ENL 2022: Survey of English Literature: 1750 to the Present
Fall 2007 Section 8188
T 2-3 (8:30-10:25) / H 3 (9:35-10:25)
CBD 0310
Instructor Information
Instructor:
Office Hrs.:
Carrie Bolte
Tuesday 10:30-12:00
Email:
Office:
cbolte@english.ufl.edu
TBA
I am most accessible by email, and I often check it frequently throughout the day (except on
Sundays). Please feel free to email me with questions. I will usually respond within 24 hours. If
you are emailing about an issue with an assignment, you need to email more than 24 hours before
the assignment is due in order to ensure that you receive a response. You are also welcome to
submit relevant questions to the class listserv.
I encourage you to come and see me during office hours when and if you have any questions
about the course or the assignments we are working on. If your schedule doesn't allow you to
come during scheduled office hours, please email me to set up an appointment. I am rarely in my
office during times not established as office hours, so email if you're in doubt.
Course Description and Objectives
This course is a survey of English literature from the Romantic period to the present day, and, as
a result, we will be reading and writing about a variety of works in order to get a sense of the
development and common themes of English literature in this time span. The goal of this course
is to encourage an understanding of each individual work within the larger context of English
literature and culture and, by doing so, learn how to read poetry, drama, and fiction critically.
Building upon the reading and writing skills learned in ENC 1101 and 1102, ENL 2022 also
teaches students to write critical arguments about literary texts. Thus another main course goal is
to construct cohesive, polished, and clear arguments about literary texts that demonstrate an
ability to support thoughtful and engaging arguments with evidence from those works.
Required Texts
Texts available at Goerings Bookstore, 1717 NW 1st Ave.
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Damrosch, David, et al. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Volumes 2a, 2b,
and 2c. 3rd edition.
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice.
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Oxford World’s Classics.
Woolf, Virginia. To The Lighthouse. Harvest Books.
Access to a standard writer’s handbook like Lester Faigley’s Penguin Handbook or other
comparable work.
The Longman Anthology and Austen’s Pride and Prejudice will come packaged together for
your convenience, allowing you to get Pride and Prejudice for free. If you choose not to
purchase the package, you must have access to our edition for the supplemental materials.
Gordon Rule and General Education Credit Requirements
This class satisfies the Gordon Rule, a state law requiring that certain introductory courses assign
and grade for style as well as content. In order to fulfill the Gordon Rule requirement, a student
must write at least 6,000 words (about 20-22 typed pages of writing), receive a grade of at least a
C or above, and complete every assignment. Failure to complete all assignments will result in an
automatic D.
This course offers General Education credit for Composition. Writing is one of the most
important skills students need to communicate effectively during their professional careers and
lives. Composition courses focus on methods of writing, conventions of standard written
English, reading and comprehension skills, and techniques in production of effective texts for
readers in varied situations. “C” designated courses are writing-intensive, require multiple drafts
submitted to the instructor for feedback prior to the final submission, and fulfill 6,000 of the
university’s 24,000-word writing requirement.
Students with Disabilities
The University of Florida complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Students
requesting classroom accommodation must first register with the Dean of Students’ office. The
Dean of Students’ office will provide documentation to the student, who must then provide this
documentation to the Instructor when requesting accommodation. If you need such
accommodation, please speak with me privately as soon as possible and bring your paperwork.
Academic Honesty
All students are expected to honor their commitments to the University Honor Code, which is
available in its full form at http://www.registrar.ufl.edu/catalog/policies/students.html. The
Honor Code requires Florida students to neither give nor receive unauthorized aid in completing
all assignments. Violations include cheating, plagiarism, bribery, and misrepresentation, all
defined in detail at http://www.dso.ufl.edu/judicial/
procedures/honestybrochure.php.
Evidence of collusion (working with another student or person not connected with the class),
plagiarism (use of someone else’s work, ideas, data, or statements without acknowledgement), or
multiple submissions (submitting the same work for more than one class) will lead to an
automatic E in the class and procedures set up by the University for academic dishonesty in the
Honor Court. We will be discussing plagiarism in class, and you should also see the sections
related to plagiarism in your handbook. If you are ever unsure as to whether you are correctly
citing your sources, please ask.
Class Conduct
The environment of this class will be supportive of learning and the respectful exchange of ideas.
Behavior that disrupts this environment will not be tolerated. Disruptive behavior includes, but is
certainly not limited to:
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Offensive language, personal attacks, or any derogatory statements. Students are
expected to show respect for diverse opinions (including differences related to gender,
sexual orientation, race, religion, or ethnicity) during class-related discussion and in their
writing, whether class assignments or class-related email.
Tardiness and leaving early. All students are expected to arrive and leave class at the
scheduled times. Lateness of more than ten minutes will be considered an absence.
