BRITISH LITERATURE
Lit 321
Prof. Burt Kimmelman


REQUIRED TEXTS

Abrams, M. H., et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Major Authors. 6th Ed. New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1996.

Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Intr. Susan Fromberg Shaeffer. New York and London: Signet/Penguin, 1959.
 

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

* Exams: Two major exams, a midterm and a final, comprehensive in nature, essay in format. Quizzes as well.
* Oral reports: The first is to be a report that seeks to situate accurately one of the literary works on our syllabus in the overall context of literature generally and British literature specifically; thus, each student will present a talk on the work of one of the assigned authors, and while the talk may be summative in part, it must also in part be interpretive.  The second report will be on the end of term research project (see below).  The reports should each last five to ten minutes.
* Papers: The first is to be a brief (five hundred words), impressionistic paper on the relevance of the literature being studied in the course to your life.  The second paper will be a thousand word analysis of one of the works on the syllabus.  The third paper, consisting of at least three thousand words, is to be the culmination of a research project whose topic is to be determined in conference with the instructor.  This research paper must be fully documented (see below).  For this paper, a minimum of three secondary research sources must be cited; encyclopedias and dictionaries may be used, and of course the textbooks, but these will not be considered legitimate secondary sources for the purpose of this assignment.  Papers that are not sufficiently researched and documented will not receive a passing grade.
 All papers must be word processed on 8 1/2" x 11" paper, double spaced with one inch margins, spell checked, and to the best of one's ability grammar checked.  If on occasion use is made of the ideas or words of someone else in one's writing, then the source(s) of those ideas and/or words must be cited; that is, when appropriate, papers must be fully documented (you must cite sources--using footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical documentation, which include specific page numbers keyed to particular passages in your text, and complete bibliographical information).  Of course, as stated already, the final research paper must be fully documented.  PAPERS NOT MEETING ALL OF THESE REQUIREMENTS WILL NOT BE READ AND WILL NOT RECEIVE CREDIT.
 

COURSE SCHEDULE

I: Introduction to the course.
II: Beowulf; Abrams 1-47, 52-64.
III: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Abrams 165-219.
IV: Spenser, "Sonnet 34"; Sidney, "Sonnet 31"; Nashe, "A Litany in Time of Plague"; Donne, "Holy Sonnet" 7, "A Valediction:  Forbidding Mourning"; Herbert, "Love (3)"; Abrams 253-73, 412, 549, 559, 564, 571-86, 597-98, 610, 812.
V: Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part One; Abrams 465-67, 482-548.  FIRST PAPER DUE.
VI: Milton, Paradise Lost Books I, X, and XII; Abrams 635-36, 662-683, 781-98.
VII: Midterm Examination.  TERM PAPER TOPIC DUE.
VIII: Swift, "A Modest Proposal"; Pope, "An Essay on Man"; Abrams 819-41, 1048-58, 1096-1103.
IX: Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads; Shelley, "Ode to the West Wind"; Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on a Grecian  Urn"; Abrams 1261-79, 1328-36, 1668-71, 1700-1702, 1767-70, 1791-95.
X: Brontë, Wuthering Heights.  TERM PAPER THESIS STATEMENT, ONE PARAGRAPH DESCRIPTION AND  BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE.
XI: E. B. Browning, "A Year's Spinning"; Tennyson, "Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal"; R Browning, "My Last Duchess";  Arnold, "Dover Beach"; C Rossetti, "An Apple-Gathering"; Abrams 1833-55, 1858, 1877-81, 1903-04, 1976-82, 1985-86,  2038-43, 2059-60, 2103-04, 2108.  SECOND PAPER DUE.
XII: Hopkins, "God's Grandeur"; Yeats, "The Second Coming," "Leda and the Swan," Among Schoolchildren"; Abrams 2125- 28, 2135-45, 2263-67, 2280, 2283-85.
XIII: Auden, "Musée des Beaux Arts," "In Memory of W. B. Yeats"; Thomas, "The Force That through the Green Fuse Drives  the Flower," "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"; Abrams 2551-53, 2556, 2258, 2564-65, 2570.
XIV: Joyce, "The Dead"; Lawrence, "The Horse-Dealer's Daughter"; Abrams, 2340-73, 2418-21, 2434-46.
XV: Reports on research.
XVI: Final Examination.  RESEARCH PAPER DUE.
 

COURSE GRADE

First Paper   5%
Second Paper   20%
End of Term Research Paper        -    25%
Final Examination  30%
Midterm Examination  10%
Oral Reports 10%