WAYLAND BAPTIST UNIVERSITY
WBU Virtual Campus
School of Languages and Literature
Wayland Baptist University Mission Statement: Wayland Baptist University exists to educate students in an academically challenging, learning-focused and distinctively Christian environment for professional success, lifelong learning, and service to God and humankind.
Course Name: ENGL 5317VC01 – Studies in Poetry: Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Term and Year: Winter 2014
Instructor:
Dr. Troy Gregory
Office: Gates Hall 206A Plainview Campus
Office Phone: (806) 291-1109
Email: troy.gregory@wbu.edu
I can best be reached via email.
Office Hours:
Beginning Nov. 11 (available by email until then)
Monday:
9-10:00 am, 9-10 pm
Tuesday:
9:15-10:50 am, 9-10 pm
Wednesday: 9-10 am, 9-10 pm
Thursday:
9:15-10:50 am, 9-10 pm
Friday:
9-10:00, 9-10 pm
Office visits also by appointment;
Hours subject to change
Class Meeting Time and Location: online, through Blackboard
Class Description: An intensive study of the poetic form, structure, content, and historical and theoretical contexts of
Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
Prerequisite: graduate standing or final-term senior meeting requirements of non-degree seeking post-baccalaureate
student
Required Textbook and Resources:
Required Textbooks:
Booth, Stephen. Ed. Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Yale, 2000.
Schoenfeldt, Michael. Ed. A Companion to Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Vendler, Helen. The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Harvard, 1999.
Required Resources:
You will need a reliable and secure computer connection, as well as access to software capable of producing
and saving documents in Microsoft Word .doc or .docx formats; software capable of reading documents produced in .html and .pdf formats; backup media such as USB flash drive, recordable CDs, or some other external destination.
The course will take place entirely online. You must have a functional Blackboard account and be able to access the WBU library website, as well as articles and other material provided through proprietary databases
available via the WBU library website. You also must have an active WBU email address. Your WBU email
address is the usual way that I will contact you. You are strongly encouraged to visit the Blackboard login page
and test your browser for Blackboard compatibility, as well as take the Blackboard Tutorial if you are not famil-
iar with how the service works. If you have problems with Blackboard or your WBU email, please use the WBU
Support Contacts available on the Blackboard login page.
Course Outcome Competencies: Upon the conclusion of this course, students actively engaged in learning will be
able to (1) read and interpret Shakespeare’s Sonnets intelligently and evaluate them critically; (2) understand the cultural and historical contexts in which the works were written; (3) perceive themes, techniques, and literary devices that
make Shakespeare’s Sonnets distinctly Shakespearean and markedly different from contemporary expressions in the
form; (4) produce scholarly annotations for and editions of selected sonnets (with attendant machinery); (5) produce in
style and content essays and/or oral presentations appropriate for graduate students of English; and (6) conduct research on a topic in Shakespeare’s Sonnets and early-modern studies, articulate and support a thesis, and follow
through with appropriate documentation. The more the student puts into the course, the higher his or her outcome
competencies will be.
Attendance Requirements / Decorum and Makeup Policies: Students are expected to participate in the class and
demonstrate regular attendance. This applies without exception. Participation and attendance will be determined
through message board discussions, responses, and other activities. When a student shows a lack of participation
considered by the instructor to be excessive, the instructor will so advise the student. Any student who misses 25 percent or more of the class assignments will receive a grade of F in the course. Students are required to have computer
and Internet access for the course. Additional participation policies for each course, as defined by the instructor in the
course syllabus, are considered a part of the University’s attendance policy. Makeup work will be offered at the instructor's discretion and will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Any authorized makeups must be completed within the
time limit set by the instructor; otherwise, the makeup grade will be zero.
Disability Statement: In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), it is the policy of Wayland
Baptist University that no otherwise qualified person with a disability be excluded from participation in, be denied the
benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any educational program or activity in the university. The Coordinator
of Counseling Services serves as the coordinator of students with a disability and should be contacted concerning accommodation requests at (806) 291-3765. Documentation of a disability must accompany any request for accommodations.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS and GRADING CRITERIA:
Outcome competencies will be assessed in the following ways: Blackboard discussion AND response forum participation; engagement in and discovery of annotative “best practices” when presenting the sonnets to both non-specialized
and specialized readers; engagement in and discovery of editorial “best practices” when presenting the sonnets to
both non-specialized and specialized readers; and completion of a final research paper worthy of graduate study and
worthy of publication (with subsequent vetting).