Cell phone disruption. Keep them turned off or on silent during class time (yes, we can
all hear the phone when it’s on vibrate). Text messaging during class is similarly
unacceptable. Any need for accepting a call during class time must be discussed with the
instructor beforehand and approved. Otherwise, students who choose to accept a phone
call will be required to leave class and not return until the next class period. That class
would then be counted as an absence.
Attendance and Participation
Submitting work: All work is due at the beginning of the class period. While I reserve the right to
collect the work at any point during the period, you are expected to be present and able to submit
that work when class begins. Turning an assignment in after class or after the assignment has
already been collected due to tardiness will cause your assignment to be late. Assignments will
be penalized one letter grade for every day it is late. Regardless of what the reason is for your
absence or tardiness, you should make every attempt to turn assignments in on time.
Missed work due to absences cannot be made up. The only absences I excuse (and thus allow
you to make up work because of) are those excused by the university and jury duty, as long as
you discuss the absence with me ahead of time and provide the proper documentation.
Absences: You are allowed three absences, without consequence, during the course of the
semester. Each absence after three will lower your final grade by a letter. Also, please be
punctual: three incidents of coming to class late or leaving early will equal one absence. When
you are absent, it is your responsibility to find out what you’ve missed and come to the next class
prepared; make arrangements early in the semester to contact a classmate to find out what work
you’ve missed. Please also note that because Thursdays are double periods, absences on those
days will count as two missed classes.
Participation: Attendance means more than just sitting in a chair. Each day that you are in class,
you should come prepared to participate actively. You will be expected to work in small groups,
contribute to class discussions, construct thoughtful in-class writing assignments, and provide
constructive feedback to your peers during writing workshops. You need to come to class each
day with something constructive and relevant to contribute. To that end, I expect every student to
come to class with two or three questions, concerns, or observations about the day’s assigned
reading. Your reading responses will help with this task, but even on days when you do not write
a formal reading response, you should be prepared to discuss the readings and write on them in
some depth. I reserve the right to call on any student to answer questions during the course of
the class, and I will be grading you based on your ability and willingness to participate actively
and vocally in class activities. Students participating in activities not related to the day’s goals
will be docked participation points.
Saving Work
Students are responsible for maintaining duplicate copies of all work submitted in this course and
retaining all returned, graded work until the semester is over. It is your responsibility to make
submitted materials available should the need arise for a re-submission of papers or a review of
graded papers.
Challenging a Grade
Any complaint about individual assignment grades should be addressed to me and not to the
English Department. If you have concerns or complaints about your final grade, you may make
an appointment to discuss the situation with me at the beginning of the next term. If you find that
you still have complaints after our meeting, you may express your complaints on a form in the
English Department office, which must be accompanied by all assignments and instructor
directions. A review committee may decide to raise, lower, or keep the originally-designated
grade. This decision is final. The material submitted will remain on file in the English
Department office.
Grading and Assignments
Grading Scale:
A:
B+:
B:
C+:
100-90 (excellent)
89-87 (very good)
86-80 (good)
79-77 (average)
C:
D+:
D:
E:
76-70 (average)
69-67 (below average)
66-60 (below average)
59-50 (failure)
The grading for this course will be based upon the following percentages:
Class Participation (discussion, proposals, drafts, quizzes)
Reading Responses (6 total, 1 single space page each)
Class Discussion Leading (2)
Paper 1: Romantic Poetry Explication
Paper 2: Thematic Analysis
Paper 3: Genre and Adaptation Across Time Periods
Midterm Exam
15%
10%
5%
15%
20%
25%
10%
Course Assignments
Papers
For each of the three papers, you will submit a prospectus to propose the topic and focus of your
paper. This prospectus will cover the following: What is your thesis (the question you want to
answer or the claim you want to make)? What themes will you address (written in the format of a
series of questions or bullet points)? How do you propose to research your topic (preliminary and
partial list of source you plan to use)?
For each paper, you will also write a draft that will be used for the peer reviews. These drafts
should be as complete as possible and cover the entire scope of the assignment. The closer you
are to having a “finished” paper, the more help you will receive both from your peer group. You
will be placed in workshop groups to exchange and review paper drafts. Group members will
provide copies of their essays to group members to be read carefully; in turn, they will respond in
depth to each paper they receive. Additionally, you will have the opportunity to conference with
me to get feedback on each draft.
Quizzes
You will be quizzed regularly on the readings. Quizzes may also be unannounced. If you’re
keeping up with the reading, you should do fine on the quizzes.
Reading Responses
You are responsible for writing six, one-page single spaced responses to your reading over the
course of the semester. At least three responses must be completed by the midterm exam, and no
responses will be accepted after the Thursday before the last week of classes. These deadlines
will be reflected on the syllabus schedule. I will not accept more than one response per week.
