BRITISH LITERARY TRADITION I
English 2101-002 CRN 30312 Classroom: White 120 TR 11.30-12.45
Prof. Hugh Ormsby-Lennon Dept of English SAC 466; Phone/ Voice-mail 94655*
Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday 1.00-2.30 pm and by appt.
Home Phone/ Voice-mail 215-592-8102. (*It’s best to call me at home.)
E-mail: Hugh.Ormsby-Lennon@villanova.edu (*use this rather than Voicemail)
Home fax: 215-238-1187 (Alert me first, please.)
Home Page: http://www.homepage.villanova.edu/hugh.ormsby-lennon/ My home page is most easily accessible from “My Classroom,” a site that we all share for “British Literary Tradition I.” The home page is also accessible via the Villanova Faculty Directory on WWW. My home page will have a link to this syllabus, continually updated, and to other important information concerning this class. The final examination is scheduled for Thursday 8th May, 8.00-10.30 a.m., White 120.
Theme
The paramount “theme” will be reading as much great (and not so great) literature, from the 1300s to the 1700s, as a single semester will permit. Along the way, we shall consider such important themes as narrative (fabliau, country house poem, epic, mock epic), beginnings and endings, genre (with particular attention to the sonnet in its many varieties), love, satire, politics, and the ideal society. The selections on the syllabus are not overwhelmingly long. Thus students should have ample time carefully to re-reread the works that I have chosen. We shall always keep our ears open for female voices. If there are any works in the Norton Anthology that I have not selected and that you feel should be on the syllabus, please let me know; I shall consider them for future inclusion and we may even be able to shoe-horn some in during the current semester.
Reading List
The Norton Anthology of English Literature (Seventh Edition, 2000), Volume I
David Lodge, Small World: An Academic Romance (Penguin, 1984)
Syllabus
Students are exhorted to the read the historical introductions to each period as well as the headnotes to each writer. For Chaucer and other middle English writers, they are encouraged to acquaint themselves with NA, pp. 14-18.
Jan 14 Introduction to Class
16 Chaucer, “Prologue to Canterbury Tales” lines 1-412 (NA, 215-225). We shall pay particular attention to the Knight, the Squire, the Prioress, the Monk, the Friar, the Clerk, the Franklin, and the Cook.
“The Cuckoo Song,” “Alison,” NA 350-2
David Lodge, Small World, “Prologue.”
Jan 21 Chaucer, “Prologue,” lines 412-860 (NA, 225-235). We shall pay particular attention to the Doctor of Physick, the Wife of Bath, the poor Parson, the Miller, the Reeve, the Summoner and the Pardoner.
23 Chaucer, “Knight’s Tale,” Miller’s Prologue and Tale,” NA, 235-243
“Alison,” “I sing of a Maiden,” NA, 351-2, 353-4
Jan 28 Chaucer, “Miller’s Tale, NA, 243-52, “Parson’s Tale,” 311-3, “Retraction,” 313, “Troilus’s Song,” “Truth,” 314-5; Conclusion to Troilus and Criseyde (xerox)
“Second Shepherds’ Play,” lines 1023-1087, NA 418-9
Jan 30 Finish Chaucer and aforementioned medieval works. Other medieval voices: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, lines 713-762, 1208-1240, NA, 173-4, 183-4; William Langland, Piers Plowman, 1-86, 295-385, NA, 319-321, 323-325 (with xeroxes of original text).
Feb 4 Sir Thomas Wyatt, NA 525-37, esp. “Whoso list to hunt,” “They flee from me” (two versions), “Stand whoso list,” “Who list his wealth.”
6 Sonnets &c. “The Renaissance Sonnet Explained.” Henry Howard, NA 570-2, 574-5; Spenser “Amoretti,” NA, 864-8 (esp. 1, 34, 37, 54, 64, 67, 79); Sidney, “Astrophil and Stella, NA, 917-931 (esp. 1, 2, 9, 15, 31, 74
Philip Larkin, “Sad Steps” (xerox) First Set of Position Papers Due
Feb 11 Continue sonnets. Shakespeare, “Sonnets,” NA, 1029-1043 (esp 1, 12, 19, 20, 30, 33, 55, 73, 106, 128, 129, 130, 135, 138, 146, 147).
