English 301,
Spring 2006
MWF 9:30-10:20
Instructor:
Curtis Gruenler
Office: Lubbers
306
E-mail:
gruenler@hope.edu
Office phone:
395-7996
Office hours: MW
1-2 TR 2-3:30 and by appointment
Home phone: 399-3731
(Please don’t call after 10 p.m.)
The Norton Anthology of English
Literature, eighth ed.,
vol. 1/ABC
Like the other
survey courses, English 301 acquaints you with the breadth of the English
literary tradition. This serves the overall curriculum for the English major in
various ways I have detailed below. Each of us brings different interests to
the course, and I would like to help you pursue yours as much as possible. With
old works like the ones we will be reading, as with works from another culture,
we are entering into a different world of experience, and one of the results of
reading them well is an enlargement of yourself
through having entered into that world. To begin with, then, I would like to
ask you to surrender yourself to these works for their own sake, that is, for
the sheer experience and, I hope, enjoyment of reading them. Once we have read
these works well, with full attention and openness to what they are, we can
begin to ask how to understand them better and appreciate them more.
Here are the
goals articulated by the Department of English for its majors. All of them are
relevant to this course, some more and some less. I have added comments in
italics about how some of them apply in particular.
By the end
of your studies as an English major, you will:
·
Know
many of the major works, authors, genres, movements, and cultural contexts of
literature in English. This
is a biggie here, since this course covers the whole first millennium of
British literature, in which the main features of our literary tradition were
laid down. You’ll gain a mental framework of major works, authors, genres,
movements, and periods that will enrich your further reading, both in early literature
and in more recent literature, which constantly alludes to works we will be
reading.
·
Use
the techniques of close reading confidently and have an awareness of various
approaches to reading literature.
Much of the course will focus on kinds of literature that especially require
and reward close reading.
·
Understand
how literary traditions are challenged by new voices and by innovations in form
and style. A major part
of our story will be how forms and styles rise into prominence, become
traditions, and are then challenged by new voices, forms, and styles. We will
see the rise of all the major forms of literature in English except the two you
are probably most familiar with, the novel and the short story. You will learn
terms by which elements of various traditions are identified, often by reading
works that remain touchstones for defining those elements.
By the end
of your studies, you will be able to:
·
Write
and speak in a variety of forms (e.g., critical essay, personal essay, poetry,
fiction, creative nonfiction, discussion) with imagination, style, and voice. Emphasis here will be on the critical
essay, though there will be opportunities for other kinds of writing as well.
Creative writers can especially gain from studying the early history of the
various genres in English.
·
Evaluate
and respond constructively to the writing and speech of others.
·
Conduct
scholarly research using traditional methods and the most recent technologies and
be able to assess different kinds of evidence and opinion. At least one essay will require use
of outside research, and we will talk some about how to go about it.
·
Collaborate
on interpretation, research, writing, and revision with advisors and peers of
many different backgrounds. I will ask you to give and receive feedback on your
major essays.
·
Integrate
primary and secondary sources into substantial essays using MLA methods of
citation.
·
Write
prose that observes the grammar and conventions of standard
English.
By the end
of your studies, you will have had opportunities to:
·
Appreciate
the purposes and rewards of reading literature and literature’s interrelations
with other arts and sciences.
Different ideas of the purposes and rewards of literature will be one of the
main themes that we follow throughout the course.
·
Hear
an assortment of accomplished creative writers and scholars present work.
·
Develop
insightful personal and scholarly responses to literary works and reflect
imaginatively and critically on yourself and your culture.
·
Understand
the professional options available to graduates in English.
·
Reflect
on human experience and your own place in it, by reading literature and making
it a means of responding to life’s pleasures and challenges.
This course
covers a lot of ground and a great variety of works. In order establish some
continuity, and to help us make connections between their worlds and ours,
we’ll look for some recurring themes, such as: how literary forms and styles
have changed over time; how these works imagine the world and humanity’s place
in it; how they treat love, both romantic and religious; how they view human
nature; and what part literature has played in society. The introductory
material in the Norton Anthology will help place the works we read in
historical, literary, and biographical context. The entries from the appendix
on “Literary Terminology” at the end of your anthology, as well as other brief
readings on literary terms, will give you a handle on the concepts that are the
basic tools of literary analysis.
There are two
sorts of requirements, those that I ask of all the class and those in which you
have some choices. At the end of the second week of class, I ask that you tell
me which set of optional requirements you have chosen. Each assignment is worth
a certain number of possible points. Of course this does not mean you will
automatically receive the total number of possible points for a given assignment
when you complete it. Part of the feedback you receive on each assignment will
be expressed through a point score on the assignment which translates to a
letter grade according to the traditional 10 percent scale (90% and above for
an A, etc.).