While the responses don’t need to have a thesis statement or explore a cohesive argument, they
should demonstrate a narrow focus, strong paragraph structure, a clear writing style, and textual
support. These responses are your opportunity to explore ideas and questions that you have about
the readings. Respond to anything that interests, amuses, or confuses you about the assigned
reading. You should feel free to take chances intellectually without worrying about whether you
are “right” or “wrong.” You will be given credit for the quality of the responses: on how seriously
you engage with the assigned readings and on how much thought you give your responses.
Consider yourself engaging in an academic conversation about the text that you’re interested in.
Class Discussion Leading
Each student will sign up for two class periods for which you will be responsible for leading the
class in thoughtful discussion about the works assigned. You will be required to become the
“expert” on that reading, including any historical or cultural information that may be relevant to
that day’s discussion. You will come prepared with four to five open-ended, engaging discussion
questions to spark conversation, and will turn these questions in as record of your class discussion
leading.
If you have any questions about the direction you want to take the class, please make an
appointment to discuss your ideas with me well in advance of your chosen days.
Paper 1: Poetry Explication (3 pages)
Choose a Romantic poem that we have not discussed in class, and construct an explication of the
poem (a persuasive reading of the poem, i.e. what the poem “means”). We will discuss the
process of close reading in class, and your paper should follow this mode—focus carefully on the
language, punctuation, cultural allusions, etc., within the poem. You should refer to the poem
directly throughout the paper, so you will be graded on your MLA format. Remember that a
successful paper will have a sharply focused and clear thesis statement.
Paper 2: Thematic Analysis (5 pages)
Choose any combination of 3-4 poems, 2-3 short stories, one play, or a novel from the Victorian
period that you believe are all joined by a common thematic focus. Do not confuse themes with
plot; remember that thematic focus can manifest itself as a seemingly contradictory portrayal of a
common issue (i.e. gender roles, marriage, the role of knowledge) or engagement with an
intellectual or social dilemma (i.e. the relationship between technology and nature, class, work,
the role of the author). Remember that a close reading of a text can reveal a more nuanced,
sophisticated theme rather than an identification of the text’s “message” can, so carefully
investigate your chosen works for the more complex portrayals of your theme, and focus on
communicating why contradiction might be a part of this theme. You do not need to incorporate
secondary research for this paper—your focus should be on the texts itself—but all texts should
be cited using MLA format in a final works Cited page.
Paper 3: Genre and Adaptation Across Time Periods (6-7 pages)
For this paper, I would like for you to consider the way in which literature from the Romantic,
Victorian, and Modern eras are in conversation with each other. You will need to choose at least
two texts from two different time periods (that we have or have not dealt with in class, as well as
texts that were not the subject of the previous paper), and demonstrate the connections between
the two. Your focus should be on how a particular genre or subset of a genre—the detective
story, children’s literature, the marriage plot novel, the drama—has changed and evolved to
reflect the concerns of a particular era. While you may certainly analyze how the themes may
have changed within these genres, I would like to see your focus remain squarely on how later
authors are revising and adapting a particular genre to suit a different audience. Consider, for
example, the adaptation of the Romantic marriage plot to a 21st century chick flick. What
changes have been made by the screenwriter and director—and why? I would encourage you to
think creatively about this, and consider carefully how literature from any era is dependent, to
some degree, on its predecessor. You will be required to incorporate literary criticism into your
paper to support your argument.
Note: Further details on the above papers will be given over the course of the semester.
Midterm Exam
Your midterm exam will ask you to identify common characteristics of the time periods we have
discussed, identify quotations and author information, and write analytically about the works that
we have read and discussed in class.
Course Schedule
This schedule is tentative and subject to change. Changes will be announced in class and/or sent
via course email listserv. Because our class meets for a double period on Tuesdays, Tuesday’s
assignments will necessarily be longer and more labor-intensive than those for our shorter
Thursday meetings. Please plan accordingly.
