Twentieth Century British Literature:

Conrad, Joyce, Woolf

and the Modernist Revolution

In one of her best-known interventions in the literary debates of the first half of the twentieth century, Virginia Woolf claims "that in or about December, 1910, human character changed."As a consequence of this change, Woolf goes on to suggest, "All human relations have shifted--those between masters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and children.And when human relations change there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct, politics, and literature."It would be the project of the variety of artistic and cultural movements that we now describe as modernism to give voice to the experience of these and many other of the explosive social and cultural changes of the new century.In this course, we shall investigate some of the issues surrounding the modernist revolution, while also considering modernism itself as a kind of revolution, as they are raised in the work of three of the most important "British" authors of the first half of the twentieth-century: Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf.In addition to exploring the rich aesthetic and formal issues raised by these writers' work--what, for example, did T. S. Eliot mean when he wrote that Joyce1s masterpiece Ulysses is "not a novel?"--we shall look at the way that these writers' works respond to and help us understand the cultural and social histories in which they unfold.Indeed, one of the first questions these writers force us to confront is what is "British" about British literature in this moment--after all, Conrad is the child of exiled Polish patriots and only learns English as an adult; Joyce is Irish, writing in a language that is always for him, as his character Stephen Dedalus puts it, "an acquired speech;" and Woolf tirelessly interrogates the status of the woman artist in relationship the traditional centers of English cultural power.Similarly, these works will lead us into an investigation of the relationship between literature and the fundamental realties of the new century: the massive institution of British imperialism; the creation of a global culture and the shrinking of space; industrial technology; the rise of mass culture; the experience of the city; the proximity of social revolution; new media such as film; and the changing place of women in culture and society.Finally, all of these works will ask us important questions about the roles of the artist and the work of art in this newly emerging world.

Texts

Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim

Joseph Conrad, Nostromo

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

James Joyce, Ulysses

Harry Blamires, The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf, The Waves

These texts are all available at Goerings Book Store Campus Location (1717 NW 1st Avenue, next door to Bageland; 377-3703).As we will be doing a good deal of close reading during the course of the semester, I ask that you get copies with the same pagination as these editions.Some additional readings, primarily short essays, may be made available during the course of the semester.

Requirements, Grading, and Related Matters

1)First, a brief but important general reminder: This is not an introductory level literature course, and all enrolled students should have previously completed some literature courses on the lower- and/or, preferably, the upper-division levels.There will be a good deal of reading, and you may find some of it difficult.You will be expected to keep up with all the readings, and you will be asked to demonstrate, in both your oral and written contributions to the class, proficiency in the kinds of critical and analytical skills expected of advanced literary studies majors.These minimally would entail some experience in reading literary fictions critically, an ability to ascertain the thematic and formal textures of the work, a familiarity with some of the technical devices deployed by writers (point-of-view, metaphor, irony, and so forth), some broad sense of modern literary history, and a willingness to think about the intimate connections between these works and the historical contexts in which they unfold. At the same time, this is not a history course; hence, I will not assume that you have any familiarity with the various historical issues we will also be discussing.If you have any questions about whether this course is right for you, or want suggestions on how you might brush up on some of the basics, please come and speak with me soon.

2)Three typewritten papers of varying the length, the first and shortest being 6-8 pages, all double-spaced, with one-inch margins, a reasonable 12-point or smaller font, and a consistent bibliographic format.A successful paper will fulfill all of the previous requirements, and demonstrate at once your grasp of and engagement with the concrete specifics of the reading material, their relationship to the various historical and cultural issues we discuss in class, and our classroom discussions more generally.Approximately two weeks before each paper is due, I will provide you with a series of questions that will help focus your discussion, and you will be required to develop each of your papers in response to them.

I will from time to time also make available to you additional related readings that address the larger issues we will be discussing in class, or provide other background information.You are welcome to use these in developing your paper discussion.However, you must provide a bibliography of any additional readings and come and talk to me in advance about the use of any other materials in completing your papers (and please review the note on academic honesty found below).

Papers are due on the dates noted; late papers will receive lowered grades unless other arrangements have been made in advance with me.

3)Readings should be completed before the first class meeting in which they are to be discussed.The length and difficulty of each reading varies, and to keep on pace you must be reading continuously throughout the semester: in short, this means as the semester progresses you will be reading well ahead of our discussions.

