ENGL 362 - British Survey 2
Fall 2001, MWF 10:30 a.m. - 11:20 a.m.
 
Schedule of Classes | Papers | Web Resources | Bulletin Board
 
Professor Westman
108 Denison Hall; x2-2171
westmank@ksu.edu
Office Hours: M, W 9-10 a.m. and by app' t.
 
 
Required Texts:
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2, 7th ed.
Stoppard, Arcadia
Class Pack I: Readings from The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol.1, 7th ed.
Class Pack II: Readings from Selected Authors
(Note: Class Packs are available from the A&S Copy Center in Eisenhower Hall.)
 
 
Course Objectives:
A survey of representative British authors since the late 17th century. We will consider their works in terms of form and the historical context of their cultural production, exploring the often contested relationship between life and art. Our goal is twofold: familiarity with a canon of British literature and further practice in literary analysis and interpretation. Success in this course depends upon careful reading and participation in our discussions.
 
 
Requirements and General Expectations:
Readings: You are expected to complete each reading assignment before coming to class. You are further expected to think carefully about what you read and to make notes in your book prior to each class meeting. Bring the appropriate book or class pack to class each day and additionally mark passages that we discuss; this process will help you understand, remember, and review.
 
Class Participation and Attendance: Although this class may be large, you will be asked to participate regularly in class discussions and in collaborative learning groups. Your attendance is therefore important. You will not be penalized for your first three absences; thereafter, further absences jeopardize your final course grade. Excessive unexcused absences (six or more) may result in failure of the course. While I appreciate your offering explanations for absences, the only way to excuse an absence is to provide me with an official letter from your dean or advisor. If you are absent, it is your responsibility to find out from another class member any announcements or assignments.
 
Quizzes: Occasional short (10 minute) quizzes consisting of identifications and interpretive questions will help you improve your close reading skills and to evaluate your comprehension of the material. Quizzes are noted on the syllabus; I also reserve the right to administer further quizzes as necessary, or change a quiz into a take-home close reading response. Quizzes will be graded on a scale of 1 to 5 points: 5=A, 4=B, 3=C, 2=D, 1=F. At the end of the semester, I will average the results to determine your final quiz grade. (I will drop the lowest quiz grade before averaging.) Should you be absent on the day of a quiz, you will receive a zero, unless the absence is excused.
 
Papers: You will write two short papers. The papers are due at the time the class meets. Late papers will be penalized one full grade (i.e., B to C) for each day late. More information about these two papers follows the schedule of classes below. Note: The University's Honor Code obliges you to cite the source of any idea that is not your own. If you quote, paraphrase, or use another's ideas, you must give credit to the person whose ideas you are using. Otherwise, you have plagiarized. If you have any questions, please ask. If you do plagiarize, you will fail this course.
 
Electronic Bulletin Board: Beginning the first week of class, I'll establish an electronic bulletin board for our class. Each week, each student is required to post at least one paragraph-length comment about the materials we're studying in class. I will monitor these discussions and assess a grade (at the end of the semester) based on the thoughtfulness of your comments, their ability to foster discussion among your classmates, and their responsiveness both to our readings and to your classmates' comments in class and on the list. Your postings do not need to be long; however, they need to be substantive: they must be long enough to convey clearly the problem you are taking up and your point of view, connecting your comment to others' comments, as appropriate. I will offer models of helpful comments early in the semester. Your grade for these postings will become part of your class participation grade.
 
Examinations: You will have a midterm and a cumulative final exam. A missed exam counts as a zero; no make-up exams will be offered without a dean's excuse.
 
Conferences: There are no mandatory conferences for this course. I encourage you, however, to stop by during office hours, particularly before an assignment is due, or if you have any questions or concerns about the course or the readings. You can always reach me by email to make an appointment if my office hours are not convenient for you.
 
Grading:
Paper #1 10%
Paper #2 10%
Quizzes 15%
 Class Participation 20%

 In-class 10%

  

 Postings 10%

  
Midterm Exam 20%
Final Exam 25%
 
 
 
Schedule of Classes (Subject to change)
[Unless otherwise indicated by CP for class pack, readings are found in a required book.]
 

The Restoration and the 18th Century (1660-1785)
August
M 20
W 22
 
 
F 24
Introduction: Condition of England in Life and Art, c.1700
"The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century" (CPI:
2045-70); Alexander Pope (CPI: 2505-8): "An Essay on
Criticism," Part 1 (CPI: 2509-13)
Pope, from "An Essay on Man" (CPI: 2554-62); Jonathan
Swift (CPI: 2298-9), "A Description of a City Shower"(CPI:
2300-1) Quiz
M 27
 
 
 
 
W 29
 
 
 
