Winter 2008
English H202:  British Literature, 1800 - the Present
T-Th 9:30 - 11:18
Denney Hall 265
Instructor:  David Herman
Office: 409 Denney (office hours TR 11:30 - 12:15 and 3:30 - 4:30; also, by appointment)
Phone: 292-6123; e-mail: herman.145[at]osu.edu

Web address for this syllabus: http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/herman145/ENGH202-08.html

Course Description:

Welcome! This course is designed to provide an overview of major traditions in British literature, including poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction prose, over the past two centuries. We will examine commonalities and contrasts among the early and late Romantics, explore the extraordinary range and inventiveness of Browning's dramatic monologues, and study the modernist poetic innovations of Yeats and Eliot. We will also read a play as well as two novels. Throughout the course, we will aim for relatively deep coverage of key representative writers rather than for shallower coverage of all the writers of the period, but we will also trace the development of key themes and techniques, linking them to surrounding sociohistorical developments such as the French Revolution, industrialization, the exponential growth of scientific and technical knowledge starting around 1900, and the use of that same knowledge to wreak destruction on an untold scale during the first world war.
    Although focusing specifically on British literature from 1800 - the present, the course is designed to improve your ability to appreciate, analyze, and write coherently and persuasively about all sorts of texts, equipping you with interpretive skills that will assist you in your lifelong practice of reading.

Required Texts (N.B. our two-volume anthology is produced by Zip Publishing and will be sold in class on our first and second class meetings; the other three texts are available at SBX):
 Course Requirements:

Please note that I use a +/- system of grading and a 10-point grading scale.  Your grade for the course will be determined by the following factors:
1. Attendance and active class participation. I expect this class to be a collective endeavor, and your attendance and participation are crucial. You will get more out of each class if you come having done the assigned reading and prepared to discuss it. More than two unexecused absences will lower your participation grade by one whole grade: for example, from a B to a C. Occasional quizzes and in-class exercises may also factor into your participation grade.
2. A collaborative oral presentation. Each student will team up with several classmates to present a research report on a topic related to our class discussions. The dates of the reports are indicated on the schedule of readings. You will sign up for a group during the second week of the quarter; at that time I will also distribute more specific guidelines for the report. Presentations should be 10-15 minutes long and should be shared by all of the students in the group.
3. Two papers. Two expository essays, word-processed and submitted in hard copy, not by e-mail. The first essay is to be 1250 words and is due Tuesday, January 22. The second essay is to be 1500 words and is due the last day of class, Thursday, March 6. Please use your word-processing program to do a word count for each assigned paper, and type in the number of words at the end of your paper. Paper topics will be distributed well in advance of the due dates for your essays, and specific details will be discussed in class. In the meantime, for general guidelines concerning how to compose and format your papers, click here. 
    These papers must represent your own work; all cases of suspected plagiarism will be reported, in accordance with university rules, to the Committee on Academic Misconduct. Plagiarism and cheating are serious offenses at OSU and will be reported to the appropriate officers of the university. Plagiarism is the representation of another's work or ideas as one's own; it includes unacknowledged quotations as well as paraphrases of someone else's words or ideas. Penalties may range from failure of the particular assignment, to failure of the course, or worse.
4. A midterm and comprehensive final examination. The midterm exam is scheduled for Thursday, January 31, and will contain brief definition questions; identification questions, which ask you to identify and analyze passages from works we've discussed; and an essay question asking you to compare and contrast several works. The final exam, which is scheduled for Monday, March 10, will be comprehensive and have the same format as the midterm.

Grading:

Attendance and participation: 10%
Oral presentation: 10%
First paper: 20%
Second paper: 25%
Midterm: 15%
Final: 20%

Completing Assignments:

All assigned readings must be read before the date listed on the syllabus. All out-of-class assignments are due at the beginning of class. If an emergency arises and prevents you from turning in your assignment on time, always call me and leave a message on my voicemail if I am not there. In the absence of any previous consultation with me, work handed in late will be graded down, normally one letter grade for each day that it is late.

Other Policies:

Cellphones:

Please make sure that cellphones, pagers, etc. are turned off before you enter the classroom. 

Special needs:

Anyone who feels s/he may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact me privately to discuss your specific needs. Anyone with such needs should also be aware of the the Office for Disability Services in room 150 Pomerene Hall (614-292-3307) which provides services for students with documented disabilities.

The Writing Center:

All members of the OSU community are invited to discuss their writing with a trained consultant at the Writing Center. Go to http://www.cstw.org or call 688-4291 to make an appointment.

Course Schedule:

The following is tentative course schedule. Depending on the actual pace at which we proceed during the quarter, we may have to make adjustments to the syllabus as we go.

January

Th 3  Introductions; read "Timeline," "Introduction," "British Perspectives," and excerpt from Burke (discussion of these items will be continued into the next class meeting)

T 8  Blake, all the poems from Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

Th 10  Blake continued; also read selections from Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women as well as the items by Barbauld; Group Presentation #1: on the sources and reception of Wollstonecraft's Vindication

T 15  Wordsworth, "Preface" to Lyrical Ballads, "The Female Vagrant," "Expostulation and Reply," The Lucy Poems, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," and "The Solitary Reaper"

Th 17  Wordsworth, "Tintern Abbey" and "Intimations of Immortality"; Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and selections from Biographica Literaria; Group Presentation #2: on the sources and interpetations of Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner"

T 22  Byron, selections from Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; FIRST ESSAY DUE

Th 24  Byron, continued; Shelley, "Mont Blanc," "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," "Ode to the West Wind," selections from A Defence of Poetry 

T 29  Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "Ode to a Nightingale," "The Eve of St. Agnes," selected letters; Group Presentation #3: on the sources and interpretations of "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

Th 31  Midterm      

February

T 5  E. B. Browning, selections from Sonnets to the Portuguese; Tennyson, "The Lady of Shalott," "Ulysses," selections from In Memoriam

Th 7  In Memoriam, continued; R. Browning, "Porphyria's Lover," "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister," "My Last Duchess," "The Bishop Orders His Tomb," and "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came"

T 12  Arnold, "The Buried Life," "The Scholar Gypsy," "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse," "Dover Beach"; C. Rossetti, "Goblin Market"; Group Presentation #4: on the history and key concerns of the pre-Raphaelites

Th 14  Brontë, Jane Eyre

T 19  Jane Eyre

Th 21  Jane Eyre; Hopkins, "Pied Beauty," "The Windhover," "Hurrahing in Harvest," "Spring and Fall," "I Wake," "No Worst," "Carrion Comfort"; Group presentation #5: on Hopkins' poetic themes and techniques   

T 26  Yeats, "Easter, 1916," "The Wild Swans at Coole," "In Memory of Major Robert Gregory," "The Second Coming," "A Prayer for my Daughter"; Synge, The Playboy of the Western World

Th 28  The Playboy of the Western World; Group presentation #6: on Synge, Playboy, and the movement for Irish independence/home rule

March

T 4  Woolf, Mrs Dalloway; also read Sassoon,"Counter-Attack," and Owen, "Dulce et Decorum Est"

Th 6  Mrs Dalloway; SECOND ESSAY DUE

Final Examination: Monday, March 10, 9:30 - 11:18