Classroom (currently in transition) TR 3.45-5.00
Prof. Hugh Ormsby-Lennon Dept of English SAC 466; Phone/ Voice-mail 94655
Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday 5.00-6.00 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: url: http//www60.homepage.hugh.ormsby-lennon/ villanova.edu/ My home page is most easily accessible from "My Classroom," a site that we all share for 1001-102. 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.
Class Trips: we need to schedule these as expeditiously as possible. Heretofore I have also planned a successful dinner and an end-of-the-semester entertainment at our house near South Street.
Reading List
Swift
The Writings of Jonathan Swift, eds Greenberg and Piper (Norton: WJS)
Jonathan Swift, eds Ross and Woolley (Oxford: OA)
Complete Poems, ed. Pat Rogers (Penguin: CP)
A Tale of a Tub, eds Ross and Woolley (Oxford: optional)
Gulliver's Travels, ed Fox (Macmillan: optional)
Franklin
Autobiography, eds Lemay and Zall (Norton: Auto)
Writings, ed Lemay (Library of America: LA)
Other
William Hogarth, Engravings (Dover: Hogarth)
Rosemarie Garland Thomson ed, Freakery (NYU: Freak)
Syllabus (this is not graven in stone and I invite your suggestions)
Jan 16 Introduction. Movie?
18 Wine, Women, and Song
Swift, The Lady's Dressing Room, A Beautiful Young Nymph, Strephon and Chloe, Cassinus and Peter, WJS, 535-550; CP, 448-456.
Franklin: LA: Drinker's Dictionary, 266-71; On Drunkenness, 212-6; Old Mistresses, 302-3; Antediluvians, 303-4; Polly Baker, 305-308; To the Royal Academy, 952-955; Auto, 25-6, 36-38.
Hogarth, A Harlot's Progress, 18-23; A Midnight Modern Conversation, 25; Rake's Progress, 29; Gin Street and Beer Lane, 75-76.
Freak: Browse in Aztecs, Aborigines, 158-172; Cuteness and Commodity, 185-206; Circassian Beauty, 248-264
23 Continue
25 Continue and begin . . .
Swift: CP: *Stella's Birthday (1719), 187;**Stella's Birthday (1721), 223-4; *To Stella on her Birthday, 241; Stella's Birthday (1723), 256-8; *To Stella, 267-8; *Stella's Birthday (1725), 286-7; **A Receipt to Restore Stella's Health, 298-9; **Stella's Birthday (1727), 313-5 [To Stella, Stella at Woodpark, 200-207, 260-262]; *Baucis and Philemon, 102-106; OA: **On the Death of Mrs Johnson,484-491; WJS, *Phillis, 520-2 [CP: To Stella, 200-7, To Stella at Woodpark, 260-2; WJS: Journal to Stella, 441-447; OA: Journals to Stella]
Franklin: **Auto (on Deborah Read), 20-22; 29; 31-2; 35-36; 55-56; 64-65; 181; LA, Matrimonial Happiness, 151-5, Country Joan, 293-4, [Celia Single, 188-190],
Hogarth: Before and After, 37-8; Industry and Idleness, 60-71
30 Continue
Feb 1 Continue and begin: "Servants, Chatter, Almanacs and Popular Writing"
Swift: OA: Directions to Servants, 549-55; Compleat Collection, 563-602; WJS, A Tritical Essay, 422-6; Bickerstaff Papers, 426-441; The Progress of Beauty, 522-5; OA: Bickerstaff Papers, 193-217 (some overlap);
Franklin: LA: Poor Richard, 1185-1304 (esp. 1185, 1189-90, 1194-6, 1203-4, 1206-7, 1214-1216, 1221-2, 1224-6, 1248-51, 1278, *1294-1303; and relish as many of the proverbs as you can)
Hogarth: Hudibras Beats Sidrophel, 12; Rake's Progress, 34; Marriage a la Mode, 53.
Freaks: Charles Willson Peale, 82-96
6 Continue
8 Continue
13 London, Writing, Freaks
Swift: WJS, A Tale of a Tub (Digressions etc), 275-301, 311-317, 326-331, 336-341, 355-359, 369-371; WJS, Descriptions, 518-520; CP, Tom Clinch, 316; Legion Club, 551-6.
