Room 272

English 215, Sections 107 and 108: British Literature I

Contact Information

Dr. John Halbrooks

Office Hours: 10:00-11:00 MWF, and by appointment

Office: Humanities 278

Email: jvhalbrooks@usouthal.edu

Class Blog: http://jvhalbrooks.wordpress.com/

“The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne . . .”

–Chaucer, from The Parliament of Fowls

Course Description

This course will survey the vast and complicated body of British literature produced from approximately 731 (the year in which Bede completed his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum) to 1791 (the year in which Boswell published his Life of Johnson). Since it is impossible in a single course to make any claims of complete coverage, I have chosen a handful of significant texts, which are often singular and idiosyncratic rather than representative or definitive, for us to read and discuss. In order to add color and scope to the sketches these texts will draw for us, we will read a number of shorter texts and excerpts as well. My hope is that this array will provide us a forum in which we may discuss all sorts of things in the context of literature: poetic language, genre, gender, the construction of literary history, nationalism, religion, manuscript and print cultures, race, subjectivity, mortality, heroism, ethics, and sex.

The ultimate goals and objectives for the course will likely prove different for each student. My goal in teaching will be to help you develop the skills to read and analyze these texts as well as the sense that engaging in such discourse is a worthy and important endeavor.

Required Texts

Black, Joseph, et al., ed. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, vol. 1, 2, and 3. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2006. Here is the Broadview website.

Other readings noted in the schedule, on electronic reserve at the USA library.

Course Requirements and Grading

1. Course Blog. You should check the blog (http://jvhalbrooks.wordpress.com) several times times a week. I will post assignments, vocabulary, response questions, reminders, and changes to the syllabus on the blog. Also, this is where you will post your topics for discussion (see below).

2. Tests (20% each, 80% total). There will be four tests, including the final, one on each of our four major literary periods (Old English, Middle English, Renaissance, and Eighteenth Century). Each test will include an in-class portion (short answer) and a take-home portion (4-5 page essay).

3. Close-reading assignment (10%). Early in the semester, you will write a brief essay on a portion of one of our Old English poems. More information on this assignment will appear on the blog soon. Due 24 January.

4. Class participation (10%). This portion of your grade will include your contribution to class discussion. Also, each week I will post on the blog a “topics-of-discussion” forum for the week’s readings. You will use the “comments” section of the post to present an idea for class discussion as well as a brief explanation as to why the topic should interest us. The topic should arise from specific observations that you glean from your reading of the text. I will bring these topics to class for our discussion. You must post a topic for at least twelve of our fifteen weeks of class.

Attendance Policy and Late Work

You are required to attend all class meetings. For each absence after your second, your final grade will be reduced by three points. All late work will incur a penalty. I will not accept late topics for discussion.

Disabilities

All syllabi at the University are required to include the following statement: “If you have a specific disability that qualifies you for academic accommodations, please notify the professor and provide certification from Disability Services. (OSSS is located in Room 270 of the Student Center; 460-7212).”

Plagiarism

Plagiarism will result in failure of the class after one warning. If you are unsure about what constitutes plagiarism, please ask me.

Electronic Devices

All cell phones must be switched off before class begins. You may not “text message” or catch up on your email in class under any circumstances. Students who do not comply with this policy will be asked to leave and counted absent for the day.

 

Course Schedule (Subject to change! You should read the headnote to each writer and text that we cover. Portions of texts not listed on the schedule but covered during class are fair game for the tests.)

Below I give the readings for each week of the semester. I will generally tell you each day in class how far we are likely to progress in the next meeting’s discussion.

—Part 1: Old English (Broadview, vol. 1)

Week 1 (beginning 8 January 2007): Bede, from The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, pages 1-15; Exeter Book Elegies, pages 16-22; The Ruin, on reserve.

No class on 15 January: MLK holiday.

Week 2 (beginning 17 January): Beowulf, pages 36-84.

Week 3 (beginning 22 January): Beowulf (cont.); The Battle of Maldon, on reserve; Hákonarmal, on reserve; The Dream of the Rood, pages 23-25. Close reading assignments due 24 January.

—Part 2: Middle English (Broadview, vol. 1)

Week 4 (beginning 29 January): Chaucer, The General Prologue, pages 324-345; The Miller’s Prologue and Tale, pages 379-391.

Week 5 (beginning 5 February): Chaucer, The Miller’s Tale (cont.); The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale, pages 449-461. Test one: 7 February.

Week 6 (beginning 12 February): Margery Kempe, from The Book of Margery Kempe, pages 523-546; The Wakefield Master, The Second Shepherd’s Play, pages 598-613.

Week 7 (beginning 19 February): Sir Thomas Malory, from Morte Darthur, pages 678-723 (including Caxton’s preface).

—Part 3: The English Renaissance (Broadview, vol. 2.)

Week 8 (beginning 26 February): Christopher Marlowe, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, pages 416-445.

Week 9 (beginning 5 March): Lyric poems by John Skelton, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Mary Sidney Herbert, Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Ralegh, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Donne, George Herbert, and Andrew Marvell, TBA. Test two: 5 March.
10-18 March: Spring Break.

Week 10 (beginning 19 March): John Milton, Lycidas, pages 826-830; from Paradise Lost, pages 840-909.

Week 11 (beginning 26 March): John Milton, Paradise Lost (cont.).

—Part 4: The Eighteenth Century (Broadview, vol. 3)

Week 12 (beginning 2 April): Samuel Pepys, The Diary and contextual accounts of the Great Fire, pages 112-123; Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, pages 443-456; Joseph Addison, from The Spectator, pages 427-433. Test three: 2 April.

Week 13 (beginning 9 April): Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal, pages 417-422; poems, pages 304-316; Gulliver’s Travels, parts 1, 2, and 4, and contextual readings, pages 317-416.

Week 14 (beginning 16 April): Jonathan Swift (cont.).

Week 15 (beginning 23 April): Samuel Johnson, selections TBA; Thomas Gray, poems, pages 603-609; James Boswell, selections from the Broadview Website, TBA.

Final Exam (test four) for section 107: 30 April, 3:30.

Final Exam (test four) for section 108: 2 May, 8:00.