Finish sonnets and begin: Samuel Daniel, NA 964-5; Elizabeth I, NA 593-600; Thomas Campion, 1196-1200. Thomas Nashe, “Litany, 1201-2
13 Finish the foregoing.
Feb 18 St. Thomas More, NA 503-523; Bacon, NA 1541-1552; Ben Jonson, “To Penshurst,” 1399-1401; Thomas Carew, “To Saxham,” xerox; [Sample Aemilia Lanyer,1287-1292]; Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World, 1762-71.
20 Finish the foregoing. Other Women’s Voices: examine Isabella Whitney, NA 606-613; Aemilia Lanyer, 1285-7; Martha Moulsworth & Rachel Speght, 1552-1600
Feb 25 John Donne, NA 1236-76, esp. The Flea, The Good Morrow, The Sun Rising, The Canonization, Break of Day, A Valediction: Of Weeping, The Apparition, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, The Ecstasy, The Funeral, The Relic, Elegy 16, Elegy 19, Holy Sonnets (esp. 7, 10, 14, Good Friday, Hymn to God my God, A Hymn to God the Father
27 Finish the foregoing.
First Paper Due; Second Set of Position Papers Due
Spring Break: Read (or Complete) Lodge’s Small World
Mar 11 David Lodge, Small World
Ben Jonson, NA 1593-1621, poems (esp. To My Book, To William Camden, On My First Daughter, To John Donne, On Don Surly, On Giles and Joan, On My First Son, Inviting a Friend to Supper, Epitaph on S. P; Song: To Celia; Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount, Queen and Huntress, Still to Be Neat, To William Shakespeare; from Timber.
13 Finish the foregoing. Carew, Elegy upon Donne, To Ben Jonson, A Song, [sample “The Rapture”], NA 1656-64. Robert Herrick, NA 1643-55 (esp. the shorter poems); John Suckling, “Love Made in the First Age to Chloris, NA1673-4
18 George Herbert, NA 1595-1616; Thomas Vaughan, NA 1616-29 (esp. Regeneration, The Retreat, Corruption, The World, Cock-Crowing)
25 John Milton, “Sonnets,” NA 1812-1815; Paradise Lost Book I, 1815-36; [Sample Book II, 1836-1858 and Lycidas, 1790-96]
Apr 1 Andrew Marvell, NA 1684-1724 (esp. Bermudas, *To His Coy Mistress, The Definition of Love, The Mower against Gardens, *The Garden, *An Horatian Ode, To Appleton House, esp. stanzas 46-78).
3 Finish the foregoing. Thomas Traherne, NA 1754-59; Voices of the War (Lilburne, Winstanley, Trapnel, Coppe), NA 1735-54.
8 John Dryden, Song, Mac Flecknoe, A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day, Alexander’s Feast, NA 2075, 2099-2106, 2106-8, 2109-14; Absalom and Achitophel, lines 1-35, 150-77, 373-5, 544-568, 799-810; Shakespeare and Jonson, 2117-8; Art of Satire, Chaucer, 2120-2.
10 Finish the foregoing.
Jonathan Swift, A Description of a City Shower, NA 2300-1; Swift and Montagu, Lady’s Dressing Room, 2585-2590; xeroxes of “Morning,” “Phyllis,” and “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed”; [sample Hogarth, Marriage-a-la-Mode 2652-2659].
15 Finish the foregoing (if necessary); Swift Gulliver’s Travels, NA 2398-2405; 2423-8; 2454-7.
17 Easter Vacation
22 Rochester, “The Imperfect Enjoyment,” NA 2163-5; Aphra Behn, “The Disappointment,” NA 2167-70; Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, 2525-44
24 Pope, Rape of the Lock; Mary Leapor, Essay on Women, NA 2603-5
May 1 No Class: Friday Schedule
3 Finish the foregoing. David Lodge, Small World. FINIS. Enjoy your summer. A final thought: has your semester (or has this class) provided “All the fun of College, without the Education”? Note, however, that the Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus (“Horace”) remarked “Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulce” and “Aut prodesse aut delectare.” We need to discuss these principles.
The due date for Final Papers has yet to be established.
Every student is required to activate her VU e-mail address and its forwarding capacity. Students are required to check their mail regularly. Important information about paper topics, class-discussion, and other important matters will be communicated by e-mail. (See also below: class communication.)