Attendance and participation (120
points). Though I
will be doing some lecturing, class will consist mainly of discussion. I will
be expecting your active, engaged participation in both full-class and
small-group activities. This does not mean you need to say something every day,
or that I give points based simply on how much students talk. I respect the
value of silent participation, but there is a difference between engaged
listening and inattention. I invite you to take advantage of the opportunity to
raise questions and to develop your thoughts by articulating them. The course
will be most valuable if it becomes an ongoing conversation about the material.
Web site: The Moodle site for this course will contain, besides basic
information about the course, at least two ways for you to interact with me and
with each other. 1) I plan to post quizzes and journals to help you process
what you’re reading and give me an idea of where you’re at. Completing these
will be part of your participation for that day. 2) I will also ask that you
post your question papers (see below) to the web site so that others can read
them. There will be a place to respond to each others’ papers, and I would like
to ask you to post responses to other students’ question papers ten times
during the semester. This will count for 10 points of your participation grade.
If you respond more than ten times, that will contribute to improving the rest
of your grade for participation.
Question cards: One of the most important skills in the
study of literature is learning to ask good questions (see the handout on “Good
Questions”). Each day that you are not turning in a paper, I ask that you turn
in on a 3-by-5 card a good question that interests you about the reading for
the day. Sometimes we will use these as part of what we do in class.
Cup
and Chaucer sessions: Every
couple of weeks I will hold an extra session of class at Cup and Chaucer (or
somewhere else congenial). The agenda will be informal conversation about what
we are reading that week. If no one has any questions, we may just start
reading the work for the next week out loud. I would like you to attend at
least one of these sessions, which will count for 10 points. You are welcome to
attend as many as you like; you will not get extra points, but it’s bound to
contribute to my good opinion of you.
Grading:
Here is the general scheme I will use for assessing participation:
A: Regular,
helpful comments; consistently good questions; fully engaged
B: Frequent, pertinent
responses; good questions most of the time; good listening
C: Only
occasional comments; some good questions; attentiveness questionable
D: Rare
interaction; poor questions; disengaged from discussion
Attendance:
Three absences will be
excused automatically. The next three absences (for whatever reason—illness,
family emergencies, athletic contests, class trips, warm weather) can be
excused by doing two hours of reading about the authors/works covered that day.
Absences beyond the sixth for documented emergencies (such as illness or family
emergencies) can be excused by the same kind of reading. All other absences
will not be excused and will reduce the final grade by one step each.
Assignments (readings and papers) are to be completed whether you attend class
or not.
Class starter (20 points): Once during the semester, each student
will, either individually or as part of a group, start
our discussion for the day. You may use any format you’d like: presentation,
small-group activities, whole-class discussion, games, multimedia, etc. There
are three requirements: 1) You must somehow include at
least one interpretation of the day’s reading by a published critic. You could
do this by summarizing a critic’s argument or distributing a quotation or in
other ways. 2) You must invite fruitful
participation and discussion by the class. A good rule of thumb would be to
lead up to some kind of class discussion. If you use discussion questions, be
sure to avoid questions that have yes-or-no answers, or simple answers, and
shoot instead for questions that have more than one answer and might provoke
thought for all of us. 3) You must provide some sort of handout to accompany
your presentation that will help the rest of the class understand and
participate.
I
will allot 15 minutes at the beginning of class for starters. If good
discussion gets going, I may let it go longer, but I ask that you keep the
prepared part of your starter to no more than 15 minutes (games especially have
a tendency to run long). I may decrease your grade if you exceed 15 minutes. I
will ask on a separate sheet for your preferences of when to do your starter.
Question papers (20 points each, 60 total). These
are typed (or neatly handwritten), two-page papers (400-500 words) about the
readings for a given day, due at the beginning of class on that day. I call
them question papers because I would like them to ask a good question about the
text (like the ones you will be asking each day on your questions cards; see
separate sheet on “Good Questions”) and then begin to answer it. If you have
asked a good, open-ended question, you won’t be able to finish answering it.
I’m looking for you to make a good start by offering some interesting ideas.
Question papers should also, as a way of keeping your comments close to the
text, include at least one quotation from the text you are writing about.
Grading
will be based on the quality of the question (10 points), the quality of the
answer (10 points), and the use of specific references to the text to clarify,
exemplify, and support the answer (10 points).
Everyone is required to do 3 question papers during the semester: one on Sept. 1, one more before the midterm, and one more after the midterm. On days when there are multiple works assigned, you may focus on one or several. Late question papers are acceptable only in the case of excused absences (see below). If you write extra question papers, I will drop the lowest scores.
