Studies in Representative British Authors (English 241) Fall 2002 Jackson Hall 113 MWF 1-1:50

David Havird Jackson Hall 311, 869-5085 dhavird@centenary.edu http://personal.centenary.edu/~dhavird/ Office Hours: MW 2-4 and by appointment

Required Texts
(To be read in this order)

• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo.  Trans. J. R. R. Tolkien.  Ballantine, 1980.
• Marvell, Andrew.  "To His Coy Mistress" and Other Poems.  Dover, 1997.
• Milton, John.  Paradise Lost.  Ed. John Leonard.  Penguin, 2000.
• Pope, Alexander.  The Rape of the Lock.  Illus. Aubrey Beardsley.  Dover, 1968.
• Coleridge, Samuel Taylor.  Selected Poems.  Ed. Richard Holmes.  Penguin, 1996.
• Trollope, Anthony.  Barchester Towers.  Ed. John Sutherland.  Oxford UP, 1998.
• Graves, Robert.  Good-Bye to All That: An Autobiography.  Anchor Books, 1998.
• Mansfield, Katherine.  Stories.  Vintage, 1991.
• Boland, Eavan.  Outside History: Selected Poems, 1980-1990.  Norton, 2001.

This course is designed for English majors and minors.  Ideally, if you are majoring or minoring in English, you will have taken English 171, Introduction to Literary Studies, during the second semester of your first year.  That course will have introduced you to various critical approaches and interpretive techniques.  Then, during your second year, you will be taking a year-long sequence, English 241, Studies in Representative British Authors, during the fall semester and English 242, Studies in Representative American Authors during the spring.  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 Renaissance drama, a play by Shakespeare, as performed by the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express during the week of 23 September; the verse of Andrew Marvell, a showcase for many of the conventions that typify the 17th-century lyric; Milton's Paradise Lost as representative of the literary epic; Pope's mock epic The Rape of the Lock as representative of 18th-century satire; the poems of Coleridge--variously meditative, confessional, political, nature-loving, and supernatural--as representative of the Romantic lyric; Trollope's Barchester Towers as representative of the Victorian novel; Graves's post-WWI autobiography, Good-Bye to All That, a bitter, satirical farewell to Victorian piety; Mansfield's stories as representative of the modern and Modernist story story; and the poems of Eavan Boland, the most celebrated female poet in an otherwise stolidly masculine (Irish) poetical tradition.

You'll not only read these works, but also critically examine representative short works by authors that might have figured in the course.  Early in the semester, I'll be assigning such a work to each of you, and you'll make that work--along with a critical commentary of your own--available to the class via the Web.  By the end of the semester that material will compose something of a supplementary critical anthology.

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 should become a more discerning critic able to communicate ever more subtle and complex ideas with ever greater clarity and grace of style.  Finally, your engagement with the texts should excite your creative imagination and make you a more sensitive and empathetic person.

There will be daily reading quizzes of 2-5 objective questions at the beginning of the period.  Be late for class and miss the quiz!  You may make it up only if you miss class because of your required participation in a College-sponsored off-campus event.  Then and only then may you make it up--by submitting on the day of your return to class five objective questions and answers about the subject of the missed quiz.

You will be writing two essays of at least 500 words.  The first of these will be a critical analysis of a short work (to be assigned) by a "major" author who might have figured among our representatives.  The second essay, which will require some research and appropriate documentation, will explain how that work is characteristic of its author.  For instance, what is it about "Ulysses" that identifies it as a poem by Tennyson?

A Web project, accessible to the class, will feature the text of that short work, together with your two essays (which you may revise for Web publication).  This project, which will demand additional research, will include other items--to be enumerated later.  Suffice it to say now that while this course is not about Web design--repeat, definitely not--the project should be audience-friendly by making practical use of such elementary features of the medium as images and hyperlinks.

There will be two tests: a midterm test and a final exam.  The Web projects, which I've described as a supplementary critical anthology, will figure on the exam.

Summary of Grading
A=90-100; B=80-89; C=70-79; D=60-60; F=0-59

• Reading quizzes (20%)
• 500-word critical analysis of a work to be assigned, due Friday, 13 September (10%)
• 500-word discussion of that work as representative of the author, due Friday, 18 October (10%)
• Test, Monday, 30 September (10%)
• Web project, due Friday, 8 November (30%)
• Final exam, 8:30-11:30 AM, Wednesday, 11 December (20%)

Attendance
Regular attendance is mandatory.  To be present, you must be on time to class; you must have the assigned text with you; and you must stay awake.  Miss more than nine classes for any reason and you will fail the course.