DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
TRENT UNIVERSITY
ENGLISH 3210Y
FOUNDATIONS IN RESTORATION TO ROMANTIC LITERATURE
2012-13FA/WI Peterborough
Instructor: Prof. Lorrie Clark Email: lclark@trentu.ca
Telephone: 705-7481011 ext. 7630
Campus: Symons
Office Hours: TBA
Office Location: LEC N117
Secretary: Sue Devlin
E-mail: sdevlin@trentu.ca
Office Location: LEC N122
Telephone: 705-748-1011 ext. 7626
Instructor:
Prof. Kelly McGuire
Email: kellymcguire@trentu.ca
Telephone: 705-7481011 ext. 7574
Campus: Traill
Office Location: WH 120
Office Hours: TBA
Secretary: Patricia Heffernan
Email: pheffernan@trentu.ca
Office Location: WH 134
Telephone: 705-748-1011, ext. 7733
Course Description: The course introduces students to the period traditionally called
the long eighteenth century (1660-1832). We shall explore the prominent literary
genres (epic, lyric, satire, journalistic writing, the novel, and drama) of this broad
swath of literary history alongside its major aesthetic, philosophical, and political
trends. Among the writers to be studied are Milton, Rochester, Behn, Defoe, Pope,
Swift, Sheridan, Johnson, Sterne, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Radcliffe,
Shelley, and Keats. The first term will focus on the period after the Restoration (from
1660); the second term, on the Age of Sensibility (1750-1789) and the Romantic period
(1789-1832).
Course Format, Peterborough Campus: Students meet weekly for a two-hour lecture
and a two-hour workshop:
Lecture
Day:
Time: 10-11:50
Location: SC 137
Wed
Workshop Y01
Wed
13-14:50
SC 215
Workshop Y02
Wed
15-16:50
SC 215
Learning Outcomes: We have developed the course to address several learning outcomes.
Students taking this course can expect
 to explore “the long eighteenth century” (1660-1832)
 to study a wide range of characteristic genres including epic, mock-epic, satire,
journalistic writing, travel narrative, the periodical essay, drama, the novel, elegy,
ode, and lyrics of various kinds
 to explore how these experiments with both traditional and newly-invented genres
both express and contest the traditional religious, political, and aesthetic “authority”
of the age
 to develop a sense of the different historical phases within this long eighteenth
century, from its Restoration beginnings (1660) through its Augustan (1700-1750),
Age of Sensibility (1750-1789), and Romantic (1789-1832) manifestations
 to consider central eighteenth-century and romantic debates about nature and human
nature as they inform many of these texts, particularly those contesting the merits of
and relation between the passions of self-interest and sympathy; and debates about
such terms as nature, human nature, reason, judgment, sense, manners, taste,
sensibility, and imagination
 to develop a corollary heightened awareness of the distinctively eighteenth-century
and romantic vocabularies originating in and fuelling these debates
 to use, along with the close reading of complex individual texts, wide-ranging
comparative methods of analysis which emphasize the ongoing dialogues, debates,
and conversations among them
 to apply, in oral and written form, the arts of interpretive argument
 to acquire an understanding of how these texts inform and reflect their particular
cultural moment and register the onset of modernity
Course Evaluation:
1. Essays: one essay each term: First term
1500 words
Second term 2000 words
2. Exams: December exam (during December exam period)
Final exam (during April exam period)
3. Workshop participation (10% each term)
Due Week 8 15%
Due Week 10 20%
20%
25%
20%
University Policies
Academic Integrity:
Academic dishonesty, which includes plagiarism and cheating, is an extremely serious
academic offence and carries penalties varying from a 0 grade on an assignment to
expulsion from the University. Definitions, penalties, and procedures for dealing with
plagiarism and cheating are set out in Trent University’s Academic Integrity Policy. You
have a responsibility to educate yourself – unfamiliarity with the policy is not an excuse.
You are strongly encouraged to visit Trent’s Academic Integrity website to learn more:
www.trentu.ca/academicintegrity.
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Access to Instruction:
It is Trent University's intent to create an inclusive learning environment. If a
student has a disability and/or health consideration and feels that he/she may need
accommodations to succeed in this course, the student should contact the
Disability Services Office (BH Suite 132, 748 1281disabilityservices@trentu.ca).
for Trent University in Oshawa Disability Services office contact 905-435-5100.
Complete text can be found under Access to Instruction in the Academic
Calendar.
Required Texts (available at the Trent University bookstore*):
*Damrosch, David, et.al. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Volume 1C:
The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century. 4th ed. Longman, 2010.
*Damrosch, David, et.al. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Volume 2A:
The Romantics and their Contemporaries. 5th ed. Longman, 2012.
*Behn, Aphra. The Rover and Other Plays. Oxford World’s Classics.
*Defoe, Daniel. Roxana. Oxford World’s Classics.