Options
Choose either A or B, and either C or D.
A. Exams: midterm and final (100 points
each). Each exam will
combine quotations from the texts to identify and comment on and broad essay
questions that require reference to several texts. Preparing for exams is a
good way to consolidate and synthesize what you’ve learned. This option might
be especially beneficial to those interested in graduate study in English.
B. Ten additional two-page papers. A total of 13 two-page papers comes to
about one every week. The question-paper format described above would be a good
one to use for these papers, but you may also respond to what you read in other
ways. For instance, you may dispense with the question and write an
interpretive argument or a more personal (but still thoughtful) essay; you may
write fiction or poetry, perhaps imitating the work you are responding to; you
may respond in another artistic medium than writing; you may connect the work
at hand to a contemporary work of literature or art, perhaps one that alludes
or otherwise responds to it. The one requirement is that you address the
reading assigned for the day you turn in each paper, and the goal is that you
engage with it carefully, critically, and creatively. If you would like to
share your response with the class, please let me know at the beginning of
class that day.
If you do this option, you must
distribute the papers evenly over the two halves of the course as marked by the
midterm, so that you do at least six before and at least six after.
Option
B might be an especially good option for potential teachers who would be helped
by having a record of their encounter with these texts.
C. Two formal essays (100 points each). Length: 5 pages ( at
least 1200 words). The first of these must be a critical essay that incorporates
some outside research. The second may be critical or creative and need not use
outside research (though it is still encouraged). Particular options will be
offered in due course, but these papers may also be developments of ideas first
formulated in question papers or question cards. I will evaluate on the quality
of both their thinking and their writing. Critical essays will be expected to
present an illuminating thesis and a convincing argument for it.
…or…
D. Term project (200 points). This could be take various forms but
must involve research and literary criticism. Possibilities include a longer
research paper of about 2500 words, a set of lesson plans covering many of the
works we are reading, an ambitious web site, or a semester-long group project.
In any case, the expectations of the project will be negotiated with me based
on a proposal of what kind of project you want to do. A group project might
involve regular meetings to discuss the readings and some kind of written
result, such as papers written for the members of the group, lesson plans, or a
web site. I’m open to any ideas you may have. Last time, for example, three
students did an intensive study of More’s Utopia and
wrote their own utopias in response. There are topic ideas and materials to
use, especially for making historical connections, in the “Norton Topics
Online” section of the website that accompanies our textbook. If you choose
this option, I will expect you to meet with me early in the semester to talk
about it.
All work turned
in for this course should represent the work of the person whose name appears
on it. Representing another’s work as your own is not only dishonest,
it also defeats your learning. Please do learn from others by discussing texts
and assignments with them both inside and outside of class. I am happy to
discuss assignments with you while you are working on them. And you are welcome
to learn from any other sources. In the end, however, all written work must be
done by you alone.
Unacknowledged use
of another’s words or ideas is plagiarism. Any quotation or direct copying from
another’s work must be set off from your text either by quotation marks or by
indentation, and it must be given an adequate citation (this includes
quotations from our required texts as well as any other sources you use).
Paraphrases must also be given an adequate citation. If you are uncertain about
how to avoid plagiarism or how to give adequate citations, consult The St. Martin’s Handbook, and if you have
any questions, talk with me. Cases of academic dishonesty will be handled using
the procedures outlined in the Hope
College Catalog. The penalty is failure, either of the assignment or of the
entire course, depending on the instructor’s judgment of the seriousness of the
case.
Here are some
tips for reading well and digesting a text:
·
Set
aside the question of whether you like a text or not. All of these works have
been anthologized because many have found them worth reading and rereading.
·
Read
actively, with a pencil or pen. Everyone develops their own style of marking a
text, writing in the margins, and/or taking notes as they read. The point is to
write in order to make the text your own. I find it especially helpful to mark
key passages to go back to in studying a text (in order, for instance, to write
about it or to take an exam on it). Don’t even think about keeping your books
clean so that you can resell them; this anthology is a great deal for
everything it includes, and if you don’t think you want to keep it at the end
of the semester you’ll surely change your mind later in life.
·
Read
the footnotes and look up words and biblical allusions you aren’t familiar
with.
·
Make
connections. How do text and context connect? How does this text connect to
others we’ve read? To recurrent themes in the course? Literary terms are
especially helpful for opening connections: What else have we read in a comic
mode? How does this compare to other satires?
·
Write
after you read. Question papers give you opportunity and direction for this.
·
Talk
about what you read, both in class and out of class.
·
Reread.
