Judith W. Page

Jane Austen and the Culture of Romanticism

Honors Seminar, ENG 4936
Spring 2004, R, 6-8, CBD 105
Instructor: Dr. Judith Page, Department of English, Turlington 4339, 392-6650, ext. 293
email: jwp@english.ufl.edu
Office hours: Tuesdays 10:30-12:00, Thursdays 8:00-9:00, or by appointment

Course description

In this course we will study Austen’s six completed novels, as well as her juvenilia and unfinished works. In addition, we will read several representative Romantic texts in order to place Austen’s accomplishment in the context of Romantic literature and culture.

Required texts

(available at Goering’s, 1717 NW 1st Ave)

  • The Romance of the Forest (Oxford)
  • Northanger Abbey (Broadview)
  • Sense and Sensibility (Riverside)
  • Pride and Prejudice (Norton)
  • Mansfield Park (Norton)
  • Emma (Norton)
  • Persuasion (Norton)

Highly recommended

  • Claire Tomalin’s Jane Austen: A Life (Vintage)
  • Romantic Circles: http://www.rc.umd.edu (includes many wonderful links to various cites on Romanticism, including Gothic pages as well as the Jane Austen Information Page and links to full text version of poems)

Requirements

Regular class attendance and participation are required. All students are responsible for material covered in class and for any changes made to the syllabus when announced in class. Students may miss one class. After that, a student will lose one point in the final grading for every hour of class missed. A student who misses more than 3 whole classes or more than 9 hours of class will not pass the course.

As a seminar, this class is based on discussion. The success of the class, therefore, will depend on students’ participation. Everyone must keep up with the reading and come to class prepared. In order to pass this course, students must submit all written work. No late work will receive full credit. Late papers will be reduced by half a letter grade for each day late. A student may request an extension on a paper one week before the due date. I cannot accept electronic versions of written work.

Students must adhere to the guidelines for academic honesty set out in the Undergraduate Catalogue.

The University encourages students with disabilities to register with the Office of Student Service in order to determine appropriate accommodation. It is the student’s responsibility to inform the instructor at the beginning of the semester if disability is an issue.

Grading

Attendance and participation: 25%
Ten weekly response papers:* 25%
Seminar paper and presentation**: 50%

The grading scale for the class is 90-100, A; 87-89, B+; 80-86, B, and so on.

*Response Papers

You will have 10 informal response papers to write, each worth 10 points. Sometimes I will give you specific issues to address; at other times, you will be free to select a point of interest or a question that arises from your reading. You may, for instance, formulate a question based on your reading, and then speculate on possible directions for further thinking. I encourage you to reflect on past class discussions or to use this assignment to explore possible paper topics. I will call on each student 2-3 times during the semester to read a response paper at the beginning of the class. In other words, these papers will also serve as starting off points for class discussion.

Whichever approach you take, your writing should reveal that you have taken the time to read and to reflect on the text(s). This is informal writing, but it should not be sloppy in either the thinking or presentation. Your papers must be typed and should be from one-two pages double spaced—no longer. In grading these papers, I will use the following scale:

  • 10=absolutely outstanding
  • 9=excellent
  • 8=good
  • 7=acceptable
  • . . . and so on

**Seminar Paper

You will be required to write a 15-page paper on Austen. All students will also present their research to the seminar at the end of the semester. In addition, you will submit a prospectus (or proposal) for the paper one month before the final paper is due. (Your prospectus will count as one of the response papers.) In this prospectus, you should address the issues that you will consider in your paper. Some questions your prospectus should address include: What is the scope of this study? What are the main questions or issues that have drawn you to the topic? What is your working argument? How does your proposed work fit into the ongoing scholarly debate about the subject or related subjects? How do you envision organizing your paper? What problems or challenges do you anticipate?