F 31
"Debating Women" (CPI: 2584-85): Jonathan Swift, "The
Lady's Dressing Room" (CPI: 2585-88); Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu (CPI: 2579-80), "The Reasons That
Induced Dr. Swift to Write a Poem Called the Lady's
Dressing Room" (2588-90)
John Wilmot (CPI: 2162), "The Disabled Debauchee" (CPI:
2162-3) and "The Imperfect Engagement" (CPI: 2163-5);
Aphra Behn (CPI: 2165-7), "The Disappointment" (CPI:
2167-70)
Restoration Drama: "Drama and Theater in the Late
Seventeenth Century " (CPII: 266-70); from The London
Stage (xliv-xlix); from The Public Image of the Actor
(CPII: 24-5); Behn, from The Lucky Chance (CPII: 249-52,
259-68, 376-7); George Farquhar, from The Beaux'
Stratagem (CPII: 25-31, 90-3, 106-11, 126-31)
September
M 3
W 5
 
 
 
F 7
Labor Day - No Class
Samuel Johnson (CPI: 2660-2), from A Dictionary of the
English Language (CPI: 2719-25); "Landscape and Power"
(CPII: 2857-58): Selections from Pope, Walpole, and Burke
(CPII: 2872-82) Quiz
"Landscape and Power," continued.

 

The Romantic Period (1785-1830)
M 10
 
 
 
 
W 12
F 14
"The Romantic Period" (1-23); William Wordsworth
(219-21): "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal" (254), "Lucy Gray"
(254-5), "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (284-5), "Tintern
Abbey" (235-8), excerpts from "Preface" to Lyrical Ballads
(238-51) Quiz
Wordsworth, continued.
Wordsworth, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" (286-92),
excerpts from The Prelude, Books I (303-8; 311-19), II
(324-5), VII (348-51), XI-XIV (362-77, 382-3)
M 17
 
 
 
 
W 19
F 21
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (416-18): "The Eolian Harp,"
"This Lime Tree Bower My Prison," "The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner," "Kubla Khan" (419-41), "Frost at
Midnight" (457-8), "Dejection: An Ode" (459-462); excerpts
from Biographia Literaria (467-8,474-89) Quiz
Coleridge, continued.
Mary Wollstonecraft, excerpts from Vindication of the
Rights of Woman (163-192)
M 24
 
 
 
W 26
F 28
Percy Bysshe Shelley (698-701): "Mont Blanc" (720-23),
"Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" (723-25), "To a Skylark"
(765-67), and excerpts from A Defense of Poetry
(789-802) Quiz
Mary Shelley (903-5), Frankenstein (905-1034) Quiz
Frankenstein, continued.
October
M 1
 
 
 
 
W 3
 
 
 
F 5
John Keats (823-26): "On First Looking into Chapman's
Homer," "Sleep and Poetry," "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles,"
from "Endymion: A Poetic Romance," "On Sitting Down to
Read King Lear...," "When I Have Fears...," "To Homer"
(826-34)
Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on a Grecian Urn,"
"Ode on Melancholy" (849-854), "To Autumn" (872-3), and
excerpts from Keats' Letters (886-903)
Paper #1 due in class.
Keats, continued.

 

The Victorian Age (1830-1901)
M 8
W 10
 
 
 
 
F 12
Midterm Exam
"The Victorian Age" (1043-65); "The Rise and Fall of
Empire" (2017-18); Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1198-1201):
"The Kraken" (1201-2), "The Lady of Shalott," "The
Lotus-Eaters," "Ulysses" (1202-14), "Locksley Hall"
(1219-25) Quiz
Tennyson, continued.
M 15
 
 
W 17
 
 
 
 
F 19
Tennyson, excerpts from In Memoriam A. H. H. (1230-80);
"Evolution" and excerpts from Darwin's Descent of Man
(1679, 1686-90)
Robert Browning (1345-9): "My Last Duchess" (1352-3)
and "Caliban upon Sebetos" (1402-9); "Industrialism:
Progress or Decline?" (1696-7); Macaulay, from "A Review
of Southey's Colloquies" (1697-1702); Dickens, from Hard
Times (1711-2) Quiz
Fall Break - No Class.
M 22
 
 
 
W 24
 
 
 
 
F 26
Matthew Arnold (1471-5): "To Marguerite--Continued"
(1479-80), "The Buried Life" (1480-2), "Dover Beach"
(1492-3); excerpts from "The Function of Criticism at the
Present Time" (1514-15, 1526-28)
John Stuart Mill (1137-9): from The Subjection of
Women (1155-65); "The Women Question" (1719-21) and
excerpts from Ellis, "The Women of England...," Patmore,
"The Angel in the House," and Besant, "The Queen's Reign"
(1721-4, 1738-9)
Martineau, "Autobiography," Mullock, "A Woman's
Thoughts...", and Nightingale, "Cassandra" (1725-8,
1732-7); Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1173-4): excerpts
from "Aurora Leigh" (1180-94); Christina Rossetti
(1583-84): "In an Artist's Studio" (1586) and "Goblin
Market" (1589-1601) Quiz
 
 
 
November
M 29
 
W 31
F 2
Virginia Woolf (2141-3), A Room of One's Own
(2153-2183)
Woolf, Room (2183-2214). Quiz.
"The Nineties" (1740-1); Oscar Wilde (1747-9): from
"The Critic as Artist" (1752-60) and The Importance of
Being Earnest (1761-1805)
M 5
W 7
 
 
 
F 9
Wilde, continued.
"The Twentieth Century" (1897-1915); "The Rise and Fall
of Empire" (2017-18); Joseph Conrad (1952-3):
"Preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus" (1954-6)
and Heart of Darkness (1957-2017)
No Class - Read ahead.