15 Franklin: Auto: 32-39, 105-8 (projects in Philadelphia and London); LA, She-Wrestler, 151; Death of a Lion and a Burnt-Offering, 180; Sea-Monster, 262; Rattle-Snakes, 359-61; A Flexible Catheter, 446-7; the Arithmetical Curiosity, 448-51; the magical circle 451-53; Spouts and Whirlwinds, 454-466; Bifocals, 1104-10; an Instrument, 1116-8; Pleasant Dreams, 1118-22
Hogarth: Southwark Fair, 27; The Distrest Poet, 41; Undertakers, 40; Four Times of Day, 42-45; The Reward of Cruelty, 80; Tyburn, 70.
Freaks: Monsters in the Marketplace, 69-81; Sideshows, 121-38
20 Continue
22 Continue
27 Continue
Mar 1 Swift: Begin Gulliver's Travels (movie screening?)
First paper due; first installment of your journal due.
Mar 5
13 Continue Gulliver's Travels (movie screening?)
15 Continue Gulliver's Travels (movie screening?)
20 Swift: Gulliver's Travels;
Freaks: Freaks in Space, 327-337 [Ethnological Show Business, 207-218; Ogling Igorots, 219-233]
22 Swift: Gulliver's Travels
27 Swift: Gulliver's Travels
Franklin: Autobiography
29 Franklin: Autobiography
Apr 3 Religion and Language
Swift: WJS, Tale of a Tub, 301-310, *318-26, 331-336, *340-55, 359-369; *Mechanical Operation, 397-414; Tatler, 448-452; Argument, 460-47; A Letter, 471-486
Franklin: LA, Dissertation (early heterodoxy); Auto, 87-90; LA, 304-5, 308, 439-40, 1407-9 (all on Whitefield); LA, Backward Improvements + Jesus 1173-80
Hogarth: Hudibras, 5-16; Sleepy Congregation, 36; Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism, 95 (Whitefield!)
Freakery: Laughing Gas, 108-120
5 Continue
10 Continue
11
17 Subalterns
Swift: CP, Holyhead, Ireland, 329-33; WJS, Wood's Halfpence, 489-96; A Modest Proposal, 502-9; Verses on Death, 550-562; OA, 23 (old age envisioned young), Wood again, 422-446, Petronius, 462-3.
Franklin: LA, A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency, 119-135, 1127, 1167-8, 1285-6.
19 No class: I'm delivering a paper at the national conference on 18th century studies
24 Continue
26 Legacies (browse in the appraisals of Franklin by Poe, Twain, Weber, Lawrence in the appendixes to the Autobiography). Swift endowed a madhouse, St. Patrick's Hospital in Dublin. Farewells. Final Papers, Journals . . .
E-mail: All students are required to activate their VU e-mail--addresses and 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: Topics will be assigned in consultation with members of the seminar. 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 will be penalized accordingly. 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" 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 "Keeping a Journal" by Professor Evan Radcliffe and to "Effective Use of Quotation from Other Writers" by Professors Debra Romanick and Professor Margaret Boerner.
A Writing Intensive Course. This seminar is designated "Writing Intensive" by the University and thus requires 4000 words from each student in the course of the semester. This adds up to some thirty pages @ roughly 200 words per page; some students write more words per page, others less, but I keep a tally of each student's productivity in my file on her.
There will be two formal papers (at least 5 pp and 10 pp). For the first paper, I suggest a close reading of a work by or a passage from Swift and Franklin. Or you may wish to compare two of their works. Or you may wish to explore the light Hogarth sheds on the two authors. As always, I encourage student creativity in devising topics; but please discuss such topics with me first. In the second paper, I expect a more wide-ranging examination of themes addressed by Swift, Hogarth, and Franklin and, if you wish, their relationship to freakery. The second paper will be due at the time of the final examination. In student essays I seek quality of style and insight rather quantity of pages. Further clarification and help will be provided in class discussion and in e-mail communications. Students will also keep a journal of at least 15 pages. For details of the final examination, please see the section on "Grades."
