Syllabus Foss 336 F11

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ENGLISH 336: BRITISH VICTORIAN LITERATURE
SPRING 2011

SECTION 01

COMBS 002

9:30 A.M. T R

Dr. Chris Foss

Combs 307

MTWRF 10:55-11:55and by appointment

cfoss@umw.edu

654-1128

COURSE DESCRIPTION
English 336 is a course designed to allow you to study the major writers, works, and literary movements in British literature from 1830 to 1914. It will provide you with a thorough understanding of this period's writers, their social context(s), and the many complex points of interchange between the two. It further will offer an exciting, thought-provoking sampling of great literature that will engage you in a number of profound aesthetic, philosophical, and sociopolitical questions--many of which we still are grappling with today. Indeed, I think most of you will be surprised to find out just how much you have in common with the very Victorians we too often stereotype as old-fashioned, stuffy, prudish, and humorless.

I have divided our calendar of readings into three main units (representing the Early, Middle, and Late phases of the period). Within each of these sections, the readings will revolve around four primary topical focus points: (1) Religion and Science, (2) Victorian Ladies and Gentlemen, (3) Travel and Empire, and (4) Aestheticism. I have grouped the majority of your readings thematically (rather than simply proceeding from one author to the next in typical anthology fashion) to allow for a better sense of chronological progression through the three distinct, if also somewhat overlapping, phases. Consequently, you will read (for example) eight different Tennyson texts spread across all three phases and distributed under all four main topical focus points rather than reading all of them on the same day or two near the beginning of the course. Each unit will begin, however, with the intensive three-day study of one writer (C. Brontë, Dutt, Wilde), followed by an additional day on another single author (Dickens, Carroll, Stevenson), before turning to the topical focus points. Along the way you will hear from over 40 different voices--including 20 women, as well as some writers of color. In this way we will hope to plumb the astonishing variety and complexity of the many voices present in the period.

GOALS
The main goal of this course is to provide you with an extensive knowledge of British Victorian Literature. By the end of the semester, you should be able to identify its major writers and works, as well as its most popular forms and themes. The general goals of this course are that you will improve your ability to think critically and that you will improve your ability to express your ideas clearly and accurately in writing.

MAJOR ASSIGNMENTS
You will pursue the goals of this course through oral and written contributions to the class, the latter in the form of both graded and nongraded assignments. Nongraded assignments will serve as a springboard for discussion and/or an exercise in honing your critical writing skills. You will write two essays for me. You further will be writing a final examination. I will knock down the grade of a late wiki submission one full notch (that is, from A to B) for each class meeting that passes without your posting it (beginning with the original deadline), unless I have granted you an extension ahead of time. I will penalize work falling outside the parameters of my word count stipulations on a case by case basis as well.

CLASS PARTICIPATION AND QUIZZES
Your active class participation is required. The points for this portion of your grade primarily will come from oral contributions to in-class discussions (both in small group and in large group formats), plus any informal writing assigned. Our discussions will ask you to practice close reading of the assigned texts. Accordingly, you need to take these discussions seriously by coming prepared to talk about what you have read. Also, please note I also will be giving very frequent unannounced quizzes as part of a separate quiz grade. There will be no make-ups for these quizzes.

GRADING
The distribution that will determine your final grade is as follows:
 * Quizzes		               10%
 * Class participation	               20%
 * Class summary essay	25%
 * Channel Firing essay		25%
 * Final examination		20%

In all this work you will be expected to abide by Mary Washington's Honor Code and thus to refrain from lying, cheating, and stealing in all their various and nefarious forms. You must complete all of your wiki assignments and both examinations to pass this course.

DISABILITY ACCOMMODATIONS
I will make every effort to accommodate disabilities. The Office of Disability Resources has been designated by Mary Washington as the primary office to guide, counsel, and assist students with disabilities. If you already receive services through ODR and require accommodations for this class, please make an appointment with me as soon as possible to discuss your approved accommodation needs. Bring your accommodation letter with you to the appointment. I will hold any information you share with me in strictest confidence unless you give me permission to do otherwise. If you need accommodations (note taking assistance, extended time for tests, etc.) but do not yet have them in place, please see ODR as soon as possible or call ODR at 654-1266. You will need appropriate documentation of disability.

