English
Literature II
Fall, 2010
Time: Thursday 6:40-9:20
Classroom: ES 509
Instructor: Wen-ling Su
Office: LC 306
E-mail: wling1@ms23.hinet.net
Course
Description: This year course
surveys nineteenth-century English literature in relation to literary
movements and historical contexts. This semester we will focus
specifically on the Romantic period
(from the fall of the Bastille in 1789 to the
Reform Act of 1832), devoting most
of our time to studying the major themes and literary techniques in
canonical works of the great Romantic poets (Blake, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats).
Attention, however, will also be paid to the equally eminent essayists
and woman writers that fall within this time frame.
Textbook: The Norton Anthology of English Literature,
Vol. II (8th ed.)
(Photocopies of copyrighted texts
are not allowed.)
Grading: Midterm & final
exams
70%
Presentations & participation 30%
Requirements:
1.
Attendance: The FIRST absence for whatever reason will not be held
against you, but each subsequent absence will result in a 5-point
deduction of the class average. Late arrivals will cost you a 3-point
deduction each time. You will get a
zero if you miss a test. There will be NO make-up
tests.
2.
Presentations: 3-4 people form a group. Each group needs to sign up
for TWO presentations: one before the
mid-term exam and the other afterwards. No need to produce PPT files or
formal speeches. On the presentation day, the
presentation group has to sit in the front row and respond to the
teacher''s and the other students'' questions regarding the author and
the literary works. All group members are expected to be
familiar with the basic biographical information of the author, ready
to give a brief summary and introduce central themes and important
figures of speech (similes, metaphors, and so on). Whoever
fails to get a passing grade in the presentation will be required to
turn in a 3-page paper on topics assigned by the teacher.
Schedule:
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W
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D
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Readings
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1
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9/16
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Introduction
to the Romantic period (1785-1830)
William
Blake, from Songs
of Innocence and of Experience (81-97)
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2
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9/23
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Robert
Burns, “To a Mouse” (135-6);
“Auld Lang Syne” (137-38); “A Red, Red Rose” (145-6); “Tam o''Shanter:
A Tale” (139-44)
Edmund
Burke, from Reflections
on the Revolution in France (152-8)
William
Wordsworth, The
Prelude, Books IX-XI (368-75)
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3
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9/30
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William
Wordsworth, “We Are Seven”
(248-49); “The Table Turned” (251-2); “Lucy Gray” (254-56); “Tintern
Abbey” (258-62); “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (305-6); “The Solitary
Reaper” (314-5)
Romantic
Landscape Painting: John Constable
and J. M. W. Turner
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4
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10/7
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William
Wordsworth, “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” (262-74) ; “Ode: Intimations of
Immortality” (306-12)
Sir
Walter Scott, “The Lay of the
Last Minstrel” (407-8)
Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, “This
Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” (428-30)
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5
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10/14
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Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan”
(446-8); “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (430-38);“Dejection: An Ode”
(466-9)
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6
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10/21
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Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, from Biographia Literaria (474-88)
Charles
Lamb, “Old China” (510-4)
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7
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10/28
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William
Hazlitt, “On Gusto”(538-41)
Thomas
de Quincey, from Confessions
of an English Opium-Eater (556-9)
The
Gothic (577-602)
*Guest
Speaker: On Jane Austen''s Northanger Abbey
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8
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11/4
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Mary
Wollstonecraft, A
Vindication of the Rights of Woman (170-95)
Mary
Robinson, “The Poor Singing
Dame” (71-2); “The Haunted Beach” (72-4)
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9
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11/11
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Midterm
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10
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11/18
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Lord Byron, Manfred (635-69)
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11
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11/25
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Lord Byron, from Childe Harold''s Pilgrimage, (617-22; 625-8)
Napoleon—film (25 minutes)
Percy Bysshe Shelley,
“Mutability” (744), “Ozymandias” (768)
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12
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12/2
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Percy Bysshe Shelley,
Prometheus Unbound (775-814)
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13
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12/9
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Percy Bysshe Shelley,
“Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” (766-68), “Stanzas Written in Dejection”
(769-70); “Ode to the West Wind” (772-5), “To a Sky-Lark” (817-9)
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14
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12/16
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John Keats, “Ode
to a Nightingale” (849-50); “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (851-52); “Ode on
Melancholy” (853-54); “Ode on Indolence” (854-56)
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15
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12/23
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John Keats, “The
Eve of St. Agnes” (888-898); “La Belle Dame sans Merci” (899-900); “Ode
to Psyche” (901-2); Letter to George and Thomas Keats [Negative
Capability] (942-3)
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16
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12/30
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Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley, “The Mortal Immortal” (961-70)
*Guest
Speaker: Frankenstein
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17
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1/6
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John Clare, all
poems (850-61)
L.E.L—Letitia
Elizabeth Landon, all poems (971-8)
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18
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1/13
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Final Exam.
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