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ENGL 262: British Literature since 1800 (32621)
“Being in Uncertainties”: Revolution/Reaction/Resistance
Dr. Chris Freeman (cefreema@usc.edu)
cefreema@usc.edu
Office hours: Tuesdays 3:30-4:30 & by appt.
Tues/Thurs 11-12:15
Taper 203/Fall 2013
Office: Taper 410
“What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept
opening wherever she turned and the days weren’t long enough for the
reading she wanted to do.”—Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader
The Course and Its Goals
The title for this course comes from the Romantic poet John Keats and his notion of “negative
capability”—how we live with uncertainty, how we move forward from it. That problem—or that
reality—is something that will come up for us throughout the term in many ways.
English 262 traces various literary movements and historical and social contexts of British literature
since 1800. We’ll be reading Romantic poetry and talking about the role of the poet in society;
Victorian poetry, prose, fiction, and drama and thinking about the rise of the middle class, anxieties
about gender, family, and modern technology; turn-of-the-20th-century texts dealing with the
transition into a more urban and internationalized world; poetry and fiction about the devastation of
World War I and II and the rise of modernism, feminism, and postmodernism, and closing with texts
of the last twenty-five or so years, including music, film, and other aspects of British popular and
literary culture.
Students will be encouraged to pursue individual projects on texts, writers, or movements of interest
to them and to present that material to the class, which will allow us to fulfill some aspects of the
“survey” component of the course. The combination of reading, discussion, writing, and research in
this class should give you familiarity with the literature and culture of the last 200 or so years of
British history, and it should provide you with sufficient context in order to think about the
relationship between a cultural moment and its literary production.
You will do a considerable amount of writing, research, and presentation during the semester. Since
we are all engaged in the same literary-historical project, the more of this work that can be shared, the
better. We will make every effort to broaden the scope and content of this course through the
assignments, and we will take advantage of the size of the class to create a seminar atmosphere of
discussion, student contribution, and intellectual community.
The Contract
In accepting this syllabus and becoming a member of this class, each student agrees to attend class
and to complete all assignments in a timely and serious fashion. You also affirm your commitment
to the exploration of ideas in the liberal arts tradition, which is intellectual, creative, and respectful of
others in the classroom. Your commitment to the quality and integrity of your work during the
semester means that all work you hand in will be your own; that any outside sources will be properly cited;
and that your work will be of the highest quality that you can produce. Plagiarism will have severe
ramifications, and I will spot-check anything suspicious to ensure against it. If you have any questions about
using outside sources, please ask me to help you.
As the instructor, my commitment to you is that I have put considerable thought into developing this
course; that I will work hard to invigorate and challenge you during the semester; that I will read your
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work carefully and with an open mind and will value it and evaluate it accordingly; that I will be
prepared for class but that my agenda won’t get in the way of your input; and that I will be available
to help you in your writing and thinking about texts and issues we will be actively exploring.
The Texts
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The Shorter Ninth Edition of Norton Anthology of English Literature Major Authors, vol. 2;
Stephen Greenblatt, et al (Eds.), 9th ed., Norton, 2012
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1861) Edgar Rosenberg (Ed.), Norton, 1999—
should be bundled for free with NORTON
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925), Harcourt, 1981, 2004 OR in the Norton
Michael Cunningham, The Hours (1998), Picador, 2000
Christopher Isherwood, The Berlin Stories (1945), New Directions, 1954, 2008
Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader, Picador, 2007
Assignments
Everyone will write two literary-critical essays (5-7 pp.), and you will do a larger research
project/presentation (6-8 pp. and 10-12 minutes—essays are due ONE WEEK after
presentation date). Presentations will involve an audiovisual component. You should discuss
the project with me at least two weeks before you present. Your research paper is due the
following week. You are expected to come to class every day and to be prepared to
discuss the day’s readings. There will be a take-home final exam.
Grading
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Two literary-critical essays (5-7 pp.)
250 points each
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Research project/presentation (6-8 pp./10-12 minutes)
300 points
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Take-home Final
100 points
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Class Participation/attendance
100 points*
*NOTE: 3 unexcused absences will forfeit ALL 100 POINTS in this category.