How I Will Grade – discussions, responses, and the final essay will be evaluated in light of the following criteria: (1) control and responsible development of discussion; (2) presentation of evidence from the work under
discussion as well as from secondary sources; (3) analysis of, and ability to draw conclusions from, this evidence; (4) clarity and polish of writing; (5) proper use of MLA documentation style.
The Research Paper must be submitted during the week stipulated in the syllabus schedule and will not be
accepted after that week. Students are at all times responsible for their materials and are required to keep
copies of their work in progress. Please see me if you need assistance or clarification.
Blackboard Participation
Each week, students will select from and formally write on two discussion prompts, and the ideas generated
there will occasion further responses from students, via threaded posts on Blackboard. You are expected to
participate helpfully and meaningfully in each discussion, and indeed 70% of your total grade will depend upon
it. You are expected to read outside articles, by way of contextualization, in preparation for these discussions
and responses. Please be sure that you can access the proprietary databases, such as JSTOR, in the "Articles & Databases" area of the WBU library website in order to view these articles.
Grading / Help: (See Grade Distribution table below.) My grading scale is as follows: 90-92/A-, 93-97/A, 98100/A+; 80-82/B-, 83-87/B, 88-89/B+, and so forth. Anything below 60 is an F. Weighted grades are averaged
according to a 100-point scale and are totaled at the end of the semester. If your total is 79.44, your course
grade is a C. If your total is 79.45, your course grade is a B. I am always pleased to talk with you about your
progress in the course, any difficulties or victories, or any thoughts you may have about literature and life in
general.
Grade Distribution (how much grades count):
Semiweekly Discussion Prompts1 or Annotative or Editorial Work: 40%
Threaded Responses to Discussion Prompts or Challenges to Annotative or Editorial Work: 30%
Final Paper: 30%
Academic Honesty: College students—especially Wayland students—are expected to exercise scrupulous honesty in
their work. No form of cheating will be tolerated. Plagiarism—intentionally or unintentionally representing another writer's words or ideas as your own—is a serious violation of academic conduct and may result in an F on a written assignment. Students are responsible for familiarizing themselves immediately with university policy on academic honesty in their copies of the Wayland Baptist University Undergraduate and Graduate Catalog and the Student Handbook.
Late Work and Incompletes: All work, including essays, message board discussions and responses, etc., will be due
during the week or weeks noted in the class schedule. Because the ideas we derive there will both inform and challenge our peers, and more importantly because the ideas themselves are designed to accumulate across the various
units, I cannot accept late work except in the most extreme circumstances and only then when a student has
contacted me within three days of the due date. The student must explain the reason for the deficiency, and I will
determine whether the work may be made up. No make-up opportunities will be offered for the final research essay.
Make-up opportunities for lengthy absences (two weeks or longer) will not be offered except in extremely compelling
cases. Military personnel who think they may have to be gone on extended TDY's should arrange for computer and
internet access during that time. Grades of Incomplete (I) will not be considered. Please contact me early if you're having trouble getting something in so that I can assist you properly.
Course Outline: This offering of ENGL 5317 will introduce students to an intensive study of Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
We will begin by discussing the course requirements and acclimating ourselves to the social and artistic dynamics of
Shakespeare’s world. Then we will examine the sonnets in their historical and theoretical context and use the
knowledge we acquire to annotate, edit, and situate the works for other (imagined) scholarly communities. The course
will not attempt to follow Shakespeare’s career chronologically but will, instead, analyze his sonnets from generic and
thematic perspectives. See "Schedule for ENGL 5317" in this syllabus for details and a calendar of semi-weekly topics
/ readings / assignments. (NB: examples, ideas, opinions, and theories presented during class meetings do not necessarily reflect the views of the instructor. Furthermore, this syllabus is a plan. Although no significant changes are anticipated, the instructor may modify the plan during the course. The requirements of the course may be altered from
those appearing in the syllabus. Finally, the plan contains criteria by which the student's progress and performance in
the course will be measured. These criteria may also be changed.)
Regarding “Discussion Prompts”: these are decidedly not “essays,” merely two pages (minimum) of organized thought per prompt.
Select two of the possible prompts for each week and submit your considered two-page response by Tuesday and Friday of each
course week. Always answer the prompts in the order in which they are presented. You might cite freely but meaningfully—by extending or challenging ideas—from your colleagues. Borrowings, of course, require in-text acknowledgments, whether of word or
idea.