Writing assignments
All papers must be typed, except for those completed in the classroom. The arrival of late essays will be noted and the student’s final grade may be directly penalized. Students must retain a printed copy of their papers. The assumption that a copy of an essay will continue to reside on a diskette or a hard drive does not remain an acceptable substitute for hard copy. In the event that a paper goes unaccountably astray, it is the student’s responsibility to have a replacement. Papers should, ideally, be handed to me in the classroom; but, in certain circumstances, they can be handed to a secretary in the English Department (please make sure that she has noted the time and date the essay was submitted. Papers can also be slipped under my office door (but this is the least desirable mode of submission). Because of viruses NO essays will be accepted on e-mail. With the instructor’s prior approval, papers may be faxed on certain occasions.
Formal essays should have a title and an epigraph. For further advice about my criteria for a successful essay, please see the link to “Tips on Writing” (especially Lanham’s “Paramedic Method”) on my home page. Those tips will be further updated with links to comparable advice provided by fellow instructors in the Core Humanities Program and in the English Department. Other useful information about papers and journals is provided from links on my home page. For example, there are links to “Effective Use of Quotation from Other Writers” by Professors Debra Romanick and Professor Margaret Boerner. (See also below, under “Writing,” for other assistance.)
There will be two formal papers (5 pp and 5+ pp) as well as a series of weekly position papers in lieu of a mid-term exam.
In the first formal paper (5 pp), you will compare Marlowe’s “Passionate Shepherd to His Love” (NA 989-90) with Ralegh’s “The Nymph’s Reply,” (NA 879; written after Marlowe’s poem, pagination notwithstanding) and Donne’s “The Bait” (NA 1247). I shall also provide xeroxes of other poems on this topic, including the anonymous “Come live with me and be my whore.” You will be expected to provide close readings of at least two of these poems (making careful and specific reference to individual texts) and to suggest, briefly, ways in which they reflect themes that we have discussed in class (pastoral, the “ideal” woman, mutability, literary innovation, satire). If this paper topic fails to thrill you, please suggest others. Due 27 February.
The topic of the second formal paper (5+ pp) will be discussed in consultation with the class.
Until mid-term, students will write weekly dated, informal position papers (no longer than one page) which will sum up your responses to the week’s readings. The first set of these will be collected on February 6; the second set on February 27. These papers will not be graded, but I shall make a careful but informal note of the student’s performance.
Final
The final examination will take place on Thursday 8th May, 8.00-10.30 a.m. in White 120. The final (which will cover all the works that we have read during the semester) is open-book: bring notes, syllabi, e-mails, and whatever else you wish to the examination room. In certain circumstances, laptops may be permitted. This examination is important insofar as I am convinced that a student’s performance on the identification and commentary question reflects her familiarity not only with the texts but with crucial ideas and themes that we have discussed during the semester. Please note that I often comment in the class-room that “This is an important poem or passage”; students should realize that it comprises just the kind of passage that will appear in the identification and commentary question. (Hint: take notes.) Most of the texts will have been discussed in class, but I shall also choose passages from works on the syllabus [excepting those in square brackets]. There will also be a brief essay question. Student essays on the final will provide further indications of a student’s familiarity both with individual works and with wider themes.
Grades
The final grade will be based primarily upon a student’s writing (65%) and her performance on the final exam (20%). In this era of “speaking across the curriculum,” I encourage discussion even though the university lists this as a lecture class; discussion (10%) may make an important contribution to the student’s grade. (In fact, I become increasingly bored by the sound of my own voice and opinions, so please speak up and comment upon our readings. Note that students will be requested to read out loud and in class poems from the syllabus. “Imponderables” can, finally, contribute 5% to a student’s grade or, indeed, affect it adversely.
A variety of other “imponderables” also enters into the assignment of a final grade. Submit your papers on time. Come to class. Improvement (particularly in writing) can prove a major consideration. Remember to bring your books to class; remember to take your books out of your book-bag; remember to open your books to the pages that we are discussing. Don’t fall asleep in the classroom; don’t stare blankly out the window; or don’t endeavor, surreptitiously, to catch up with work for other classes. Don’t chatter with, or pass clandestine notes to, your colleagues. Read the newspaper at home, please. A student’s overall attitude is important, and it will be noted. Please remember, too, that grades in every class must display some “curving.”