Also, if you successfully participate in JEP linked to this course, you will receive a 1/3
bonus, so, for example, a B would become a B+.
A: 930-1000; A-: 929-895; B+: 894-870; B: 869-830; B-: 829-795; C+: 794-770, etc.
Schedule of Assignments
(subject to change as pacing dictates)
Part One: Romanticism and the Gothic (1780s-1830s)
Week One
Introduction to course and the period; syllabus
Norton: Intro to Romantic period and timeline; Blake bio and excerpts from Songs of
Innocence and of Experience (poems to focus on: Introductions to both; SOI: “The Lamb”; “The
Chimney Sweeper”; “Infant Joy”; SOE: “The Chimney Sweeper”; “Nurse’s Song”;
“London”; “Infant Sorrow”); Mary Oliver handout on Blake
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Week Two
Norton: Wollstonecraft from Vindication on the Rights of Woman; Romantic poetry continues:
Wordsworth selections (WW: Preface to Lyrical Ballads; “We are Seven”; “I Wandered
Lonely as a Cloud”; “My Heart Leaps Up”; “London 1802”; “The World is Too Much With
Us”; Dorothy Wordsworth, “Grasmere Journals”;
Week Three
Norton: Wordsworth continued and Coleridge selections (WW: “Ode: Intimations on
Immortality”; STC: “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”; “Frost at Midnight”; “Dejection: An
Ode”)
Week Four
Norton: Shelley and Keats (Shelley: “Mont Blanc”; “England, 1819”; “Ode to the West
Wind”; excerpts from Defence of Poetry; Keats: New Yorker essay on the posthumous Keats
(Blackboard); “When I Have Fears I Cease to Be”; “Bright Star”; “Ode to a Nightingale”;
Letter to his brothers on ‘negative capability’); Projects: Jane Austen & Mary Shelley
Part Two: Victorian Literature and Life (1830s-1900)
Week Five
Norton Intro: Victorian Era and timeline; Great Expectations (1-125, through ch. xix);
Project: John Constable/J.M. W. Turner and visual arts
Great Expectations (126-226, through ch. Xxxvii); Project: Ireland/Potato
Famine/Immigration to U.S.
Week Six
Finish Great Expectations; Project: The Brontë Family or George Eliot or Anthony
Trollope
Victorian Poetry and Prose: Norton—J.S. Mill (from “Subjection of Women” and
“Autobiography” on Blackboard); Alfred, Lord Tennyson selections (“Lotos Eaters”;
“Ulysses”); Robert Browning poems (“Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess”);
Project: Florence Nightingale and 19th century medicine OR Lewis Carroll
Week Seven
Norton: Selections from Matthew Arnold (“The Buried Life”; “Dover Beach”); Wilde, The
Importance of Being Earnest; Wilde essay by Alex Ross, New Yorker; Project: Darwin
Essay One due Thursday, Oct. 10 (5-7 pp.); finish Wilde, Earnest; Wilde, “The Canterville
Ghost” pdf; Project: Victorian Sexuality
Week Eight
Norton introduction to 20th century; Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (Norton); Project:
The Empire at the end of Victoria’s reign
finish Conrad; possible guest this week, artist Susan Silton (see
http://fisher.usc.edu/exhibitions/drawn_to_language.html) Project: Thomas Hardy or
Arthur Conan Doyle
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Part Three: The Great War and Modernism (1900-1930)
Week Nine
The War Poets--Blackboard (Brooke, “The Soldier”; Sassoon, “’They’” and “Memoirs”;
Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est”; Letters to His Mother; and “Preface”); Project: World
War I and Modern Warfare
Norton: Yeats (“Lake Isle of Innisfree”; “Easter 1916”; “Wild Swans at Coole”; T.S. Eliot
(“Prufrock”; “Waste Land”; “Hollow Men” and “Tradition and the Individual Talent”);
Project: American Poets in London (Frost, Eliot, Pound, HD; Imagism)
Week Ten
James Joyce, “The Dead”; Virginia Woolf from Norton: “Modern Fiction”; Project: E. M.
