English 840: Studies in Romanticism
Topic: Radical Romanticism and the Early English Novel
Marlene Longenecker
Autumn 04
TR 9:30-11:30
Denney 262
Office: Denney 405
Office Hours: TR 12-1 and by appointment
Course Description
This seminar is focused on the literature of the Revolution and the Napoleanic era (c1790 to 1820), especially on the emergence of the novel from the welter of polemic surrounding the “Revolution Debate,” and the relation of the “Jacobin” novel to Romanticism more generally defined. We will consider a number of concepts and genres (epistolarity, realism, didacticism, sensibility) at the heart of these early novels, and we will situate them within the Romantic discourses of revolution (of self and of society). In addition to the prose (fictional and non-fictional), we will read some of the most important poetry that attempts to address the same issues: the Lyrical Ballads, especially, and a number of Shelley’s works, including Prometheus Unbound. At the heart of my agenda (which of course may be different from yours) are two questions: how do we read the Romantic aesthetics of revolution, and how do we evaluate the literary strategies involved in the representation of history at the center of the Romantic Project?
Texts (Note: You should get one of the Broadview texts for free because I ordered so many—they have a deal.)
Butler, Marilyn, ed. Burke, Paine, Godwin, and the Revolution Controversy (Cambridge UP)
Williams, Helen Maria. Letters Written in France (Broadview Press)
Smith, Charlotte. Desmond (Broadview Press)
Godwin, William. Caleb Williams (Broadview Press)
Brett, R.L. and Jones, A.R., eds. Wordsworth and Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads, Second ed.
(Routledge)
Godwin, William. Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Broadview)
Hays, Mary. A Victim of Prejudice (Broadview)
Wollstonecraft, Mary. The Vindications: Rights of Man and Rights of Woman (W.W. Norton)
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman (W.W. Norton)
Opie, Amelia. Adeline Mowbray (Oxford)
Lewis, Matthew G. The Monk (Broadview)
Reiman, Donald and Neil Fraistat, eds. Shelley’s Poetry and Prose. Critical Edition, Second Ed.
(WW. Norton)
Wu, Duncan, ed. A Companion to Romanticism (optional text)
In addition, a few poems will be available on electronic reserve from the library.
Requirements: Most importantly: active participation in discussion. One position paper/oral presentation on pre-arranged dates. See sign-up sheet attached. A long paper at the end (the prospectus for which will be due in the eighth week). Heroic amount of reading, but not actually as bad as it looks.
The Office of Disability Services, located in 150 Pomerene Hall, offers services for students with documented disabilities. If you need their services, call 292-3307. They will contact me if assistance is required.
Reading Assignments
A Note on the Texts:
The majority of your texts are published in the relatively new Broadview Literary Texts Series, which includes a great deal of very useful scholarly material and very up-to-date bibliographies. Inevitably, with so many texts from the same series, you will find a good deal of repetition and overlap in this material across this selection of texts. If you try to read all of that, you will sink under the burden, so I have chosen what I think are the most useful sections from each text. There are two schools of thought on reading editors’ Introductions. Mine is that I read them after I read the text so they don’t control my reading. Others prefer to get some guidelines before plunging in. I don’t really care which you do, but I do recommend all of them, as they often address or raise many of the same questions I am interested in discussing in class. Obviously, the bibliographies are the first place to start if you want to pursue research on any one of these texts.
Thurs 9/23: Introduction: Romanticism and Revolution
Tues 9/28: The Rhetoric of Revolution: The Pamphlet Wars
From Butler, Burke, Paine, Godwin, and the Revolution Controversy. Read as much of
this book as you can, but especially Butler’s Introduction and the excerpts from: Richard Price, Edmund Burke, Joseph Priestly, James Mackintosh, Tom Paine, Richard Watson,
William Godwin, Daniel Eaton, John Thelwall, and Wordsworth’s Letter to Llandaff. You
can certainly skip Wollstonecraft and Williams, since we will read them later.
In addition, please read The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, which is reproduced in the edition of Helen Williams’ Letters from France (Appendix F) or is on WebCT.