Moreover, I do expect lively participation on everyone's part in the discussion of these works.Depending on your activities in class, occasional short quizzes or other brief writing assignments may occur from time to time as well.

4)Given the complexity and extent of the course readings, I will also ask each of you to turn in every week a brief reading log, tracking where you are in the course readings.There are two primary things I will ask you to do in these logs.First, the literary critic Fredric Jameson has argued that every modernist literary work contains within it a "cancelled" conventional realist one; these modernist works are "not apprehended directly, in terms of their own symbolic meanings. . .but rather indirectly only, by way of the relay of an imaginary realistic narrative of which the symbolic and modernistic one is then seen as a kind of stylization" ("Beyond the Cave," 129).Thus, your first job in your reading logs will be the reconstruction of this cancelled realistic narrative.What is the plot in each of the chapters?What happens and to whom?Who are the characters, what are they doing, and how are they presented to us?Your second task will be to very briefly comment upon the work's particular "stylizations."I don't want you to evaluate the work ("this is stupid" is not an acceptable observation), but rather to speculate on the author1s reasons for presenting things in the way they do.For example, what do they accomplish by violating our conventional expectations about such things as chronology, characterization, setting, description and so forth?These logs will prove invaluable to me in tracking the issues of interest to you in the readings, and for you as reminders of what you have read as you get ahead of the class discussion.

5)As everything above should suggest, attendance and participation in class discussion are an indispensable part of the work we are going to do here.To this end, you will sign a class attendance roster circulated at the beginning of each meeting.You will be allowed three unexcused absences, totaling no more than four class hours, throughout the semester.Any additional non-emergency, non-medical absence not cleared in advance by me will result in a lowering of the final course grade.To state the matter simply and directly, if you miss an excessive number of classes, you will have been considered not to have completed the requirements of the course, and hence will not receive a passing grade.Moreover, regular late arrivals (or early departures) will be counted as absences.

6)No final or midterm examinations.

7)Grades will be based on the conscientious completion of all of the above requirements, with about 70 percent of the grade resting in the three papers.However, failure to fulfill any of the above requirements--including attendance or reading logs--will impact directly on your final grade. If you have any concerns or questions about your work for this class, please come and speak with me.

8)Finally, communication is crucial to everything we are going to do in the next four months.Thus, if you are unsure about any of the course requirements, or run into any kind of difficulty, academic or otherwise, as the semester progresses, please come and speak with me as soon as you can.I will try to be as accommodating as possible, but I cannot help you if you do not let me know what is going on.Also if you have any general questions, or just feel like continuing the discussion begun in class, I encourage you to drop by during my scheduled office hours, or to make an appointment to see me.

A Brief Note on Academic Honesty

Plagiarism in any formÐincluding but not limited to directly quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing from external sources without proper citations, as well as presenting as your own work papers written by someone else (for example a paper written by a friend; a purchased or retyped paper; or one taken from a file, electronic or otherwise)Ðis a direct violation of the university Academic Honesty Code.You are required to review this code and the Academic Honesty Guidelines, especially the discussion of plagiarism, found in the Undergraduate Catalogue.Plagiarism or any other form of academic dishonesty will result in an automatic failure of the assignment, a mandatory rewriting of the assignment, and a lowering by two letter grades of your final course grade (a B would become a D); a second attempt will result in an automatic failure of the course and a filing of a report in your academic file.If you have any questions, or even the slightest doubt, about what constitutes plagiarism or academic dishonesty, I beseech you to come and speak with me before you turn in the paper.

Tentative Schedule

August 26-September 2

September 2-September 30

Joseph Conrad: "Make it New", Globalization, and Negative Critique

Lord Jim(1900)

Nostromo(1904)

 

Paper #1 Due October 7

October 2-November 4

James Joyce: Education, Empire, Delirious Dublin, and the "Revolution of the Word"

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man(1917) 

Ulysses(1922)

Paper #2 Due November 11

November 6-December 9

Virginia Woolf: Gender and Class, Revolt and Reform, Endings and Beginnings

A Room of One'sOwn (1929)

To the Lighthouse(1927)

The Waves(1931)

NO CLASS November 27 (Thanksgiving)

Final Paper Due: Friday, December 12