*Johnson, Samuel. Rasselas. Oxford World’s Classics.
*Radcliffe, Ann. The Italian. Oxford World’s Classics.
*Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey. Oxford World’s Classics.
Recommended Texts: (if applicable)
learningSystem/Blackboard: (if applicable)
Week-by-week schedule:
Sept. 12: Introduction
Authority and Liberty: Religious, Political, Poetic
19: Milton, selections from Paradise Lost (supplied photocopy): Book 1, lines 1-355
(Satan and the fallen angels in hell); Book 3: 56-134 (God’s argument); Book 4: 1-535
(Adam and Eve in the Garden “east of Eden”; Eve’s account of her creation)
26: Milton, Paradise Lost: Book 5: 1-135 (Eve’s dream); Book 8: 1-356 (Adam
converses with the angel Raphael; Adam’s account of his creation); all of Book 9 (Satan’s
temptation, and the Fall of Adam and Eve); Book 12: 466-649 (Adam and Eve’s expulsion
from Paradise)
The Restoration: Liberty, or License? Theatricality, Libertines, and Cavaliers
Oct. 3 : John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, A Satyr Against Reason and Mankind, Against
Constancy, The Disabled Debauchee, The Imperfect Enjoyment; Aphra Behn, The
Disappointment; John Dryden, Mac Flecknoe (all in Longman’s)
Oct. 10: Aphra Behn, The Rover (OWC); Eliza Haywood, Fantomina (Longman’s)
Oct. 17: William Hogarth, The Rake’s Progress; essays by Joseph Addison and Richard
Steele, pp. 2316-2333; includes The Female Spectator by Eliza Haywood (all in
Longman’s)
**********READING WEEK**********
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Economic Woman: Virtuous? Or Vicious?
Oct. 31: Daniel Defoe, Roxana
Nov. 7: Defoe, Roxana
“Such gaudy tulips raised from dung:”Pope vs. Swift on art and the excremental vision
Nov. 14: Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock; Jonathan Swift, The Lady’s Dressing
Room; Lady Mary Wortley Montague, The Reasons that Induced Dr. S. to write a Poem
called The Lady’s Dressing Room (Longman’s)
Nov. 21: Alexander Pope, from An Essay on Man; Essay On Criticism; Samuel Johnson,
from Rasselas, ch. 10, A Dissertation Upon Poetry, pp.2722-3; Rambler #4, On Fiction,
2688-2691; from The Plays of Wm. Shakespeare, 2727-2730 only; all in Longman’s
Nov. 28: Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, Part 4; A Description of the Morning; A
Description of a City Shower (Longman’s)
Dec. 5: Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal (Web CT)
**********Christmas Break**********
Jan. 9: Samuel Johnson, The Idler, On Travel Writing (2702 Longman’s); Rasselas (Oxford)
Sentiment and Sensibility
16: Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard; William Cowper, The Cast-away;
Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village (all in Longman’s); Charlotte Smith, “Written in the
churchyard at Middleton in Sussex,” “Press’d by the Moon” (Longman’s 2A)
23: Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey (Oxford)
Romantic Satanism
30: William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; The Tyger (Longman’s 2A)
Feb. 6: Byron, Manfred (Longman’s)
13: Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Longman’s)
**********READING WEEK**********
Revolutionary Poetics: Supernaturalism, the Gothic, and the Sublime
Feb. 27: Ann Radcliffe, The Italian
Mar. 6: Radcliffe, The Italian
13: Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey, Preface to the Lyrical Ballads; Coleridge, Frost at
Midnight; Biographia Literaria, ch. 14 only (all in Longman’s)
20: Wordsworth, from The Prelude, Book 10, lines 1-82 only; Coleridge, Kubla Khan,
Christabel; Edmund Burke, from A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the
Sublime and Beautiful; Immanuel Kant, from The Critique of Judgment (all in Longman’s)
27: Shelley, The Mask of Anarchy; from A Defence of Poetry; Ode to the West Wind
April 3: Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn; Ode on Melancholy; To Autumn; Ode to a Nightingale
Course Attendance Policy: Students are expected to attend both their assigned workshop and
the lecture. Essays and exams will be based on both. Material covered in the lectures and
workshops will include background contexts, close reading of primary texts, and some supplemental
texts. The workshops will have different formats depending on the individual instructor assigned
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(please see handout from your own instructor), while the lectures are given to all students in the
course by the instructors in alternation.
Course Late Essay Policy: Students are expected to submit their work in a timely manner.
Late essays will be docked 2% per day (including weekends) for the first week after the due
date has passed, after which a penalty of 5% per day will be applied.
Exam Policy: Please note that exams both terms are scheduled within the formal
university exam periods. Do not make holiday travel plans conflicting with these times.
English Department Website: Information about additional English courses, events, and
regulations can be found at www.trentu.ca/english
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