TEXTS
There will be three main texts for this course. They are:


 * The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Volume 2B (The Victorian Age), 4TH EDITION


 * Victorian Women Poets: A New Annotated Anthology--Blain, ed. (Longman)


 * Jane Eyre—C. Brontë (Penguin Classics)

There also will be some supplementary readings provided electronically. By registering for this course you agree to read/use the editions selected by yours truly; this means you need to purchase and use all of these texts even if you already own a different version of some of them.

WHAT IS BRITISH VICTORIAN LITERATURE?
Our course is entitled "British Victorian Literature." What exactly is British Victorian Literature? One might think the answer is easy enough: it's British literature that dates from the reign of Queen Victoria, 1837-1901. Unfortunately, there are many scholars out there who insist that this easy answer actually is inadequate. For instance, some scholars insist the "Victorian" period actually begins in 1832, with the passage of the First Reform Bill and the publication of Tennyson's Poems. Many others feel that 1830 is an even more appropriate end to the Romantic period, with the death of George IV and the publication of Tennyson's Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (his first full volume of poetry)—not to mention the collapse of Wellington's Tory government and the establishment of Grey's Whig government (which eventually will lead to the First Reform Bill's passage). There also are those who feel the "Victorian" period extends after Victoria's death as well. For some, one must include literature from the reign of Edward VII (1901-1910), the last monarch before the House of Windsor comes to the throne. For others, we need to include all writing up to the outbreak of The Great War (WWI) in 1914. So "What is British Victorian Literature?" turns out to be a complicated question, especially when you consider we have not thrown into the mix yet the question of whether or not a text only need be written or instead actually must be published (or perhaps both) within one of the time frames to qualify as such literature.

Here at Mary Washington, British Victorian Literature is conceived of in its broadest sense, from 1830-1914. I, for one, am glad. I am glad not only because it deepens the pool of great literature from which I may draw our readings, but also because I feel it is an important statement about literary history. It is one thing to talk about the ways in which one stereotypically may see the Victorian as a reaction against the Romantic ("Close thy Byron," Carlyle says), and about the ways in which one stereotypically may see the Modern as a reaction against the Victorian ("Make It New," Pound says). It is another to realize that Tennyson's early work was panned for being too Keatsian. Or to recall that William Wordsworth is Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850 (when Tennyson succeeds him), a year that sees the first publication of both The Prelude and In Memoriam. It is another to realize that the Modernist avant-garde does not spontaneously materialize out of thin air but in fact is following in the footsteps of the avant-garde Aesthetes and Decadents from the 1890s. Or to recall that major Modern figures like Conrad, Hardy, Shaw, and Yeats all were publishing in the Nineties, if not before. While we will not necessarily be engaging with this issue on a daily basis, I am nonetheless pleased with our conception of British Victorian Literature in that it helps foster a healthy awareness of the complexities of literary history.

STIRRING CONCLUSION/SALES PITCH
All this being said, I hope you will find this class to be not only intellectually stimulating, but also enough fun that you look forward to attending each and every session. Brace yourself for a vigorous intellectual ride; we definitely will be reading a lot of challenging texts, texts that do not simply present you with difficult vocabulary and obscure allusions, but that even more so force you to wrestle with extremely deep and knotty (and sometimes naughty) ideas, as well as to confront very complex controversial issues. Ultimately, you will not agree with or even like all you read, but I hope you will come to respect these great writers' painstaking attempts to compel both themselves and their readers to think intensely and critically about a number of hard questions. I hope you will, at the very least, find some value in the process of (re-)examining these questions.

In his Conclusion to The Renaissance, Walter Pater presents an intellectual version of the carpe diem argument. According to Pater, "we are all under sentence of death but with a sort of indefinite reprieve"; that is, "we have an interval," and "our one chance lies in expanding that interval, in getting as many pulsations as possible into the given time." The "wisest" of us spend this interval "in art and song," for if to "burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life," then it is art which first and foremost may "give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass. . . ."

Consider this course a chance to realize this dream of achieving the highest quality to your moments. No other course (indeed, no other activity) can offer you so great an opportunity. It may be better to burn out than it is to fade away or to rust—but it's best of all to burn always. Only BVL can lead you to true success and happiness in life, so get ready to light up.

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