers, Sodomites, Poets: Being Flash to Byron's Don
Juan”
[week 7] June 29: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Reading:
· Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)
· Robinson, “The Original Frankenstein”
· http://shelleygodwinarchive.org/
· Charles Robinson, “Editing and Contextualizing the Frankenstein notebooks”
Presentations:
#12 [pair]: Charles Robinson, The Frankenstein Notebooks
#13: Anne Mellor, “Choosing a Text of Frankenstein to Teach” (PDF)
Background: Mary Shelley wrote a draft of Frankenstein, which survives. This draft
is the basis for Robinson’s text in The Original Frankenstein (and for some of the
online MSS in the Shelley-Godwin Archive). Robinson, in The Original Frankenstein,
includes two versions of the draft: the first includes Percy’s revisions in italics. It
also supplies missing sections of the draft with chapters from the printed 1818
edition; the second version removes Percy’s revisions – taking us back (as far as
possible) to Mary’s draft before Percy intervened. Mary Shelley published a first
edition of the novel (incorporating Percy’s revisions) in 1818 and a subsequent,
heavily revised edition in 1831. For this class, we will be mostly exploring the draft
version and the 1818 print version.
The week prior, everyone will be assigned, in pairs, to work on a chapter of
Frankenstein from the site http://shelleygodwinarchive.org/. Please read the
assigned chapter in manuscript (and the transcriptions) and compare to the printed
version of the novel, in this edition: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818). Focus your
analysis on the following questions: (1) what are the major omissions and additions
in the chapter, and what is their significance? (2) Are Percy Shelley’s
additions/corrections retained in the printed edition, and, if so, what is their effect of
the meaning? (3) Does Mary Shelley make any significant changes between
manuscript and print, and if so, why?
Assignments:
(Vol. 1, Chapter 1)
(Vol. 1, Chapter 4)
(Vol. 1, Chapter 7A)
(Vol. 1, Chapter 12)
(Vol. 2, Chapter 2)
(Vol. 2, Chapter 7)
(Vol. 2, Chapter 11)
(Vol. 2, Chapter 17)
(Vol. 3, Chapter 6)
[week 8] July 6: Special Guest Lecturers: Ashley Morford (U of Toronto) and Lindsey
Seatter (U of Victoria).
Reading:
· Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1831)
· Peter Shillingsburg, “Manuscript, book, and text in the twenty-first century” PDF
Presentations:
#14: The Annotated Frankenstein
#15: Julie Carlson, England's first family of writers: Mary Wollstonecraft, William
Godwin, Mary Shelley
[week 9] July 13: John Keats’ Poems in Manuscript
Final Paper/project proposal and Annotated bibliography due
Reading:
· John Keats, “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer” (54); "On Seeing the Elgin
Marbles" (73); “Ode to a Nightingale” (456); "Ode on Melancholy" (473); "Ode to
Psyche" (463); "On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again" (114); “Ode on
Indolence: (333); “La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad" (338); "Ode on Indolence";
"To Autumn" (472); "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (460) [all from the Norton]
· Jack Stillinger, “Fifty-nine ways to Read “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
· Jack Stillinger, “The Text of Keats's "Ode on Indolence”
Presentations:
#16: Jack Stillinger, Multiple Authorship and the Myth of Solitary Genius
#17: Stephen Hebron, John Keats: A Poet and his Manuscripts
The week prior, everyone will be assigned one poem to read in manuscript(s)
available here:
http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu//oasis/deliver/deepLink?_collection=oasis&uniqueId=
hou00062. You can find the poems simply by searching this page by title.
Please identify the single most important change between MS and print version in
each of the poems you have been assigned. Those working on "Ode on a Grecian
Urn" also please consider the differences between the two print versions, discussed
in this essay:
http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/grecianurn/contributorsessays/grecianurnwolfson
.html
[week 10] July 20: Reading Keats’ letters
Reading:
· All letters in the Norton and “The Eve of St. Agnes”
· Susan Wolfson, “Keats the Letter-Writer: Epistolary Poetics” PDF
Presentations:
#18: Nicholas Roe, John Keats: A New Life
We will finish our readings by returning to another “manuscript” genre, the letter
(like the journal, where we began).
[week 11] July 27: Final project presentations & Peer Review
August 3rd: August long weekend -- no class [ongoing peer review]
August 10th: Class Cancelled -- Final projects due via email