Please remember that this paper must have an argument. For example, you will not just do a comparison of X and Y, but you might argue that X influences Y in certain particular ways. You will also support your ideas with specific details from the text(s) under consideration. You will also be required to consult at least five secondary critical sources and must provide proper documentation for any and all sources that you consult. For these purposes, consult the MLA Handbook (either a printed version or excerpt such as included in Diane Hacker’s Rules for Writers or an on-line version from the MLA Web site: www.mla.org). Please note that secondary critical resources (books chapters and articles) included in the class editions will be fine.

In assessing these papers, I will consider the strength of your argument, clarity of your organization, supporting evidence and detail, quality of your writing, and skill in engaging the reader. This list is not meant to intimidate you but, rather, to give you a clear idea of the standards, and to assure you that I grade on how well you have met these standards and not on whether I agree with every point. Please see me or write to me at any time during the process if I can help you with your paper. You should view this assignment as a process that will take several weeks, not as a last-minute scramble. Although many factors come into play, in general my guidelines are as follows:

An A paper develops a complex, detailed, and imaginative argument based on analytical reading; it takes some risks in its ideas and approaches and shows sophisticated thought. An A paper is impeccably written, virtually free of grammatical and stylistic problems.

A B paper contains ideas and insights, but the ideas are either not as complex or not as fully or clearly developed as an A paper. There may be some summary and paraphrase when there should be analysis. There may be errors in style and grammar or lack of adequate supporting evidence for assertions.

A C paper may have some ideas, but the argument is not developed and the details are inadequate. This paper generally includes more paraphrase or summary than analysis and contains far too many grammatical or stylistic errors to be good.

Schedule of Readings and Assignments

 

January 8 Introduction: Jane Austen and Romanticism
January 15 Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest;
Paper #1: Consider the function of landscape description in the novel or formulate a definition of the gothic based on your reading of The Romance.
January 22 Northanger Abbey, including all supplementary material, reviews, etc.
Paper #2: Chapter 8 of The Romance of the Forest has been regarded as a source for Austen (particularly chap. 5, vol. 2). In what ways does Austen seem indebted to Radcliffe? What is Austen’s attitude toward the gothic?
January 29 Read Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner and “Kubla Khan,” and Wordsworth’s Michael and The Ruined Cottage. I will provide excerpts from the Preface to Lyrical Ballads.
Paper #3: Write about any one of these texts in relationship to Northanger Abbey.
February 5 Sense and Sensibility. Also read 291-334, Love and Friendship, as well as excerpts from Wollstonecraft and Edgewood, etc.
Paper #4: Is Jane Austen a feminist? Is this the right question to ask?
February 12 Jane Austen and Film: Sense and Sensibility. Read 335-79 in Sense and Sensibility.
Paper #5: Why have film version of Austen’s novels been so popular in the last ten years?
February 19 Pride and Prejudice. Also read letters, 270-80 and three critical essays of your choosing.
Paper #6: How does reading Austen’s letters help put the novel in context? Or, analyze the scene in which Lizzy Bennet (chap. 1 vol 3) visits Pemberly. Why is this a crucial scene? Why are the house and grounds so significant?
Febrary 26 Mansfield Park.
Paper #7: Do we need to like Fanny Price? Or, write about any aspect of Mansfield Park.
March 4 Inchbald, Lover’s Vows and all selections on education, the slave trade, etc. (329-412 in Mansfield text.). You might want to view the recent film version of Mansfield Park in the context of the slavery debate.
Paper #8: Prospectus for seminar paper due.
March 11 SPRING BREAK
March 18 Emma, with letters 327-30 and selections from The Watsons, 331-42.
Paper #9: Write on any aspect of Emma that interests you
March 25 Emma on Film: Watch Clueless before you come to class. Read 357-44 in Emma text, including “Emma Becomes Clueless.” We will watch Emma in class.
April 1 Persuasion. Also read contemporary reviews, 196-24 and any three critical essays.
Paper #10: Analyze the critical reception of Persuasion.
April 8 NO CLASS. WRITE PAPERS. ADDITIONAL OFFICE HOURS IN THE MORNING.
April 15 PAPERS AND FIVE-MINUTE PRESENTATIONS DUE IN CLASS.