Dr. Yoder
English 3332.01     Major British Writers II     Fall 2008

The readings are listed by the week; the topics for particular days will be announced in class.

Day 1 (Aug. 22)
F     NO CLASS; Dr. Yoder will be out of town. Students should review the syllabus and readings for next week.

Week 1 (Aug. 25-29)
     General Introduction
     William Blake: "London"
     Dorothy Wordsworth: The Grasmere Journals, May 14, 1800
     William Wordsworth: "London 1802"
     P.B. Shelley: "To Wordsworth," "England 1819"
     Felicia Hemans: "England's Dead"

Week 2 (Sept. 1-5)
Because of the Labor Day holiday, our work on the Romantics over the next three weeks will have to be flexible as we move from week to week. Our primary focus for the first week will be "Tintern Abbey," but you should read all of the poems listed below for this week. These will provide a larger context for our discussion of "Tintern."

     William Wordsworth: "We Are Seven," "Expostulation and Reply," "The Tables Turned," "Resolution and Independence," "A slumber did my spirit seal," "Ode: Intimations of Immortality," "Elegiac Stanzas," "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey," The Prelude Bk. 12: 208-335, sonnets
     Dorothy Wordsworth: excerpts from Alfoxden and Grasmere Journals

Week 3 (Sept. 8-12)
     Romantic Touchstones: The Romantic and Victorian Touchstones are intended to introduce you to important poems by the major writers of each period. Even with such a small sampling, we obviously will not be able to discuss all the poems in depth, but we will be able to discuss trends, similarities and differences among the various poets. You should read of the poems listed for the session, so that our discussions can call upon a variety of detail.

     Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "Kubla Khan" (be sure to read the headnote), "Frost at Midnight"
     William Blake: "The Lamb," "The Tyger," "Infant Joy," "Infant Sorrow," "Holy Thursday" (both), "And did these feet"
     Lord Byron: "Darkness," "She Walks in Beauty," "The Shipwreck" (from Don Juan Canto 2, pp. 697-704)
     John Keats: "Eve of St. Agnes," "La Belle Dame sans Merci," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "Ode to a Nightingale"

Week 4 (Sept. 15-19)
     Percy Shelley: "Mont Blanc"
     Friday Sept. 19, in class: Paper 1 Due: Paper Assignments are here.

Week 5 (Sept. 22-26)
     Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice

Week 6 (Sept.29-Oct. 3)
     Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice

Week 7 (Oct. 6-10)
     Thomas Carlyle: "The Everlasting Nay," "The Center of Indifference," "The Everlasting Yea"
     John Stuart Mill: from Autobiography, Chap. 5
     Matthew Arnold: "Dover Beach," "Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse"

Week 8 (Oct. 13-17)
     Christina Rossetti: "In An Artist's Studio," "An Apple-Gathering," "Winter: My Secret,""Goblin Market," "No, Thank You, John," "Promises Like Pie-Crust"
     The Woman Question, pp. 1581-1606

Week 9 (Oct. 20-24)
      Victorian Touchstones:
     Alfred, Lord Tennyson: "The Lady of Shallott," "Ulysses"
     Robert Browning: "My Last Duchess," "Andrea Del Sarto"
     Lewis Carroll: "Jabberwocky," "The White Knight's Song"
     Gerard Manly Hopkins: "God's Grandeur," "The Windhover," "Pied Beauty,""Carrion Comfort," "No Worst, There is None," "Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord"
     Thomas Hardy: "Hap," "Neutral Tones," "A Broken Appointment," "The Convergence ofthe Twain"

Week 10 (Oct. 27-31)
     Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest

Week 11 (Nov. 3-7)
     Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness
     Bibliographic Essay Due: Paper Assignments are here.

Week 12 (Nov. 10-14)
     Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart

Week 13 (Nov. 17-21)
     Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart

Week 14 (Nov. 24-28)
     
     THANKSGIVING

Week 15 (Dec. 1-5)
     Claude McKay: "Old England," "If We Must Die"
     Hugh MacDiarmid: Readings in the section
     Louise Bennett: Readings in the section
     Wole Soyinka: "Telephone Conversation"
     John Agard: "Listen Mr Oxford Don"
     Salman Rushdie: [English Is an Indian Literary Language]

Week 16 (Dec. 8) M     LAST DAY OF CLASS

Wednesday, Dec. 10:      Final Paper Due, 5pm: Paper Assignments are here.

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