1
SCHEDULE FOR ENGLISH 5305
Class members are responsible for keeping up with the following schedule. Please complete the reading
assignments as early as possible during the weeks indicated. This is a working schedule and may be
altered at the instructor's discretion, although departures are unlikely. Students will be notified of any changes on Blackboard.
Week One: Readings: Introduction
Shakespeare’s Sonnets 1-15: read sonnets from all texts (Vendler, Booth, and the 1609 Appendix in
Schoenfeldt) and read all attendant annotative and editorial machinery
Michael Schoenfeldt’s “Introduction” to A Companion to Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1-11)
Stephen Booth’s “Prefaces” to Shakespeare’s Sonnets (ix-xx)
Helen Vendler’s “Introduction” to The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1-41)
Week One: Response Prompts2
1. Prepare annotations for three sonnets, your choice, from this week's primary reading (1-15). Consider
your audience to be urbane undergraduates and generally well informed. No single annotation should exceed 100 words. All tolled, your annotations should come out to at least two full pages. Your job is to help
your audience "appreciate" the works. Do not summarize or interpret.
2. Prepare a considered theory of best annotation practices. Defend your theory using examples from your
own annotated sonnets. Clearly identify three distinct pitfalls that the practicing annotator should guard
against when working with Shakespeare and offer illustrations of those pitfalls using examples from the
annotations of your classmates. Be constructive, firm, and professional.
Week Two: Readings: Editing Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s Sonnets 16-30: read sonnets from all texts (Vendler, Booth, and the 1609 Appendix in
Schoenfeldt) and read all attendant annotative and editorial machinery
Colin Burrow’s “Editing the Sonnets” (Companion 145-62)
Richard Dutton’s “Shake-speares Sonnets, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and Shakespearean Biography”
(Companion 121-36)
Stephen Orgel’s “Mr. Who He?” (Companion 137-44)
Lars Engle’s “William Empson and the Sonnets” (Companion 163-82)
Week Two: Response Prompts3
1. Using the editorial theories explored in this week's reading, and working directly from the 1609 text-preserved in Booth, Vendler, and Schoenfeldt, but available also online--prepare editions of three sonnets,
your choice, from this week's primary reading (16-30). In endnotes for each sonnet, justify your choice of
textual presentation, particularly your syntactic arrangements, citing directly from your secondary material.
2. Using the secondary material you've read so far for class, from both weeks’ instruction, prepare a statement of your own best editing practices. Explain in particular where your ideas differ from the authorities
you have consulted. Once again, illustrate the superiority of your system by showing where
your classmates preserve textual confusions in their own work, having followed the instruction of Burrow, et al.
Weeks Three and Four: Readings: Sonnet Form and Sonnet Sequence
Shakespeare’s Sonnets 31-45, 46-60: read sonnets from all texts (Vendler, Booth, and the 1609 Appendix
in Schoenfeldt) and read all attendant annotative and editorial machinery
Stephen Booth’s “The Value of the Sonnets” (Companion 15-26)
Helen Vendler’s “Formal Pleasure in the Sonnets” (Companion 27-44)
James Schiffer’s “The Incomplete Narrative of Shakespeare’s Sonnets” (Companion 45-56)
Margreta de Grazia’s “Revolution in Shake-speares Sonnets” (Companion 57-69)
2
3
Answer each of the two prompts in the order presented.
Answer each of the two prompts in the order presented.
Weeks Three and Four: Response Prompts 4
1. Compare and contrast Shakespeare's use prosody and meter in two sonnets from this section's reading
(31-45, 46-60). You may need to school yourself on prosody and meter through your own independent research.
2. Compare and contrast Shakespeare's use of verbal art--particularly as identified and propounded by Helen
Vendler, though, of course, use your own examples--in two sonnets from this section's reading (31-45, 4660).
3. Make a detailed argument for reading Shakespeare's Sonnets, at least the ones covered so far, as a sonnet sequence. Be careful to cite your own examples from the sonnets when building your argument.
4. Make a detailed argument for reading Shakespeare's Sonnets, at least the ones covered so far, as a collection of independent works which share no more than thematic concerns with other sonnets from the collection. Be careful to cite your own examples from the sonnets when building your argument.
