ENGL 4250 S06 / 1 ENGL 4250: Research Seminar in the Romantics Constructing Texts and Lives: Romantic Narratives and Criticism Instructor: Mark A. McCutcheon Course Description * PRELIMINARY OUTLINE * The period between the French Revolution (1789) and the English Reform Bill (1832), the period of British Romanticism, is a useful site for studying the relations between literary and social texts. This period subjects to particular pressure the relationship of the individual to other social subjects and structures: the family, the church, the state, "the masses", the nation, etc. This period also witnesses a great deal of literary experimentation, and a related increase in literacy throughout the English populace, and these factors open to question the role of narrative genres, the value of the popular, and the uses of literacy. But rather than survey these experimentations or cover the history of the period, this course provides intensive reading in a limited number of primary texts novels, political tracts, and autobiographies complemented by reading in selected criticism on these texts. This course thus offers an honours level introduction to Romanticism and an honours research seminar on how texts are constructed through criticism. The first unit will look at fiction; the second unit will look at autobiographies. The course's main focus will be to study what selected reviewers and critics have made of the assigned primary texts: how these texts have been canonized or marginalized. We will look at how different critical methods operate: their premises; their deployments; their accounts of the relays between literature and life; in sum, the strength (or weakness) of their arguments in persuading us as readers. This course assumes an interest in reading criticism and exploring various literary theories. Students not yet acquainted with contemporary literary theory are encouraged to consult the "Literary Theory 101" recommended readings listed on p. 10 of this outline (and/or the additional recommended theory introductions listed thererafter), as preparation for reading the criticism assigned in this course. This is not a theory course, but theory informs the criticism we will be discussing (and our discussions too). Because of the significant criticism component, students are advised to complete reading the primary texts as soon as possible. As a research seminar, this course will require students to prepare and deliver seminar presentations, and to contribute regularly and constructively to class study and discussion. Such contributions presuppose regular preparation for class (i.e. reading ahead to digest assigned texts, drafting questions in advance).
ENGL 4250 S06 / 2 Required Reading Note: Please see course schedule for the order in which we will read these texts. Shelley. Frankenstein (1831). 2nd ed. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. New York: Bedford / St Martin's, 2000. Godwin, William. Caleb Williams (1794). Peterborough: Broadview P, 2000. Lewis, Matthew. The Monk: A Romance (1796). Broadview P, 2004. Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey (1818). Broadview P. Williams, Helen Maria. Letters Written in France (1790). Broadview P, 2001. De Quincey, Thomas. Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821). Toronto: Penguin Classics, 2003. Hazlitt, William. Liber Amoris, or The New Pygmalion (1823). Ed. Christopher Hapka. Project Gutenberg, 2000 <http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext00/nwpyg10.txt>. Note: The instructor will distribute an electronic edition based on the Gutenberg text. Selected criticism on these texts, as per course schedule (see pp. 4 9). Advance reading note: If you wish to start reading the primary texts before the assigned editions are available to buy, electronic plain text editions are archived at Project Gutenberg. Be advised that the print editions contain critical materials, which we will use in class, that are not included in the electronic versions: Shelley http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext93/frank15.txt Godwin http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11323/11323 h/11323 h.htm Lewis http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/tmonk10.txt Austen http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext94/nabby11.txt De Quincey http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2040/2040 h/2040 h.htm Evaluation 20% Participation (based on attendance, preparedness for class, degree of critical engagement with assigned texts as demonstrated in your contributions to class discussion and your seminar responses and evaluations) 10% Seminar One (30 min., on one selected article on an assigned novel) 15% Seminar Two (30 min., on one selected article on an assigned autobiography) 25% Seminar Three (30 min., on primary text of choice, using critical method of choice) 10% Paper One (1250 word [4 5 double spaced page] analysis of one article on Frankenstein, excluding those in assigned edition, published since 1980; include a copy of the article with your paper) 20% Paper Two (1500 2500 word [6 8 double spaced page] comparative analysis of two articles published since 1980, excluding those assigned for seminars, on any primary text except Frankenstein; include article copies with your paper) A more detailed statement of evaluation methods will be distributed in Week 1.