One of the benefits of formal essays and exams is that they provoke rereading
and rethinking. It is usually only with a second and third reading that you
really grasp the whole of a work and are able to see how its parts work.
·
Make
your timeline of when the works were written, when the authors lived, and
important historical events.
·
For
a good set of web resources about our texts, see the links on my home page,
http://www.hope.edu/academic/english/gruenler/, and the English Department’s
“Research Web” site.
Note:
Page numbers include the Norton Anthology’s introductions to each piece, which
you will find quite helpful. Reading assignments for many days also include a
term or two from the appendix on “Literary Terminology” that is included at the
end of each volume of the anthology; the term is in quotation marks and the
letters in parantheses refer to the section of the
appendix in which you will find that term.
The
Middle Ages: Old English
Jan.
11 Introduction to the course and the Middle Ages.
Jan. 13 Introduction
to the Middle Ages and Anglo-Saxon Literature (1-7), Old and Middle English
Prosody (19-21); Bede and Caedmon’s Hymn, “The Dream of the Rood” (23-29);
Alfred’s Preface to the Pastoral Care, “The Wanderer,” and “The Wife’s
Lament” (108-14). Terms: “Personification” (A.iii),
“Elegy” (B), “Lyric” (B), “Canon” (C), “Tradition” (C), “Vernacular” (C). Do 10
questions of the “Poetry Quiz” at http://www.wwnorton.com/literature/quiz.htm
and use the form at the end to email me your score when you are satisfied with
it (you may redo it as many times as you like until you are).
Jan. 16 Beowulf,
intro and lines 1-2199 (29-80).
Terms: “Comic Mode” (B), “Epic” (B), “Myth” (B), “Register” (A.i), “Decorum” (C); Wikipedia
articles on Epic poetry,
Great chain of
being. Class
starter preferences due.
Jan. 18 Beowulf,
line 2200 to end (80-100).
Terms: “Allegory” (A.iii), “Type” (A.iii), “Tragic mode” (B). Question paper due.
Jan. 20 Introduction to the Anglo-Norman England
(7-10); Wace and Layamon on Arthur (120-27); Marie de France, “Lanval” (141-55). Terms: “Irony” (A.iii), “Lai”
(B), “Romance” (B); Wikipedia on Courtly love.
Jan. 23 Intro
to Middle English Literature (10-14); Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight, part 1 (160-72). Include on your question card your choice of optional requirements for
the course.
Jan. 25 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, parts 2
and 3 (172-202).
Jan. 27 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, part 4
(202-13).
Jan.
30 William Langland, from Piers Plowman (331-54). Term: “Didactic mode” (B).
Feb. 1 Christ’s Humanity: Piers Plowman passus 18, Middle English
lyrics, excerpts from the Showings of
Julian of Norwich (355-82).
Feb. 3 Intro to Medieval English (15-16);
Geoffrey Chaucer, introduction and General
Prologue to The Canterbury Tales
(213-38). Terms:
“Frame narrative” (A.vii), “Satiric mode” (B),
“Persona” (C). Recommended: Wikipedia
article on Irony. For a
site with various helpful reading aids see The General Prologue - An Electronic Edition (the audio files might be
especially helpful). Translations of most of The Canterbury Tales are
available at: The
Geoffrey Chaucer Website Homepage. For helpful thumbnail summaries, notes,
and links to interlinear translations, I highly recommend the page for each
section of the tales at Canterbury
Tales Listing of the Geoffrey Chaucer Website; these will help us deal with
these texts in the painfully short time that we’re devoting to them.
Feb. 6 Chaucer, The
Nun’s Priest’s Tale and the close of the Canterbury Tales (298-315). Terms: “Animal fable” (B), “Beast epic”
(B), “Parody” (C).
Feb. 8 Chaucer, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue
(256-75)
Feb. 10 Chaucer, The
Wife of Bath’s Tale (275-84).
Feb. 13 Winter
Recess
Feb. 15 Midterm
on the Middle Ages
The Sixteenth Century
Feb. 17 Introduction to the Sixteenth Century
(485-90); Philip Sidney, intro (947-8), from The Defence of Poesy (953-68, 973-4).
Feb. 20 Thomas
More, Utopia part 1 (518-54); “The
Four Ages” from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (704-5). Term: “Classical” (C). See the portrait
of More on C 10.
Feb. 22 Thomas More, Utopia part 2 (554-89).