5. Given your own practices in destabilizing the text of the Sonnets during weeks one and two, particularly
week two--where you yourselves played with meaning by amplifying one reading over another or one arrangement of syntax over another, or one footnoted meaning of a word for another, etc.--what danger
might such practices occasion for interpretive advancements of the Sonnets, either as a sequence, antisequence, or merely a collection of individual works? In other words, when annotators or editors of
the Sonnets have particular interpretations to advance, can they prevent themselves from reinforcing their
interpretations in their annotative or editorial work? Will bias always attend editions of Shakespeare's
Sonnets? How does your answer inform your own reading of the Sonnets?
Weeks Five and Six: Readings: The Sonnets in Manuscript and Print and Stage
Shakespeare’s Sonnets 61-75, 76-90: read sonnets from all texts (Vendler, Booth, and the 1609 Appendix
in Schoenfeldt) and read all attendant annotative and editorial machinery
Arthur F. Marotti’s “Shakespeare’s Sonnets and the Manuscript Circulation of Texts in Early Modern Eng
land” (Companion 185-203)
Marcy L. North’s “The Sonnets and Book History” (Companion 204-21)
Patrick Cheney’s “Halting Sonnets: Poetry and Theater in Much Ado About Nothing” (Companion 363-82)
William Flesch’s “Personal Identity and Vicarious Experience in Shakespeare’s Sonnets” (Companion 383401)
Weeks Five and Six: Response Prompts 5
1. Given Shakespeare's understanding of manuscript circulation in early-modern England, who, do you think,
did he envisioned as his earliest audience for the Sonnets? How aware of his reader is Shakespeare in
the Sonnets and how does that awareness change over his imagined future reception of the works?
2. In addition to your secondary readings from the syllabus for this section, research two or three interpretive
or reading-paradigm theories--such as the "monument theory" (advanced in The Monument: "ShakeSpeares Sonnets" by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford) or the "spiritual theory" (advanced
in Shakespeare's Sonnets and the Bible), etc.--and explore the incongruities within the theories when read
side-by-side, incongruities both between theories and incongruities within the sonnets we've covered to
date.
3. Explore the extent that readers slip from the third-person observer--the stated or implied "I" of
the Sonnets--to the first-person suffer within the Sonnets? How universal or particular are
the Sonnets? How aware, given the internal evidence of the Sonnets themselves, is Shakespeare of
4
Answer two of the possible five prompts for each of the weeks in this unit in the order presented. Though you may opt to skip one
prompt, you may not revisit it afterward. Do not revisit the same prompt in the subsequent week.
5 Answer two of the possible five prompts for each of the weeks in this unit in the order presented. Though you may opt to skip one
prompt, you may not revisit it afterward. Do not revisit the same prompt in the subsequent week.
such potentials for slippage in narrative perspective? What do your answers suggest about Shakespeare's awareness of and play with "audience"?
4. Considering the manuscript circulation of texts in Shakespeare's England, and considering who might
have read the Sonnets in early manuscript form and also have watched the dramatic works at local playhouses, what effect might references or allusions to the Sonnets or extensions of meanings from
the Sonnets have had on audience members attending Shakespeare's plays? This is an esoteric question, admittedly, but engage in some learned conjecture of your own and formulate your own interpretive theory or interpretive key to help open up meaning in the Sonnets.
5. Carefully situate a sonnet or group of sonnets from our readings to date within an historical frame and from
that historical frame identify which plays Shakespeare was contemporaneously writing. Carefully select
one instance of significant intertextuality between sonnet or sonnets and play. Be sure here to advance
your own examples. How does the larger context of the play open potential meaning in the sonnet or sonnets? How does the sonnet (or sonnets) speak to meaning in the play? Though you are, of course, engaged in learned conjecture here, advance your argument with confidence.
Weeks Seven and Eight: Readings: Shakespeare and His Predecessors
Shakespeare’s Sonnets 91-105, 106-120: read sonnets from all texts (Vendler, Booth, and the 1609 Appendix in Schoenfeldt) and read all attendant annotative and editorial machinery
Richard Strier’s “The Refusal to be Judged in Petrarch and Shakespeare” (Companion 73-89)
Heather Dubrow’s “‘Dressing old words new’? Re-evaluating the ‘Delian Structure’” (Companion 90-103)
Dympna Callaghan’s “Confounded by Winter: Speeding Time in Shakespeare’s Sonnets” (Companion
104-18)
Ilona Bell’s “Rethinking Shakespeare’s Dark Lady” (Companion 293-313)
Weeks Seven and Eight: Response Prompts6
1. Given your understanding of other sonnet collections from Shakespeare's period, explore
what makes Shakespeare's contribution uniquely Shakespearean. What conclusions can you draw
about Shakespeare the artist given your response?