ENGL 4250 S06 / 3 Course Schedule: Overview Note: Excepting Weeks 1 3, this preliminary schedule is subject to change prior to the start of the course. Week 1 Tues., May 2: introduction of participants and period; reading and seminar practices Weeks 1 3 Thurs., May 4 Tues., May 16: Critical essays in Frankenstein edition (in printed order) Assignment: prepare for the Thurs., May 4 class a 2 minute argument for the essay you found most satisfactory or persuasive. Be sure to mention your criteria for judging the essay's success. You may read your argument if it assists you in adhering to the 2 minute time limit (you will be timed). Be prepared to submit a typed copy of your argument at the end of this class. Week 3 Thurs., May 18: Political tracts (all of Appendices F and G in Williams) Week 4 Tues., May 23 Thurs., May 25: Seminars on criticism on Caleb Williams (2 3 per class) Week 5 Tues., May 30 Thurs., Jun. 1: Seminars on criticism on The Monk (2 3 per class) Week 6 Tues., Jun. 6: Seminars on criticism on Northanger Abbey (2 3 per class) Thurs., Jun. 8: Seminars on criticism on Northanger Abbey (2 3) OR Review (depending on enrolment) Week 7 Tues., Jun. 13: Paper One due; seminars on criticism on Letters Written in France (2 3) Thurs., Jun. 15: Seminars on criticism on Letters Written in France (2 3) Week 8 Tues., Jun. 20 Thurs., Jun. 22: Seminars on criticism on Opium Eater (2 3 per class) Week 9 Tues., Jun. 27 Thurs., Jun. 29: Seminars on criticism on Liber Amoris (2 3 per class) Weeks 10 12 Tues., Jul. 4 Tues., Jul. 18: Seminars on primary texts or period reviews (2 3 per class) Thurs., Jul. 20: Paper Two due; review and discussion
ENGL 4250 S06 / 4 Course Schedule: Seminars All articles will be available on library reserve or on the course website (details TBA). Week 4: Caleb Williams Butler, Marilyn "Godwin, Burke, and Caleb Williams." Essays in Criticism 32.3 (1982): 237 57. Per PR 1.E8 1 Everest, Kevin and Gavin Edwards. "William Godwin's Caleb Williams: Truth and 'Things as They Are'." 1789: Reading, Writing, Revolution. Ed. Francis Barker et al. Colchester: U of Essex P, 1981. 129 46. PN 751.E87 1981 Wehrs, Donald R. "Rhetoric, History, Rebellion: Caleb Williams and the Subversion of Eighteenth Century Fiction." Studies in English Literature, 1500 1900 28.3 (1988): 497 511. Thompson, James. "Surveillance in William Godwin's Caleb Williams." Gothic Fictions: Prohibition / Transgression. Ed. Kenneth W. Graham. New York: AMS, 1989. 173 98. PR 830.T3 G68 Graham, Kenneth W. "Narrative and Ideology in Godwin's Caleb Williams." Eighteenth Century Fiction 2.3 (1990): 215 28. Per PN 3495.E34
ENGL 4250 S06 / 5 Week 5: The Monk Watkins, Daniel P. "Social Hierarchy in Matthew Lewis' The Monk." Studies in the Novel 18.2 (1986): 115 24. Tienhooven, Marie José. "All Roads Lead to England: The Monk Constructs the Nation." Romanticism on the Net 8 (1997) <http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/1997/v/n8/005775ar.html>. 14 pars. Jones, Wendy. "Stories of Desire in The Monk." English Literary History 57.1 (1990): 129 50. Fitzgerald, Lauren. "The Sexuality of Authorship in The Monk." Romanticism on the Net 36 7 (2005) <http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/2004/v/n36 37/011138ar.html>. 39 pars. Wilson, Lisa M. "'Monk' Lewis as Literary Lion." Romanticism on the Net 8 (1997) <http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/1997/v/n8/005775ar.html>. 14 pars.
ENGL 4250 S06 / 6 Week 6: Northanger Abbey Morrison, Paul. "Enclosed in Openness: Northanger Abbey and the Domestic Carceral." Texas Studies in Literature and Language 33:1 (1991): 1 23. Hoeveler, Diane. "Vindicating Northanger Abbey: Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austen, and Gothic Feminism." Jane Austen and Discourses of Feminism. Ed. Devoney Looser. London: Macmillan, 1995. 117 35. Jerenic, Maria. "In Defense of the Gothic: Rereading Northanger Abbey." Jane Austen and Discourses of Feminism. Ed. Devoney Looser. London: Macmillan, 1995. 137 49. Benedict, Barbara. "Reading by the Book in Northanger Abbey." Persuasions On line 20.1 (1998) <http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on line/vol20no1/benedict.html>. 15 pars. Ty, Eleanor. "Catherine's Real and Imagined Fears: What Happens to Female Bodies in Gothic Castles." Persuasions 20 (1998): 248 60.