Feb. 24 Songs
and Sonnets: Introduction to the Sixteenth Century cont. (490-506); Hoby’s translation of Castiglione’s The Courtier, book
1 (645-7); Thomas Wyatt, introduction, “The long love that in my thought doth
harbor,” “Whoso List to Hunt,” (with Petrarchan
sources, 592-5), “They flee from me” (599); Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, introduction,
“Love, that doth reign and live within my thought” (607-9), “Wyatt resteth here, that quick could never rest” (612-13); Queen
Elizabeth, intro (687-8), “On Monsieur’s Departure” (695-6); Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella sonnets 1, 2, 9, 41, 49, 71,
81, 108 (975-8, 982-4, 987-8, 992). Term: “Sonnet” (A.iv).
Feb. 27 Edmund Spenser, introduction (705-7), Amoretti 1, 64, 67, 68, 75, 79, Epithalamion (902-16).
Mar. 1 Introduction to the Elizabethan Theater
(506-11). Shakespeare, intro, Sonnets
1, 12, 18, 20, 60, 73, 116, 127, 129, 130, 135, 138, 144, 146, 147 (1058-77).
Draft of first essay
due.
Mar. 3 Spenser’s
Faerie Queene: introduction, "A Letter of
the Authors," and Book I, Canto 1 (714-32).
Mar. 6 Spenser’s
Faerie Queene: summary of Book I, Canto
2-Canto 6 (handout); Book I: Canto 7, Canto 8, and Canto 9 up to stanza 32
(786-815).
Mar. 8 Spenser’s Faerie Queene:
Book I, Canto 9, stanzas 33-54 (815-20); summary of Book I, Canto 10 (handout);
Canto 11 and Canto 12 (835-67).
The Early Seventeenth Century
Mar. 10 Introduction
to the Early Seventeenth Century (1235-50); John Donne, intro, “The Flea,” “The
Good-Morrow,” “Song,” “The Sun Rising,” “The Canonization” (1260-8), “A
Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” (1275-6); Samuel Johnson, [metaphysical wit]
(2766-8). Term: “Aubade” (B). See the portrait of
Donne, p. C 19.
Mar.
13 John Donne, Holy Sonnets 5, 7, 10,
14, 17, 18, “Good Friday, 1613.
Riding Westward,” “A Hymn to God My God, in My Sickness,” “A Hymn to God the
Father” (1295-1302) Meditation 17, excerpt from Expostulation 19 (1305-7). Final draft of first essay due.
Mar. 15 George
Herbert, introduction, “The Altar,” “Easter Wings,” “Affliction (1),” “Prayer
(1),” “Jordan (1),” “Jordan (2),” “The Collar,” “The Pulley,” “Love (3)”
(1605-25).
Mar. 17 Spring
Recess begins.
Mar. 27 Introduction to the Revolutionary era
(1251-57). John
Milton, introduction (1785-89), plans and projects (1811-16), “When I Consider
How My Light Is Spent” (1828), Paradise
Lost, introduction and book 1, lines 1-375 (1830-40).
Mar. 29
Mar. 31 Milton,
Paradise Lost, books 4 and 5
(1887-1927). Background: Genesis,
chapter 3 (in the Bible).
Apr. 3
Apr. 5
Restoration and Eighteenth
Century
Apr. 7 Introduction
to the Restoration (2057-75); John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, intro,
“The Disable Debauchee,” “Upon Nothing,” “A Satire against Reason and Mankind”
(2167-77; do NOT read “The Imperfect Enjoyment”). Wikipedia article on Satire.
Apr. 10 Introduction to Eighteenth-Century
Literature, 1700-45 (2075-77); Alexander Pope, introduction (2493-96) and The
Rape of the Lock (2513-32).
Term: “Burlesque” (C).
Apr. 12 Eliza
Haywood, Fantomina; or, Love in a Maze
(2565-84).
Apr. 14 Good
Friday: No class.
Apr. 17 Jonathan Swift, introduction (2301-3), Gulliver’s Travels, introduction
(2323-24) and part 1 (2328-65).
Apr. 19 Swift,
Gulliver’s Travels, part 2
(2365-2405).
Apr. 21 Swift,
Gulliver’s Travels, part 4 (2418-62),
prefatory materials (2324-28).
Apr. 24 Introduction to the Later Eighteenth Century
(2077-80); Samuel Johnson, intro (2664-6), Rambler no. 4 (2743-6). Jane Austen, Pride
and Prejudice, preface and volume I (to p. 89); Henry Austen’s
“Biographical Notice” (257-9).
Apr. 26 Austen, volumes II and III (89-254).
Apr. 28 Austen
continued. Final draft of second
essay or term project due.
Final
exam: Tuesday, May 2, 8:30-10:00 a.m.
If you would like me to return your final work for the course by mail, give me a self-addressed envelope that’s big enough for it to fit in. The college will cover the postage.