Week
Day
Readings
Week 1
Aug 23
H
Introduction to the Course and
Each Other
Week 2
T
Introduction to the Romantics
“The Romantics and Their
Contemporaries” (3-29), “The
Sublime, the Beautiful, and the
Picturesque” (30-33),
“The Lake School”
Wordsworth: “Preface from
Lyrical Ballads” (408-420),
“Lines written in early spring”
(393), “Tintern Abbey” (404408), “Nutting” (425-427), and
“The world is too much with us”
(450)
D. Wordsworth: “A Leech
Gatherer” and “A Field of
Daffodils” (552, 555)
Coleridge: “This Lime-Tree
Bower My Prison” (576-576),
“Frost at Midnight” (576-577),
“The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner” (580-595), “Kubla
Khan” (614-616)
Aug 28
Aug 30
H
Week 3
T
Sept 4
QUIZ
Barbauld: “Eighteen Hundred and
Eleven” (69-78)
Wollestonecraft: “The Prevailing
Opinion of a Sexual Character”
and “The same Subject
Continued” (288-300)
The Romantic Novel: Pride and
Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice
Introduce Paper 1
Sept 6
H
Week 4
T
Pride and Prejudice
The Cult of Austen Adaptation
Austen Article TBA
H
“The Satanic School”
Sept 11
Assignments
Paper 1 proposal due
Byron: “She walks in beauty”
(658), “Childe Harold’s
Pilgrimage” Canto the Third
(711-718)
Shelley: “Mont Blanc” (817),
“England in 1819” (824), “Ode to
the West Wind” (835-836), “The
Cockney School” Keats:
“Chapman’s Homer” (922), “On
Seeing the Elgin Marbles” (934),
“Ode to a Nightingale” (953),
“Ode on a Grecian Urn” (955)
QUIZ
T
Romantic Wrap-up
Questions on Paper
Introduction to the Victorians
“The Victorian Age” (10991121); “The Industrial
Landscape” (1137-1138)
Paper 1 Draft Peer Review
Sept 20
H
The Brownings
EBB: “Aurora Leigh” (12031226): Sonnets from the
Portuguese (13, 21, 28, 43)
Week 6
T
The Victorian Novel, Publication,
and Serialization
Volume 1 of Jane Eyre
Sept 13
Week 5
Sept 18
Sept 27
H
The Brownings, con’t
Robert Browning: “Porphyria’s
Lover” (1411), “My Last
Duchess” (1415), “The Bishop
Orders His Tomb” (1419),
“Soliloquy of the Spanish
Cloister” (1413)
T
The Victorian Detective
Robert Louis Stevenson: “The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde” (1939-1977)
H
The Pre Raphaelites
Rossetti: “Goblin Market” (17311743), “An Apple-Gathering”
(1729), “In an Artist’s Studio”
(1728); D. Rossetti: “The House
of Life” (1717), “The Burden of
Nineveh” (1719); William
Sept 29
Week 7
Oct 2
Oct 4
Paper 1 due
QUIZ
Morris: “The Beauty of Life”
(1760)
Week 8
Oct 9
T
Volume 2, Jane Eyre
Introduction to Paper 2
Oct 11
H
MIDTERM EXAM
Week 9
T
Oscar Wilde: The Importance of
Being Earnest
H
Travel and Empire (1888-1889):
Trollope (1890-1895), Mary
Kingsley (1928-1934)
Oct 16
Oct 18
Deadline for 3 responses
Proposal for Paper 2 due
Inventing Childhood
“Imagining Childhood” (18191822); Moral Verses (18261829); Lear (1829-1835); Potter
(1848-1850); Carroll (18051817); Kipling (1874-1881)
Week 10
T
Volume 3, Jane Eyre
Oct 23
Oct 25
H
Victorian Wrap-up
Questions on Paper
Paper 2 Peer Review
Week 11
T
Introduction to the 20th Century
“The Twentieth Century” (21112134); “The Great War:
Confronting the Modern” (2308)
Introduce Paper 3
War Poetry
Rupert Brooke: “The Soldier”
(2185); Sasson: “Glory of
Women” (2343-2344), “They”
(2344), “The Rear-Guard” (23442345); Owen: “Anthem for
Doomed Youth” (2346);
Rosenberg: “Break of Day in the
Trenches” (2349-2350)
QUIZ
Oct 30
H
Nov 1
Week 12
Nov 6
T
Modern Short Fiction
Joyce, “The Dead” (2445-2475);
Lawrence: “Odour of
Chrysanthemums” and “The
Paper 2 due
Horse Dealer’s Daughter”
Modern Poetry
Eliot: “The Waste Land” (25192533); Yeats: “The Second
Coming” (2399), “Sailing to
Byzantium” (2401-2402)
Nov 8
H
QUIZ
Week 13
T
Virginia Woolf
To The Lighthouse
H
To The Lighthouse
Paper 3 Proposal due
T
CONFERENCES—CLASS
CANCELLED
Sign up for a conference about Paper 3
with me sometime before Peer Review
H
THANKSGIVING—NO CLASS
T
“World War II and the End of an
Empire” (2796-2797); Orwell:
“Politics of the English
Language” (2836-2843); Thomas:
“Do Not Go Gentle into That
Good Night” (2853); Walcott:
“The Fortunate Traveller” (30493053)
Selections from Modern Brit Lit:
Hornsby, Rowling, Tolkien
(handouts)
Nov 13
Nov 15
Week 14
Nov 20
Nov 22
Week 15
Nov 27
Nov 29
H
Week 16
T
Dec 4
F
Dec 7
Last Day of Class
Evaluations
Review
Paper 3 due via email by 4 p.m.
Deadline for 3 responses
Paper 3 Peer Review
QUIZ