Journals: Journals will enable undergraduates to complete some of their writing in more informal circumstances; these are designed to promote confidence and fluency. Handwritten journals will be accepted (but my experience is that such journals tend towards the ill-conceived and the slapdash). Most students now compose even informal documents upon the screen. Students will be expected to explore sundry intersections of Swift, Franklin, Hogarth, and freakery in preparation for writing papers on those topics. But they are also invited to discuss intersections of "cultural spectacles of the extraordinary body" during the eighteenth century with comparable spectacles in our own century. Students in earlier classes have discussed performance art, sundry web-sites, bod-mod, and related subjects. These subjects would all make suitable topics for final papers, so long as students keep one foot in the eighteenth century.
Journals must be dated; the total page count should be at least fifteen pages, but students are actively encouraged to explore at greater length the topics upon which they have chosen to write. The journals will be collected twice, first at mid-term, and again at the end of the semester. Longer journals of quality will be rewarded. Students will also deliver informal reports in class which they will write up in their journals. I shall be happy to read and to comment upon portions of journals which students wish to submit to me before the due dates.
A helpful discussion of "Keeping a Journal" by one of my colleagues, Professor Evan Radcliffe, is available on a link from my home page.
Classroom discussion: "Speaking across the curriculum"--that is, the encouragement of a student's ability to speak eloquently and intelligently--has been accorded a new importance on our campuses in America. Once the class has got under way, there will be a regular schedule of reports and of student responses to them; a roster will be posted on a link on my home page, and students will be responsible for knowing the dates and subjects of their reports or responses. These reports and responses will not, however, represent an opportunity for other students to abstain from debate. I shall keep a record of individual student contributions in my files. Please note that your performance in classroom discussion will account for 20% of your final grade.
Grades: Final grades will be based primarily upon the performance of undergraduates as writers in their essays and in the final examination. I acknowledge a recurrent paradox: that some students who write well are not active in classroom discussion. The requirement that all students contribute to classroom discussion is designed to smoke the laconic out of their lairs.
All students are exhorted to revise their first paper. The new grade will not replace the old one, but improvements will be registered in a new grade which should improve the undergraduate's overall grade. Please note that a revision will NOT be accepted as a revision UNLESS it is accompanied by a copy of the original paper with my suggestions and corrections upon it. Undergraduates are encouraged to visit the Writing Center; I shall keep a copy of the peer counselor's report in each student's individual file.
Student journals will not be graded, but I shall keep an informal record of student performance. E-mail has become an important part of all our lives; I shall keep a record of each undergraduate's communications with me. E-mails sent during the course should not be treated as "shopping lists" or as other casual scribbles designed "for your eyes only." Grammar, spelling, and general literacy will thus be scrutinized.
The final examination 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 with crucial ideas and themes in the works that we have discussed during the semester. Please note that I often comment in the class-room that "This is an important passage; students should realize that it comprises just the kind of passage that will appear in the identification and commentary question." (Hint: take notes.) Student essays on the final will provide further indications of a student's familiarity with works and themes. There will also be an essay question.
A variety of other "imponderables" also enters into the assignment of a final grade. 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 refrain from assigning "cut-and-dried" percentages for written work, for classroom discussion, for the final examination, and for other components of the semester's grade. I do, however, expect a competent performance on the final examination. (Taking into account "speaking across the curriculum," I offer as a rule of thumb of percentages: 40% writing; 20% final exam; 20% class discussion; 20% journal.) Rest assured that I try to be scrupulously fair and, all things being equal, invoke mercy as well as justice.
Conferences: At least one conferences will be scheduled with each student. You are expected not only to be on time but to have something to say about your work. "Blowing off" a conference will adversely affect a student's cumulative grade. 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: 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. You will also read "Documenting Sources, MLA Style," Brief Holt Handbook, 3rd ed, pp. 145-165 and "Avoiding Plagiarism, Brief Holt Handbook, 3rd ed, pp. 134-142. 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.
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 pull of plagiarism, 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.
Conference appointments will be faithfully observed (and cumulative grades will suffer from any cavalier disregard displayed by undergraduates). Students who neglect to bring their books invite summary extrusion from the classroom. Students (particularly those who have been absent from class) are required to remain familiar with the syllabus and with fresh postings on my home page. I recognize that seniors are susceptible to "senioritis" as they search for jobs in the real world. But I am still required to grade your performance in this class. Please bear that in mind.
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.