2. Considered purely from the evidence of verbal echoes, allusions, even pastiche, how aware is Shakespeare of the particular works of other sonnet writers in England and in Europe? How does he handle his
borrowings? What effect does your answer have on your reception of the Sonnets?
3. Is Shakespeare's Sonnets a personal collection of musings on various deeply personal themes or is it a
work in an established form playing with established tropes, expressions, and conventions? Are these two
areas mutually exclusive? Is a conventional loss, love interest, betrayal, or torment, etc., more
or less compelling than personal instances of such intense motivations for poetic expression? What conclusions can you draw about Shakespeare the artist given your response?
4. Given the international reputation of Petrarch during Shakespeare's period, to what extent does Shakespeare use the Sonnets to achieve personal or familial "fame"? During or just prior to the composition of
the Sonnets we know that a) Shakespeare's only son Hamnet had died unexpectedly (and with him
Shakespeare's hopes of patrilineal succession) and b) that Shakespeare applied for a coat of arms in his
father's person. What kind of fame might Shakespeare be looking for, given historical understandings of
the concept? How does your answer speak to your overarching interpretation of the Sonnets?
Weeks Nine and Ten: Readings: Memory and Repetition in the Sonnets
Shakespeare’s Sonnets 121-135, 136-154: read sonnets from all texts (Vendler, Booth, and the 1609 Ap6
Answer two of the prompts for each of the weeks in this unit in the order presented. Do not revisit the same prompt in the subsequent week.
pendix in Schoenfeldt) and read all attendant annotative and editorial machinery
Garrett A. Sullivan, Jr.’s “Vocing the Young Man: Memory, Forgetting, and Subjectivity in the Procreation
Sonnets) (Companion 331-42)
Amanda Watson’s “’Full character’d’: Competing Forms of Memory in Shakespeare’s Sonnets”
(Companion 343-60)
Bradin Cormack’s “Tender Distance: Latinity and Desire in Shakespeare’s Sonnets” ((Companion 242-60)
Rayna Kalas’s “Fickle Glass” (Companion 261-76)
Weeks Nine and Ten: Response Prompts 7
1. Carefully select one aid to memory--one recurrent image, trope, theme, etc., (with variants)--in the Sonnets and trace the development of that particular aid to memory throughout the entire work. How does the
development of the aid to memory confirm or refute the thesis of one of your secondary readings.
2. Carefully select a second aid to memory--one recurrent image, trope, theme, etc., (with variants)--in the
sonnets that undermines or challenges or compromises your previous example and trace the development of that second aid to memory throughout the entire work. Given the tension created by the contending aids to memory, given particularly what such contention would mean to the mind that sought to remember, explore the tension as intentional. (Forgive the pun.) In other words, explore the Sonnets as advancing not one reading experience or interpretation but a polyphony of such experiences or interpretations. What conclusions can you draw about Shakespeare the artist given your response?
3. Place any two of the secondary articles for this unit in direct conversation--a conversation you yourself will
have to extract through learned conjecture--and use the emerging conversation to read the Sonnets as a
whole.
4. Revisit your ideas from weeks three and four about the Sonnets as sequence or as mere collection. Refine your ideas using the secondary readings from our current unit and using your completed reading the Sonnets as a whole.
5. Revisit your ideas from weeks seven and eight about fame and familial longevity and extend those ideas
using the readings from our current unit. How and why does Shakespeare extend memory of the
past into the future? If the "memory" of personal events in Shakespeare's life in early-modern England extend even to our twenty-first century--"memory" that is reinforced by "repetition" of key ideas, themes,
tropes, etc.--is the extension intentional or accidental? What conclusions can you draw
about Shakespeare the artist given your response?
Week Eleven: Research Paper
critical contextualization through student research, as evidenced in discussions and responses
Final Paper: From the primary and secondary readings for this course, from the weekly syllabus headings
and attendant prompts, and from your own independent research and abiding interests and emerging
thoughts, select a topic in Shakespeare's Sonnets and explore that topic in an article-length exposition
(15-18 pages). Contribute meaningfully to the extant discourse on the topic and be sure to leave the secondary literature with new ideas.
7
Answer two of the possible five prompts for each of the weeks in this unit in the order presented. Though you may opt to skip one
prompt, you may not revisit it afterward. Do not revisit the same prompt in the subsequent week.