Forster or D. H. Lawrence
Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1-94); New Yorker essay on Teju Cole; Project: The Bloomsbury
Group
Week Eleven
Finish Mrs. Dalloway; The Hours; clips from The Hours
Part Four: The Next Great War and its Aftermath (1930s-1950s)
Week Twelve
Blackboard: George Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant”; Norton: Auden (“Spain”; “Musée des
Beaux Arts”; “Unknown Citizen”; “September 1, 1939”); Project: Spanish Civil War
Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin (Maupin preface; “Berlin Diary” and “Sally Bowles”); excerpts
from Cabaret and Chris & Don; Project: Churchill/The Bombing of London
Part Five: Postmodernism/Contemporary Literature and Life
Week Thirteen
Finish Isherwood (“Berlin Diary”); Norton: Dylan Thomas (“Poem in October,” “Fern
Hill” and “Do Not Go Gentle”); Project: Post-colonial Literature; Samuel Beckett
Week Fourteen
Norton: Seamus Heaney (“Digging”; “The Forge”); Alan Sillitoe, “The Loneliness of the
Long-distance Runner” (Blackboard); Projects: Angry Young Men; Ted Hughes &
Sylvia Plath; Essay Two due Tuesday 11/26 (5-7 pp.); NO CLASS ON THURSDAY
11/27: Thanksgiving
Week Fifteen
Begin Bennett; watch clips from Stephen Frears’ film The Queen, starring Helen Mirren;
Project: British Film since 1960; James Bond
Finish Uncommon Reader; Project: British Music, the Beatles and after; take-home final exam
assignment; course evaluations and wrap-up discussion
Take-home Final Exam due by Tuesday, 12/17 at 9am (hard copy)
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NOTES
 If you need any accommodation due to a learning disability or any other circumstance, please speak to me
during week one of the semester so that arrangements can be made (see below for college policies)
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I will give reading check pop quizzes if necessary, which will be factored into class participation grade
 Attendance is required and roll is taken daily. More than three unexcused absences will be reflected in
your final course grade, forfeiting ALL 100 possible class participation points
 You MUST come to class having done your reading and prepared to DISCUSS the day’s reading
assignment. BRING your texts to class—Underline and mark your copies with notes and tab passages that
seem important to you; make notes about readings in your journal
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Papers must be word-processed in 12-point font size, 1-inch margins, double-spaced, and stapled
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Late papers/assignments will ONLY be accepted by pre-arrangement
 Plagiarism will result in failure—work MUST be your own; it should be original. If you do
research (including Google, etc.), please cite that within your essay and in references list
USC Dornsife College Policies on Student Behavior, Disabilities, & Academic
Integrity
Our course will follow all of the procedures and policies outlined below:
Student Behavior
Behavior that persistently or grossly interferes with classroom activities is considered disruptive behavior
and may be subject to disciplinary action. Such behavior inhibits other students’ ability to learn and an
instructor’s ability to teach. A student responsible for disruptive behavior may be required to leave class
pending discussion and resolution of the problem and may be reported to the Office of Student Judicial
Affairs for disciplinary action. These strictures may extend to behaviors outside the classroom that are
related to the course.
Students with Disabilities
Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with
Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved
accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me (or to TA) as early
in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open 8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Monday through
Friday. The phone number for DSP is (213) 740-0776.
Academic Integrity
USC seeks to maintain an optimal learning environment. General principles of academic honesty include
the concept of respect for the intellectual property of others, the expectation that individual work will be
submitted unless otherwise allowed by an instructor, and the obligations both to protect one's own
academic work from misuse by others as well as to avoid using another's work as one's own. All students
are expected to understand and abide by these principles. SCampus, the Student Guidebook contains the
Student Conduct Code in Section 11.00, while the recommended sanctions are located in Appendix A:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/SCAMPUS/gov/.
Students will be referred to the Office of Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards for further
review, should there be any suspicion of academic dishonesty. The Review process can be found at
http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/SJACS/.