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British Literature II
Poovey
285 Mercer St, 10 th Floor
1660 to the Present
Spring
Office Hours: Th 3:30-5:00
212-998-8897
Tues/Thurs. 2.00-3.15 pm Email: mary.poovey@nyu.edu
British Literature II
This course offers an intensive introduction to major works of British literature drawn from poetry, prose, fiction and drama from the Restoration to the early 20th Century. We will consider how these writers responded to the conflicts and continuities of their culture, paying close attention to their explorations of questions of genre, power and the status of literary writing.
Through lectures, class discussion, written responses, and longer essay assignments, students will master the fundamentals of literary history and critical reading and writing.
Required texts:
The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Bundled Package (includes Volume 1C – The
Restoration and the Eighteenth Century; and Vols.2:A and B—The Romantics and their
Contemporaries and The Victorian Age), 2 nd Edition., ed. David Damrosch
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (Longman)
Rudyard Kipling, Kim (Penguin Puffin)
Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Soldier (Norton)
All of the required texts are available at the NYU Bookstore.
Prerequisites:
Literary Interpretation (V41.0100)
Writing Assignments: In addition to brief writing assignments assigned by your section preceptor, students will write three papers, a mid-term exam, and a final exam. The first paper, due Feb. 9, will be a five page close textual analysis of a short selection of poetry or prose. A set of selections will be provided by your section preceptor. A list of topics for your second five page paper, due March 28, and the final eight page paper, due April 27, will be distributed in class. Each essay will be read by more than one reader, and papers will be rigorously scrutinized to be sure that sources, if used, are properly credited.
Reading Assignments: The reading for this course is substantial. To do well you must commit to reading all of it with engaged attention. The required texts provide substantial additional material to provide contexts for your reading. These will be recommended rather than required
(you will not be tested on the views of the editors), although it is expected that you will read them. You will be expected, also, to make yourself familiar with basic terms and important dates in British history. I will discuss both terminology and chronology in lectures, and you can consult these on the classroom Blackboard site as I post them. The goals of the lectures will be to survey some of the social, political, and intellectual contexts in which literary texts were produced and consumed and to conduct textual readings of selected literary works.
Plagiarism: Plagiarism or academic dishonesty of any kind will not be tolerated. Plagiarism is an extremely serious academic offense: it will result in failure of the course and will be reported to

2 your dean. You should familiarize yourself with the section on plagiarism in the MLA Handbook and with the handout detailing the College of Art and Science’s “Statement of Academic
Integrity” (www.nyu.edu/cas/map/integrity.html).
Attendance: Attendance in lecture and section is mandatory. Attendance will be taken in each lecture, as well as in every section meeting. More than two unexcused absences will result in a grade reduction. Consistent tardiness will count as one absence.
Grading: Final grades will be determined as follows: Papers 50% (10%, 15%, 25%), Exams 40%
(10% midterm, 30% final), Participation in section 10%.
Syllabus
January 17
January 19
Introduction
England, Britain, and Literature
John Dryden, “Mac Flecknoe” (1C, 2186-92) and “Fables Ancient and Modern”
(1C, 2202-10); Alexander Pope, “Essay on Man” (1C, 2541-50) and “An Epistle from Mr. Pope to Dr. Arbuthnot” (1C, 2550-60)
January 24 The Commercialization of Print and “Polite Literature”
Alexander Pope, “The Rape of the Lock” (1C, 2504-23) and “The Dunciad” (1C,
2561-72); Jonathan Swift, “The Lady’s Dressing Room” (1C, 2445-48); Daniel
Defoe, “A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal” and “Companion
Readings” (1C, 2368-80); “A Bubbler’s Medley” (1C, 2417-22)
January 26 The New Science and Natural Philosophy
Samuel Pepys, “The Diary,” entries for “The Plague Year,” “The Fire of
London” (1C, 2090-2100), and “The Royal Society” (1C, 2103-6); Margaret
Cavendish, “The Description of A Blazing New World” (1C, 2154-57);
“Perspectives: The Royal Society and the New Science” (1C, 2123-42);
“Perspectives: Mind and God,” sections from Isaac Newton (1C, 2657-60), John
Locke (1C, 2661-65), and David Hume (1C, 2674-80)
January 31 Criticism and the Public Sphere
“Perspectives: Reading Papers,” entries entitled “News and Comment,”
“Periodical Personae,” “Getting, Spending, and Speculating,” and “Women and
Men, Manners and Marriage” (1C, 2388-2437); Samuel Johnson, “The Rambler”
(1C, 2732-49), “The Idler” (1C, 2753-60), and “A Dictionary of the English
Language” (1C, 2760-74); Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal” (1C, 2466-72)
February 2 Pastoral and Empire
James Thompson, “Rule, Britannia” (1C, 2696-97); Thomas Gray, “Elegy
Written in a Country Churchyard” (1C, 2715-18); Samuel Johnson, “The Vanity