ENGL 4250 S06 / 7 Week 7: Letters Written in France Keane, Angela. "Helen Maria Williams' Letters from France: A National Romance." Prose Studies 15 (1992): 271 94. Bray, Matthew. "Helen Maria Williams and Edmund Burke: Radical Critique and Complicity." Eighteenth Century Life 16 (1992): 1 24. Fruchtman, Jack, Jr. "Public Loathing, Private Thoughts: Historical Representation in Helen Maria Williams' Letters from France." Prose Studies 18 (1995): 223 43. LeBlanc, Jacqueline. "Politics and Commercial Sensibility in Helen Maria Williams' Letters from France." Eighteenth Century Life 21.1 (1997): 26 44. Blakemore, Steven. "Comedy, Tragedy, and Romance in Williams' Letters From France." Crisis in Representation. Cranbury: Associated UP, 1997. 163 214.
ENGL 4250 S06 / 8 Week 9: Opium Eater Rzepka, Charles. The Literature of Power and the Imperial Will: De Quincey s Opium War Essays. South Central Review 8.1 (1991): 317 45. Sudan, Rajani. "Englishness 'A'muck': De Quincey's Confessions." Genre 27.4 (1994): 377 94. North, Julian. "Autobiography as Self Indulgence: De Quincey and His Reviewers." Mortal Pages, Literary Lives: Studies in Nineteenth Century Autobiography. Ed. Vincent Newey et al. Hants: Scolar, 1996. 61 70. PR778.A9 M67 Morrison, Robert. "De Quincey and the Opium Eater's Other Selves." Romanticism 5.1 (1999): 87 103. O'Quinn, Daniel. "Who Owns What: Slavery, Property, and Eschatological Compensation in Thomas De Quincey's Opium Writings." Texas Studies in Literature and Language 45.3 (2003): 262 92.
ENGL 4250 S06 / 9 Week 10: Liber Amoris Butler, Marilyn. Satire and the Images of Self in the Romantic Period: The Long Tradition of Hazlitt s Liber Amoris. English Satire and the Satiric Tradition. Ed. Claude Rawson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. 209 25. Mahoney, Charles. Liber Amoris: Figuring Out the Coquette. European Romantic Review 10.1 (1999): 23 52. Wu, Duncan. Hazlitt s Sexual Harassment. Essays in Criticism 50.3 (2000): 199 214. Treadwell, James. The Legibility of Liber Amoris. Romanticism on the Net 17 (2000). 1 Oct. 2002 <http://users.ox.ac.uk/~scat0385/17liber.html>. McCutcheon, Mark. "Liber Amoris and the Lineaments of Hazlitt's Desire." Texas Studies in Literature and Language 46.4 (2004): 432 51.
ENGL 4250 S06 / 10 Recommended Reading in Romanticism Butler, Marilyn. Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries: English Literature and Its Background, 1760 1830. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1981., ed. Burke, Paine, Godwin, and the Revolution Controversy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1984. Crossley, Ceri and Ian Small, eds. The French Revolution and British Culture. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989. Kelly, Gary. English Fiction of the Romantic Period, 1789 1830. London: Longman, 1989. McCalman, Iain. An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age: British Culture 1776 1832. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999. McGann, Jerome. The Romantic Ideology: A Critical Investigation. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1983. Literary Theory 101: A Crash Course de Saussure, Ferdinand. "Nature of the Linguistic Sign." Rpt. in <http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/seminar/saussure.htm> Barthes, Roland. "The Death of the Author." Rpt. in <http://faculty.smu.edu/dfoster/theory/barthes.htm> Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." Rpt. in <http://www.marx2mao.com/other/lpoe70ii.html#s5> Foucault, Michel. "The Structures of Punishment." Contemporary Critical Theory. 103 22. (personal copy will be placed on library reserve) Other Recommended Introductions to Literary Theory Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983. Makaryk, Irena M., ed. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, Terms. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1993. Selden, Raman and Peter Widdowson. A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. 3rd ed. Lexington: U of Kentucky, 1993. Weedon, Chris. Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory. 2nd ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1997.