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English 323
Victorian Literature I
Tuesday-Thursday 9:30 —10:45
Runnals SMIT
Fall 2006
Professor David Suchoff
Office: 215 Miller Library
Phone Number: x5286 home: 865-6398 e-mail: dbsuchof
Office Hours: Tues.-Thursday 2:30-3:30, M-W 4-4:30
And By Appointment.
Examination Group 6
Required Texts:
Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. W.W.Norton: ISBN 0-393-97889-3.
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone . Oxford University Press. 0-19-283338-3
Dickens, Charles. Bleak House . Oxford University Press.
Scott, Walter. Ivanhoe . Penguin Classic. ISBN 0-140-43658-8.
Trilling, Lionel and Bloom, H. Victorian Prose and Poetry . ISBN 0-19-501616-5.
The idea of "culture" in the mid-Victorian period and the social pressures of class, religion, gender, and race that formed and transformed it. Readings include Victorian predecessors such as Jane Austen, novels by Charles Dickens and Emily Bronte, John
Ruskin, J.S. Mill, and Matthew Arnold, and poems by Alfred Tennyson. Novels, essays, and poems considered as participants in Victorian debates that created "culture" as a political category and helped shape modern literary and cultural criticism.
Note: SOME novels are long , and students will be required to keep up with the reading
AND participate actively in class discussion.
Required Texts: Please get these editions, available at the bookstore, so we all remain on the same page:
Schedule of Reading/Essay Assignments
VPP = Victorian Prose and Poetry .
Thurs. Sep. 7
Friday Sep. 8
Introduction:
Culture
Ivanhoe
(1819), Race, and the Invention of “British”
Ivanhoe continued: Meet in Miller 008 2:00-3:00 p.m.

2
Tues. Sep. 12
Thurs. Sep. 14
No Class.
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Tues. Sep. 19
Thurs. Sep. 21
Tues. Sep. 26
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“”
Industrialization and Cultural Crisis: The Grotesque as Cultural
Critique. John Rus kin, “The Nature of the Gothic,” in VPP, pp.
174189. On reserve, “The Grotesque as Cultural Critique;’ [Isobel
Armstrong]: go to http://library.colby.edu/screens/reserves.html
, look under “Suchoff,” and then “EN323.” Alfred Lord Tennyson,
“Marianna,” VPP, 396-8. 5 pp. Essay due.
Tennyson: “The Lady of Shalott,” VPP, pp. 398-402. Thurs. Sep. 28
Tues. Oct. 3 A Liberal Response : John Stuart Mill, “Crisis in My Mental
History,” [From Autobiography], pp. 99-108, selections from, On
Liberty, 8396; from “On The Subjection of Women,” pp. 96-99, all in VPP.
The Novel and the Crisis of Class I: Begin Dickens, Bleak House . Thurs. Oct. 5
Tues. Oct. 10. ""
Thurs. Oct. 12 Midterm
Tues. Oct. 17
Thurs. Oct. 19
Fall Break
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Tues. Oct. 24
Thurs. Oct. 26
""
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Tues. Oct. 31.
Thurs. Nov. 2 “”
Tues. Nov. 7
Thurs. Nov. 9
The Crisis of Class and Race: Emily Bronte,
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Wuthering Heights .
Tues. Nov. 14
Thurs. Nov. 16
Tues. Nov. 21
Thurs. Nov. 23
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The Empire Lost and Found: Collins,
Thanksgiving Break.
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The Moonstone .

3
Tues. Nov. 28
Thurs. Nov. 30
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Tues. Dec. 5
Thurs. Dec. 7
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8-10 page essay due Monday December 11 12:00 Noon my office.
Class Policies
1. Class Format: Class will be conducted as much as possible in discussion format.
Small group reports on the texts we study will be frequently: it is impossible to understand this material well otherwise. Be prepared to make your contribution in the way you feel comfortable. Everyone's ideas contribute to understanding the works we read.
2. Office Hours : these are listed at the top of the syllabus; I enjoy seeing students in office to talk, and such talk is valuable to your work in the course and to me as a teacher. Please avail yourself freely of these times to discuss any aspect of the reading, the class, or your work.
3. Regular Attendance is Required : missing class will harm your progress in the course and your grade. The Syllabus is a map, and different routes may occasionally be taken to the same destination. Be in class to know where we're going.
4. Papers are due on the dates given . Late papers will not be accepted unless you arrange it with me beforehand. If you're sick, call me or see me to obtain an extension.
5. Participation is part of your grade. Grade is composed of a weighted average of papers, midterm and final. Class participation helps.
6. Required (by the Dean of Faculty) policy on missing class forNCAA athletics.
Students who miss class to attend games are vested with full responsibility for making up all work and learning all material missed on their own. Help extended is restricted to regularly scheduled office hours. If this policy does not suit your individual needs, a different class is surely for you.