3 of Human Wishes” (1C, 2721-30); Oliver Goldsmith, “The Deserted Village”
(1C, 2874-84)
February 7 Travel Writing--I
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, “The Turkish Embassy Letters” (1C, 2573-77);
Samuel Johnson, “Travel Writing,” The History of Rasselas (1C, 2774-83); and
Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1C, 2799-2808); James Boswell,
London Journal (1C, 2828-2835) and Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1C,
2839-43)
February 9 First Paper Due
The French Revolution and the Take-Off of British Print
“The Rights of Man and the Revolution Controversy” (2A, 56-112); Mary
Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman (2A, 229-57);
“Perspectives: The Wollstonecraft Controversy” (2A, 269-308)
February 14 Politics by Miniaturization
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
February 16 Novel Strategies
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
February 21 Literary Ballads
“Reliques of Ancient English Poetry” (2A, 320-23); Robert Burns, “To a Mouse”
(2A, 324); “Auld Lang Syne” (2A, 330-31), “The Fornicator, A New Song” (2A,
331-33); Sir Walter Scott, “Lord Randall” (2A, 333); Thomas Moore, “Believe
Me, If All Those Endearing Charms” (2A, 334-35)
February 23 Literary Experiments
William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience (2A, 112-14, 118-
24, 126-135); William Wordsworth, “Prefaces” to Lyrical Ballads (2A, 356-62),
“We are Seven” (2A, 341-42), “Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern
Abbey” (2A, 352-56), “Lucy Gray” (2A, 365-67); Samuel Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere,” both versions (2A, 520-22, 526-42)
February 28 The Egotistical Sublime and Literature (with a Capital L)
William Wordsworth, “The World is Too Much With Us” (2A, 386), “Composed upon Westminster Bridge” (2A, 386), The Prelude, from Books 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 10,
11, 13 (i.e. skip Books 4, 9; 2A, 388-450); Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia
Literaria (2A, 570-82); Thomas De Quincey, “What Do We Mean by
Literature?” (2A, 979-81)

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March 2 The Romantic Sublime
March 7
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry (2A, 499-505); Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, “Frost at Midnight” and “Dejection: An Ode” (2A, 562-66); John
Keats, “The Odes of 1819” (2A, 877-86); Percy Shelley, “Hymn to Intellectual
Beauty” (2A, 758-60) and “Ode to the West Wind” (2A, 771-73)
Travel Writing—II
George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (2A, 654-65); Percy
Shelley, “Mont Blanc” (2A, 754-58); Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan”
(2A, 545-47) and “Christabel” (2A, 547-62)
March 9 Mid-Term Exam
March 14, 16 Spring Break
March 21 Romantic Views of City and Country
William Blake, “London” (2A, 132); Charlotte Smith, “Written in the Churchyard at Middleton in Sussex” (2A, 51-52); Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere
Journals (2A, 478-84); Mary Robinson, “London’s Summer Morning” (2A, 222-
23) and “The Old Beggar” (2A, 223-25); Felicia Hemans, “The Homes of
England” (2A, 833-34); William Cobbett, Rural Rides (2A, 989-92)
March 23 Commercialization and Industrialism
Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present (2B, 1033-46); “Perspectives: The Industrial
Landscape” (2B, 1047-73); Elizabeth Gaskell, “Our Society at Cranford” (2B,
1413-28)
March 28 Second Paper Due
Literature High and Low
Matthew Arnold, “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time” (2B, 1573-83) and “The Study of Poetry” (2B, 1593-99); Charles Dickens, “A Walk in a
Workhouse” and “Companion Readings” (2B, 1405-13); Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
“Mariana” (2B, 1139-41) and “Ulysses” (2B, 1150-52); Arthur Conan Doyle, “A
Scandal in Bohemia” (2B, 1448-62)
March 30 Religion and Science
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (2B, 1254-59) and The Descent of
Man (2B, 1259-65); “Perspectives: Religion and Science” (2B, 1273-1304);
Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach” (2B, 1551-52); Gerard Manley Hopkins,
“God’s Grandeur” (2B, 1679), “Pied Beauty” (2B, 1681), “Spring and Fall: To a
Young Child” (2B, 1683), “Carrion Comfort” (2B, 1684), and “On ‘Inscape’ and
‘Instress’” (2B, 1686-88)

April 4
April 6
April 11
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Novelistic Poems
Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess” (2B, 1311-12), “The Bishop Orders His
Tomb” (2B, 1315-18), and “Andrea Del Sarto” (2B, 1339-45); Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, Aurora Leigh (2B, 1112-33); Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam
A. H. H. (2B, 1165-94)
Aestheticism and Decadence—I
Walter Pater, The Renaissance (2B, 1665-71); Algernon Swinburne, “Hymn to
Proserpine” and “A Forsaken Garden” (2B, 1658-62); William Morris, “The
Defence of Guenevere” (2B, 1634-41) and The Beauty of Life (2B, 1645-51);
John Ruskin, Modern Painters and The Stones of Venice (2B, 1474-85)
Aestheticism and Decadence--II
Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying (2B, 1864-79), The Importance of Being
Ernest (2B, 1884-1924), and De Profundis (2B, 1926-33); Edith Nesbit,
“Fortunatus Rex & Co.” (2B, 1463-72)
Travel and Empire--I April 13
April 18
April 20
April 25
April 27
Travel and Empire—II
Modernism’s House of Mirrors
Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Soldier
Modernism/Formalism
Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Soldier (reread)
Final Papers Due
To Whet the Appetite
William Yeats, “The Second Coming”(handout); T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of
J. Alfred Prufrock” (handout); Virginia Woolf, “The Mark on the Wall”
(handout)
Final Exam (TBA)