English 350 Early Victorian Poetry and Prose: Faith in an Age of Doubt

Transcription

1 English 350 Early Victorian Poetry and Prose: Faith in an Age of Doubt Winter 2008 Dr. G. Glen Wickens TTH 10:00 Morris House,8 N.214 Office Hrs. MWF 10:00-11:00 am Telephone: ext (office) (home) This course surveys the way early Victorian poets and prose writers responded to their age as a crisis of faith. The poetry of Tennyson and Browning will be studied in relation to selections from the prose of Macaulay, Mill, Carlyle, and Ruskin. Required Texts: l. Buckler, William E., ed. Prose of the Victorian Period. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Houghton, Walter E. and G. Robert Stange, eds., Victorian Poetry and Poetics. Second edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Schedule of Lectures and Assignments: Abbreviations: PVP Prose of the Victorian Period VPP Victorian Poetry and Poetics January 10 Introduction to the course. 15 Carlyle "The Hero as Poet"; Tennyson The Poet and The Poet s Mind (VPP). 17 The forces hostile to poetry: Bentham from The Rationale of Reward (VPP) and Macaulay from Milton (PVP). 22 Carlyle The Hero as Man of Letters (VPP) 24 Carlyle from Sartor Resartus (PVP). 29 Sartor Resartus cont.

2 31 Mill from Autobiography (PVP). February 5 Early Victorian poetics: Hallam "On Some of the Characteristics of Modern Poetry"; Taylor Preface to Philip van Artevelde (VPP). 7 Tennyson "The Lady of Shalott" (VPP). 12 Tennyson "The Lotos-Eaters" (VPP). 14 Tennyson "Ulysses" (VPP). 19 Tennyson In Memoriam (VPP). 21 In Memoriam cont. 26 In Memoriam cont. 28 In Memoriam cont. (VPP). 1 st essay due March 11 Browning My Last Duchess and Fra Lippo Lippi (VPP). 13 Browning An Epistle (VPP). 18 Browning Childe Roland (VPP). 20 Browning Bishop Blougram s Apology (VPP). April 1 Bishop Blougram s Apology cont. 3 Browning Andrea del Sarto (VPP). 8 Victorian Optimism: Browning Rabbi Ben Ezra (VPP). 10 Ruskin from Modern Painters (PVP) 11 Review *2nd essay due Weight of Marks: 1 st essay = 30% 2 nd essay = 30% Class attendance & participation = 10% Final examination = 30%

3 Optional Seminar (30%) in place of one of your essays topics: Choose one poem or prose selection from the reading list and, working from notes, offer a brief (20 minutes) interpretation of the work in class. One week later hand in a written version (1500 words) of your seminar, incorporating any useful ideas that emerge in the class s response to your presentation. The oral part (including how well you field questions) of the assignment is worth 10%, the written 20%. Further Information for Students: 1. Scale of Marks: Class Letter Grade Percentage First A 80 - l00 Second B Third C F (Failure) A student who does not do all the year's work (the examination and essays) places himself in jeopardy; he may be failed, regardless of how high his marks on submitted work. 3. Whatever the quality of the content, essays may be failed for stylistic or grammatical incompetence. 4. Students will be expected to have read works before the days assigned for discussion of them. 5. Regular attendance is strongly encouraged. The examination will directly reflect the material and ideas discussed in class. 6. There is no supplemental examination for this course. 7. An essay must be handed in either to the professor or to the English Department secretary no later than 4:00 p.m. on the day on which it is due. 8. An essay that is handed in after the deadline will be penalized 5% per working day late.

4 9. The third edition of the MLA Handbook defines plagiarism as "the act of using another person's ideas or expressions in your writing without acknowledging the source" (l.6). For details, examples of plagiarism, and instructions for avoiding it, please read the entire article on plagiarism carefully (pp. 2l-25). Also read the handout on Quotations, Citations, and List of Works Cited and the section about plagiarism and academic dishonesty on p. 21 of the Bishop's University Academic Calendar for If you are guilty of plagiarism, you will receive a mark of zero for the essay concerned and the Dean of the Division of Humanities will be informed. If you are guilty of a second offense, you will receive a mark of zero for the course; again, the Dean will be informed. 10. The English Department now has plagiarism detection services (PDS). 11. Please put your box number on your essays.

5 English 350 Early Victorian Poetry and Prose: Faith in an Age of Doubt 1 st essay due: February 28, 2008 Length: 1700 words 2 nd essay due: April 11, 2008 Length: 1700 words Dr. G. Wickens Choose two of the following. Do not write on the same author(s) in both essays. 1. How is autobiography used to make a more than personal statement in one of Mill, Carlyle, or Tennyson? 2. From your readings in Victorian poetics, choose one of the important critical concepts (e.g. Hallam's distinction between "poets of sensation" and "poets of reflection") and assess the extent to which it applies to a Tennyson or Browning poem. 3. "The meaning of duty is perpetually corrected and enriched by a more thorough appreciation of dependence on things, and a finer sensibility to both physical and spiritual fact." George Eliot, Theophrastus Such. Discuss the concept of duty in one poet or one prose writer on the course. 4. "The Victorian writer was always an alien in the midst of his society, estranged from its dominant attitudes." Assess the validity of this statement with specific reference to one poet or one prose writer on the course. 5. Compare the relation between the natural and the supernatural in Tennyson or Carlyle. 6. Discuss the idea of the heroic in Tennyson or Carlyle. 7. "This -- the fact that every Victorian had two minds -- is the one piece of equipment we must always take with us on our travels back to the nineteenth century. It is a schizophrenia seen at its clearest, its most notorious, in the poets." John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman. How helpful is

6 Fowle's comment in understanding one poet or one prose writer on the course? 8. Elizabeth B. Browning told her husband that You have in your vision two worlds, or to use the language of the schools of the day, you are both subjective and objective in the habits of your mind. To what extent does this statement apply to Browning or Tennyson? 9. In The Critics as Artist, Oscar Wilde claims that it was not thought that fascinated [Browning], but rather the processes by which thought moves. Discuss one of Browning s poems in terms of the psychology of the speaker. 10. How does Browning use historical speakers to comment on the problems or issues of his own time? 11. Discuss one Tennyson or one Browning poem in terms of Ruskin s distinction between high art and low art. 12. The idea of progress was an important Victorian assumption and belief. To what extent is this idea supported and/or attacked in the work of one of Tennyson, Carlyle, Browning, Mill, or Macaulay? 13. To what extent does the Victorian writer s view of nature reveal an attempt to find a warrant for human aims in some ultimate realm of reality? Discuss one poet or one prose writer. 14. Examine some of the motifs that Tennyson uses to link the many sections of In Memoriam. 15. Discuss the relation between the ideal and real or the spirit and flesh, in one Browning poem. 16. Discuss the crisis that provokes the speaker and its resolution, if any, in one of Browning s dramatic monologues. 17. Discuss the problem of gender in In Memoriam. 18. T.S. Eliot once wrote of In Memoriam, It is not religious because of the

7 quality of its faith, but because of the quality of its doubt. Do you agree? 19.. Analyze the relationship between style and thought in one of Macaulay, Carlyle, or Mill. Choose passages that are, in your view, representative, and explain why they are. 20. Examine the spiritual significance of the journey in one writer on the course. 21. Discuss Tennyson s attitude towards the evolutionary sciences in In Memoriam. 22. Examine the significance of the family in In Memoriam.