Texts (to be read in this order)

Merwin, W. S., trans.  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  Knopf.  ISBN: 0375709924.
Milton, John.  Paradise Lost.  Penguin.  ISBN: 0140424393.
Johnson, Samuel.  The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia.  Penguin.  ISBN: ISBN: 014043108X.
Blake, William.  Songs of Innocence and of Experience.  Oxford UP.  ISBN: 0192810898.
Bronte, Charlotte.  Jane Eyre.  Penguin.  ISBN: 0142437204.
Rhys, Jean.  Wide Sargasso Sea.  Norton.  ISBN: 0393308804.
Joyce, James.  Dubliners.  Penguin.  ISBN: 0141182458.

This course, with its complement, Studies in Representative American Authors, is designed for English majors and minors.  The aim of these two courses is to give you a sense of the sweep of the respective traditions--the variety of genres, distinguishing stylistic features, topical and philosophical concerns--and to make those vast traditions manageable by presenting you with characteristic works from the historical periods. 

To meet these twin aims, I've selected a Medieval romance, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, by an anonymous 14th-century poet; a 17th-century literary epic, John Milton's Paradise Lost; Samuel Johnson's Rasselas, an 18th-century philosophical fable; William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, a coherent collection of early Romantic lyric poetry; a Victorian novel, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, the exemplary novel of female development; James Joyce's Dubliners, modern short stories from Ireland; and Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, a post-colonial response to Jane Eyre.  (Set in the Caribbean in the 1830s or '40s, Wide Sargasso Sea was published in 1966--we'll violate chronology and read it right after Jane Eyre, before the stories in Dubliners.)  Along the way we'll read sonnets by Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, John Donne, and Milton, and selected verse by William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, P. B. Shelley, W. B. Yeats, and D. H. Lawrence.  These selections are available, except for two poems by Yeats, at Representative Poetry Online; the poems by Yeats are available at The Academy of American Poets.  Either print out the selections from these Websites or find them elsewhere--you must have the texts with you in class on the specified dates.

Apply yourself even modestly to the demands of the course and you should gain a view of the expanse of this literary tradition.  Apply yourself conscientiously and you will become a sharper and more articulate reader.  In-class discussions, forums in Blackboard, reading quizzes, and two major tests, one at midterm, the other at the end, will measure your progress.  Finally, your engagement with the texts should excite your creative imagination and make you a more sensitive and empathetic person. 

• Active participation (70%).  To participate actively you must contribute regularly and constructively to in-class discussions and in a timely way to all Blackboard forums, be on time and thoughtful with any other written assignments that may come due, perform satisfactorily on all reading quizzes, miss no more than four classes, and in general demonstrate a conscientious commitment to the course.  Failure to do this will put you at my mercy!  Note: to be present, you must be on time to class; you must have the assigned text(s) with you; and you must stay awake.  Miss more than six classes for any reason and you will fail the course.
• Midterm test (10%).  Thursday, February 24.
• Final examination (20%).  Date to be announced.