Texts (to be read in this order)

• Austen, Jane.  Northanger Abbey.  Signet.  ISBN 0451526368.
• ---.  Pride and Prejudice.  Signet.  ISBN 0451525884.
• ---.  Emma.  Signet. ISBN 0451526279.
• ---.  Persuasion.  Signet. ISBN 0451526384.
• Byron, [George Gordon] Lord.  The Major Works.  Ed. Jerome J. McGann.  Oxford UP.  ISBN 0192840401.

Course Description and Goals

This seminar (English 341) offers an intensive study of authors whose work has significantly affected the traditions of literature written in English.  Austen and Byron focuses on two authors whose works are both historically linked and mutually illuminating.  The aim of this course is to acquaint ourselves with a substantial, representative selection of work by Austen and Byron not only by studying those novels and poems, but also by considering their rich historical and biographical context.  Discussions in class and in Blackboard and formal written assignments will facilitate this aim.  In the process, we should all become better informed and more attentive and creative readers, whose analytical and interpretive skills manifest an ever greater sophistication and whose writing displays an ever finer clarity of expression.

Requirements and Grading

A=90-100; B=80-89; C=70-79; D=60-69; F=0-59

• Active participation (20%).  You will be participating actively in this course if you attend class regularly (missing only for official, College-sponsored activities or for emergencies) and meet deadlines and if you demonstrate your engagement in the course by contributing valuably to in-class discussions and to periodic out-of-class Blackboard forums and by scoring consistently well on occasional reading quizzes. (Reading quizzes will come at the beginning of the period.  If you are late for class, you will miss the quiz.  You may make up a reading quiz only if you are absent because of your required participation in a College-sponsored off-campus event, and then you may submit on the day of your return to class 10 objective questions and answers about the assignment that was due when you were absent.)

• Overviews of Austen and Byron (30%).  Austen's life, times and work and Byron's too will be the subject of two informal overviews due early in our study of each author.  Each overview should note key events in the author's life, list major publications with dates and brief characterizations, situate the author within her or his times and literary period, and offer a succinct evaluation of her or his contribution to the novel in Austen's case or to poetry in Byron's.  These overviews will depend on research, which you must document meticulously.  You should make use of online resources (http://research.centenary.edu/) as well as printed matter, but anything accessible on the Web via a search engine such as Google is off limits for these assignments.  Tardiness will cost you at least a letter grade.

• Two essays (50%).  You will write an analytical/interpretive essay on Austen and one on Byron of at least 1500 words each.  I'll assign the topic on Byron, and this essay  will stand in lieu of a final exam.  It is due no later than 3 PM, Tuesday, 16 December.  Submit these essays unfolded and either loose or stapled in the upper left-hand corner.  Late essays will be penalized by at least a letter grade.  As with essays for other English courses, these are the features that I will be evaluating: 
• Thesis and introduction: Is the thesis contestable?  Is it substantial enough to merit at least 1500 words of development?  Is the thesis, along with the introduction of which it is a part, specific to the essay at hand, or is it merely a generic one that could be pasted onto any other essay on the general subject? 
• Overall structure (macro-organization): Do the paragraphs have topic sentences that relate to the thesis?  Is the arrangement, the order, of the paragraphs sensible and effective?  How well do the paragraphs cohere one with another?  Are there transitions, signposts, that smooth the reader's journey from one topic to another? 
• Micro-organization: Do the individual paragraphs have unity, order, coherence? 
• Content: Is there ample evidence to elucidate or otherwise demonstrate the validity of the topic ideas?  What is the quality of that evidence?  To what degree does it display a depth or an originality of thought on the part of the author, or the thoroughness of his or her research?  Has the author employed appropriate rhetorical modes? 
• Style: Is the expression of the ideas clear?  Does the syntax flow?  Is the tone appropriate to the subject?  Are there errors in grammar, diction or usage, spelling, or mechanics that impede effective communication?  (Especially serious are "sentence level" errors: comma splices, sentence fragments, and fused sentences.)

• Regular attendance.  To be present, you must be on time to class; you must have the assigned text with you; and you must stay awake.  The English Department does not distinguish between excused and unexcused absences.  Miss more than six classes for whatever reason and you will fail the course.

• Honor Code.  You must write in longhand and sign the Honor Code on all work.

Week (Tuesday's date)	Assignment
Week 1 (26 August)	Northanger Abbey (Th)
Week 2 (2 September)	Northanger Abbey (T) Pride and Prejudice (Th)
Week 3 (9 September)	Pride and Prejudice Overview of Austen and Her Times (Th)
Week 4 (16 September)	Emma
Week 5 (23 September)	Emma
Week 6 (30 September)	Persuasion
Week 7 (7 October)	Essay on Austen (Th)
Week 8 (14 October)	Fall Break
Week 9 (21 October)	Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto 1, stanzas 1-11 Childe Harold 2 Letter [To Mrs Catherine Gordon Byron] (971)
Week 10 (28 October)	The Giaour Overview of Byron and His Times (Th)--Date changed to Th, Nov. 13
Week 11 (4 November)	Childe Harold 3-4
Week 12 (11 November)	Manfred Alpine Journal (981-990) Overview of Byron and His Times (Th)
Week 13 (18 November)	Beppo (T) Don Juan 1 (Th)
Week 14 (25 November) Thanksgiving (Th)	Don Juan 2
Week 15 (2 December)	Don Juan 3-4
Week 16 (9 December)	"To the Po" (369) (T) "On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year" (969) (T)
3 PM, 16 December	Essay on Byron