Grading is an art not a science. I try to avoid assigning “cut-and-dried” percentages for written work, for classroom discussion, for the final examination, and for other components of the semester’s grade. Rest assured that I try to be scrupulously fair and, all things being equal, invoke mercy as well as justice.
Conferences.
Conferences will be scheduled with each student. Please don’t blow them off. If circumstances prevent you from keeping an appointment on the day of our conference, call the English Department secretary and leave a message; I do not have e-mail facilities in my office so an e-mail will not reach me there. Conference appointments will be faithfully observed (and cumulative grades will suffer from any cavalier disregard by students). Come to conferences with something to say; don’t stare at me like a fish. My time is valuable; yours should be too. Would you present yourself for an important job interview in a casual or unprepared fashion?
Class communication
Students are expected to read their e-mails (since the e-classroom becomes more of a reality each year). If you arrive in class and find yourself in a minority of one (or two or even three) as regards a missive from me, there is clearly something wrong with your communication system! Often I make significant remarks in e-mails about the works we have discussed. The serious student will keep a record of these. Students (particularly those who have been absent from class, for whatever reason) are required to remain familiar with syllabus and fresh postings about the class.
Academic Honesty and Writing
Given the enticements of the Web (schoolsucks.com etc), plagiarism seems to have gone high tech. You should realise, however, that your instructors’ search engines are awesomely powerful . . . At a more old-fashioned level, professors pass students’ papers around and I may well have read “that paper you borrowed from a friend who submitted it to another class.” We shall probably be visited by a member of the university administration who will discuss, in greater detail, the principles of academic honesty, the search-and-destroy techniques for rooting out academic dishonesty, and the procedures for dealing with reports of student dishonesty that have been formally lodged by instructors.
You are required to familiarize yourself with the latest statements of the university’s policies on academic honesty and with the latest writing Handbook assigned by the university (which has good advice on documenting sources and avoiding plagiarism). Read this material in the Handbook with particular attention to problems of using work not your own. In this class, I design my paper topics in such a way as to discourage any temptation to plagiarism. The final is tamper-proof. Students are exhorted to acquire and to study How to Write A College Paper: A Guide from the Villanova Writing Center Staff; this contains excellent advice. You are also encouraged to make use of the services provided by the Writing Center.
You should be aware that I have reported students for plagiarism in the past and that I shall not hesitate to do so again. The university protocols for dealing with my reports protect the interests of both professor and student, but they are, necessarily, time-consuming and labor-intensive. Far better that you should avoid, scrupulously, any suspicion of plagiarism on your part. Let me underscore my previous remarks about the web. Students should be aware that powerful search-engines have been devised for detecting any plagiarism from materials on the www; the resources of the web may seem to make it easier to plagiarize, but they make academic dishonesty far more detectable.
Etiquette and More
Gentlemen may wear hats. Undergraduates are requested to eschew the use of bubble-gum in the classroom and during conferences. (Chewing gum, by contrast, is permissible.) Unexplained absences, as well as late arrivals to class, will be recorded by the instructor. (If you arrive late in class or turn in a late paper, please confirm that I have made appropriate changes in my record book.) Please familiarize yourself with university policy on absences that lack a legitimate excuse.
Students can, alas, encounter sudden crises in their lives—I am always sympathetic—but please do not wait until the end of the semester to explain why you haven’t attended class or submitted papers. I am not nosey about your personal dramas, but a call from the University’s Counseling Center or a doctor’s note will help substantiate your explanations. The university requires that students be prepared to document their reasons for missing class. Please note university deadlines for “WXing a class.” If your name appears on my grade sheet and you have, for whatever reason, disappeared from class without leaving a paper trail, I gather from the Registrar’s Office that your capacity to receive a passing grade will be very gravely compromised. Students (particularly those who have been unavoidably absent from class) are required to remain familiar with the syllabus and with all emails and with any fresh postings on the syllabus onmy home page.
Academic Accommodations for Qualified Students with Disabilities
“It is the policy of Villanova University to make reasonable academic accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. If you are a person with a disability and wish to request accommodations to complete your course requirements, please make an appointment with the course professor as soon as possible to discuss the request. If you would like information on documentation requirements, contact the Office of Learning Support Services at 610-519-5636, or visit the office in Geraghty Hall.”