Judith W. Page

Early British Romanticism

Spring 2004
The Romantic Period, English 3241 (section 2488), University of Florida, Period T2-3, R3

Instructor: Dr. Judith Page, Department of English, Turlington 4339, 392-6650, ext. 293
email: jwp@english.ufl.edu
Office hours: Tuesdays 10:45-12:00, Thursdays 8:00-9:00, or by appointment

Course Description

This course will focus on selected authors from the first generation of British Romantic writers. We will consider various questions in literature and culture from the 1780s through the first decade or so of the 19th century, including the relationship between literary and popular culture, revolutions in politics and in poetic genres and styles, problems of canon formation and aesthetic theory, as well as questions of gender and sexuality.

Required Texts

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

  • The Longman Anthology of British Literature, vol. 2A, 2nd edition, The Romantics and their Contemporaries. This is our primary txt for the course.
  • Anne Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest (Oxford)
  • Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility (Penguin)

Internet Resources

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 missing more than four hours of class will be penalized in the final grading by one point for each class hour missed. Students missing more than 9 hours of class will not pass the course. Lateness counts for half an absence. Students who attend class regularly and participate consistently will benefit in the final grading.

Class will consist of some brief lectures combined with lots of 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 the two exams and the formal paper. 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.

You will take 4 quizzes during the semester. Your quiz grade will consist of the average of your highest 3 grades. This means that you will be entitled to one dropped grade or one missed quiz. But please note that there will be no make-up quizzes. If you miss two or more quizzes, you will receive a “0” for that quiz.

Students must adhere to the guidelines for academic honesty set out in the Undergraduate Catalogue. Students who plagiarize all or part of their work or otherwise cheat run the risk of failing the course. If you have any doubts or questions about documentation of your work, please see me before you submit your work to me. I will be glad answer any questions or review forms of documentation.

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

Any informal assignments and daily participation* 15%
Midterm exam (take home) (approx. 5 typed pages) 20%
Quizzes 15%
Formal paper** 25%
Take-home exam (approx. 6-7 typed pages) 25%

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

*Daily Participation

In order to do well on this component, students will have to come to class regularly and on time, having completed all of the reading for a given class. Students will also be expected to join in discussions in a constructive manner and with respect for other participants.

**Formal Paper

For this assignment, you will write a paper (from 7-10 pages typed) in which you address issues of canon and canon formation in the Romantic period. Your assignment is to select a text or texts by one of the women writers that we have studied and to formulate an argument about why this work should be included in the canon of Romanticism. The paper will entail a detailed reading of the text as well as an argument concerning its significance. Your paper may also include a comparative analysis with other works of the period. The paper should address the criteria involved in coming to a conclusion about the work—such as its aesthetic merits, its historical or cultural significance, or its contribution to an understanding of the Romantic period.

For your paper, choose from the following works:

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.

Papers earning grades less than C do not satisfactorily meet the above standards, although a D paper may have some redeeming qualities.

This paper is not designed as a research paper. However, if you consult any sources, including legitimate sites on the internet (such as Romantic Circles), you must document each and every source. 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.) If you have any questions about the meaning of plagiarism or the need to cite any sources consulted, please ask me about this. It is your responsibility. Always acknowledge any help that you have received in preparing the paper. (You might do this by including an acknowledgments page.) Also, be sure to proofread the final draft of your paper very carefully—frequent typos and mechanical errors weaken even a lively paper. Think of the paper you turn in as a product that represents you and what you can accomplish.

Schedule of Readings and Assignments

T 1/6 Introduction: What is Romanticism? Selections from Swift, Burns, and Wordsworth
Th 1/8 Begin reading The Romance of the Forest; read the introduction, 3-29 in Longman; read Williams, Letters written in France, 56-66 and Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 67-76.
T 1/13 Read Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience: class discussion will focus on “The Chimney Sweeper,”122, 130; “The Lamb,” 120; “The Tyger,” 129-30, “The Sick Rose,” 131, and “London,” 132. Compare Barbauld’s “To the Poor,” 35. Also read Lamb, 124-26. Study color plates 6, 7, 8, & 9 in Longman; consider the relationship between the visual image and the poetic text.
Th 1/15 Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 227-57; Barbauld, “Washing Day,” 35.
T 1/20 Visions of the Daughters of Albion, 148-54; study illustration of Turner’s painting Slavers Throwing the Dead and Dying Overboard, color plate 5 in Longman; read letters, 154-58
Th 1/22 Blake’s art; watercolors of America; Quiz #1
T 2/27 Barbauld, “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven,” 37-46 (includes review)
Th 1/29 Perspectives: The Sublime, the Beautiful, and the Picturesque, 496-520
T 2/3 The Romance of the Forest; Quiz#2
Th 2/5 Baillie, “Introductory Discourse,” 309-14; and Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 356-62. (Midterm exam distributed in class)
T 2/10 Midterm exam due in class; Also read for class: “Sir Patrick Spence,” 322-23, and Wordsworth, “We Are Seven,” 341, “The Thorn,” 343-39; “Poor Susan,” 367-68; Mary Robinson, “The Haunted Beach,” 221-27
Th 2/12 Lucy poems, 363-67; 450
T 2/17 “Tintern Abbey,” 352-56, “Old Man Travelling,” 351-2
Th 2/19 “Michael: A Pastoral Poem,” 369-85 (including companion readings)
T 2/24 “Ode: Intimations of Immortality,” 454-60; “Resolution and Independence,” 450-53
Th 2/26 The Prelude, Book I, 388-409
T 3/2 Sonnets: Smith, 49-53 and Wordsworth, 385-88; Quiz#3
Th 3/4 Dorothy Wordsworth, 465-95, including Grasmere Journals (read all entries as well as the poems to which DW refers)
SPRING BREAK
T 2/16 Coleridge, “This Lime Tree Bower My Prison,” 424-26; “Frost at Midnight,” 562-63; begin reading Sense and Sensibility
Th 3/18 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (with companion readings), 526-44; Robinson, “To the Poet Coleridge,” 225-27
T 3/23 Kubla Khan,” 545-47 (handout: selections from Bartram’s description of Payne’s Prairie in the Travels of William Bartram); all selections from Biographia Literaria, 525
Th 3/25 NO CLASS
T 3/30 Sense and Sensibility completed; Quiz #4
Th 4/1 Sense and Sensibility
T 4/6 NO CLASS (Passover)
Th 4/8 Extended office hours; class optional
T 4/13 Film and discussion of Sense and Sensibility; Formal paper due in class
Th 4/15 Read 291-334 in Austen text.
T 4/20 Review (Final exam distributed in class)
Final exam is due Monday April 26, 9:00 a.m. in my office.