 

The Twentieth Century
M 12
 
 
W 14
 
 
 
 
F 16
Conrad, continued; Chinua Achebe (2616-7), "An
Image of Africa: Conrad's Heart of Darkness"
(2035-40) Quiz
Thomas Hardy (1916-7), "Hap" (1934), "Neutral
Tones" (1935-6); "The Darkling Thrush" (1937-8);
"The Convergence of the Twain" (1945-6); "Under the
Waterfall" (1947-8); and "He Never Expected Much"
(1951-2)
"Voices from World War I" (2048-9): Rupert Brooke
(2049-50): "The Soldier" (2050); Siegfried Sassoon
(2054-5): "They" (2055), "The Rear-Guard" (2056),
"Glory of Women" (2057), and "On Passing the New
Menin Gate" (2057-8); Wilfred Owen (2066), "Dulce
Et Decorum Est" (2069-70)
M 19
 
 
 
W 21
F 23
W.B. Yeats (2085-8): "Adam's Curse" (2097-8), "Easter
1916" (2104-6), "The Second Coming" (2106-7), "Sailing
to Byzantium" (2109-10); "The Circus Animals' Desertion"
(2120)
No Class -
Thanksgiving Break
M 26
 
 
W 28
F 30
T.S. Eliot (2360-3), "The Waste Land" (2368-83);
"Tradition and the Individual Talent" (2170-6);
Paper #2 due in class.
Eliot, continued.
Virginia Woolf, "Kew Gardens" (CPII) and "Modern
Fiction" (2148-53) Quiz
December
M 3
 
 
 
 
 
 
W 5
F 7
Philip Larkin (2564-5): "Church Going" (2565-6),
"Talking in Bed" (2567), "Sad Steps" (2569), and
"Aubaude" (2570-71); Seamus Heaney (2818-9):
"Digging" (2819-20) and excerpts from "Station Island"
(2825-7); Derek Walcott (2580): "Midsummer"
(2584-5); and Wole Soyinka, "Telephone
Conversation" (xerox)
Tom Stoppard (2785-6), Arcadia (1-97)
Stoppard, continued; review for Final Exam.
F 14 Final Exam, 11:50 a.m.-1:40 p.m.
 
 
Guidelines for Papers
 
Paper 1 | Paper 2
 
General Instructions
Papers should follow the general rules of composition and be typed or word-processed with standard double-spacing, 1-inch margins, and either 10- or 12-point typeface. Title pages and covers are unnecessary. Pages should be numbered, stapled together, and spell-checked. Please follow the M.L.A. style for quotations. Errors in grammar and punctuation will be marked and will be significant factors in the grading of the paper if the mistakes are so numerous or egregious as to distract from the argument. Papers are due at the time the class meets; late papers will be penalized one grade (i.e., B to C) for each day late.
 
Paper #1 (Due Wednesday, October 3rd; 3-4 pages in length)
Identify and discuss whatever patterns of imagery you find in one of Keats' odes on the syllabus: "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "Ode on Melancholy" (849-54), or "To Autumn" (872-3). As preparation for your paper, make a list of the poem's images, and identify any patterns that might emerge from that list. Then, decide how those patterns of images develop the poem's theme(s). What are some of the themes in the poem? How does the poem's imagery tell us about the theme(s)? Your thesis should answer these two questions, and the pattern(s) you uncover should help you answer them.
 
This paper should be in standard essay form. You should include a very short introduction that tells me the pattern(s) of imagery and the imagery's bearing on the poem's theme(s) - that is, the thesis of your paper. The rest of your paper will support this interpretation by supplying the details of your analysis.
 
 
Paper #2 (Due Monday, November 26th; 4-5 pages in length)
Choose one of the following topics for your paper on Part I of Eliot's "The Waste Land" (2369-72). As for Paper #1, this paper should be in standard essay form. You should include a very short introduction that tells me the thesis of your paper in response to one of the topics below; the rest of your paper will support this interpretation by supplying the details of your analysis.
 
1. Use the poem's title ("The Waste Land"), the epigraph (translated in your footnotes), and the section title ("The Burial of the Dead") as a way into a discussion about Part I of Eliot's poem. How do each of these "introductions" elucidate or connect to the narrative which follows in Part I? Be sure to refer to specific lines and images in your discussion.
 
or
 
2. In footnote #4 on p.2371, Eliot tells the reader that he "associate[s], quite arbitrarily," an image from a tarot card with the mythical image of the Fisher King. Consider Eliot's choice of the word "arbitrarily": What might Eliot's comment tell us about the way in which the poem is and will be constructed? Do the "I" and "we" of the poem "associate, quite arbitrarily" as well? Can we, as readers, begin to detect a pattern to these "arbitrary" associations? Be sure to refer to specific lines and images in your discussion.

 

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Email: westmank@ksu.edu
Last updated 28 November 2001