Thurs 9/30: “Eyewitness Epistolarity”: Helen Maria Williams
From Letters Written in France: read the letters (pp 63-150) and Appendices D and E.
The Introduction is excellent.
Position Paper/Presentation: Radical Sensibility?
Tues 10/5 “The Fiction of Letters”: Charlotte Smith’s Desmond
Read Desmond through Vol II.
Thurs 10/7 Desmond, continued
Finish Desmond and read Appendices D and E
Position Paper/ Presentation: Is the ending of this novel convincing? Of what?
Tues 10/12 The Jacobin Paradigm? Godwin’s Things as They Are, or The Adventures
of Caleb Williams
Read Caleb Williams through Vol II (294)
Thurs 10/14: Caleb Williams, continued
Finish the novel and read Appendices A (includes the original ending of the novel), C,
and D
Position Paper/Presentation: The two endings. And why Godwin chose the one he did.
Tues 10/19 “The Poetry of Human Suffering”: Jacobin Poetics
You can download all of these poems at Literature Online or find them in any good
anthology.
Oliver Goldsmith: “The Deserted Village”
William Blake: “The Little Black Boy,” (from Songs of Innocence) “The Chimney Sweeper (from Songs of Innocence); “The Chimney Sweeper” (from Songs of Experience); “Holy Thursday” (from Songs of Innocence); “Holy Thursday” (from Songs of Experience);
“The Garden of Love” (from Songs of Experience); “The Human Abstract” (from Songs of Experience); “London” from Songs of Experience)
William Wordsworth: “Salisbury Plain” and “The Ruined Cottage” (note these two are rather long. “Salisbury Plain” is also known as “Guilt and Sorrow,” but you don’t want that version.)
Ann Yearsley: “A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave Trade”
Position Paper/Presentation: The role of (radical?) sensibility in pedagogical poetry? Or, what is “Jacobin Poetics,” anyway?
Thurs 10/21 An “Experiment” in Democratic Poetics: Lyrical Ballads
Read the 1798 edition (pp. 7-123) and, from the 1800 edition, “Michael” (226-240)
and the 1800 “Preface” (pp. 241 ff.)
Position Paper/Presentation: Theory and Practice: Does the Preface indeed educate us in how to read the poems? How or if not, why?
Tues 10/26 The Feminist Imagination: Mary Wollstonecraft
Read Godwin’s Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
and Appendix D; selections from Wollstonecraft’s two Vindications (I’ll give you some page numbers later—we won’t read the whole of them)
Position Paper/Presentation: The cultural construction of Mary Wollstonecraft. Godwin’s role and the critical reaction.
Thurs 10/28 The Wrongs of Woman
Read Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman and Appendix C in Godwin’s Memoir
Position Paper/ Presentation: Godwin’s editorial choices, the multiple endings, the risk of “autobiography”
Tues 11/2 Jacobin Education and the Fate of Woman
VOTE!! Amelia Opie, Adeline Mowbray , or The Mother and Daughter (through Vol II)
Thurs 11/4 Adeline Mowbray, con.
Finish the novel
Position Paper/Presentation: Why the subtitle? Is this book about motherhood?
Tues 11/9 A Vindication of the Fallen Woman
Mary Hays: The Victim of Prejudice (read the whole thing and as many of the
appendices as you can)
Position Paper/Presentation: Discuss the relation of Opie’s and Hays’ projects in relation to Wollstonecraft’s. Damage control? Vindication?
Thurs 11/11 No Class: Veteran’s Day
Tues 11/16 The Gothic: Radical or Reactionary?
Matthew Gregory Lewis, The Monk (read through Vol II)
Thurs 11/18 The Monk, continued
Finish the novel and read everything you haven’t already read in Appendices A, B, and C
Position Paper/Presentation(s): Queering the Revolution? ? ? and: is it radical or is it reactionary?
Tues 11/23 The Second Generation: Shelley and the French Revolution
Read “On Love,” “A Defence of Poetry,” “Queen Mab,” “To Wordsworth,” From
Laon and Cythna, “Ozymandius,” “Ode to Liberty,” “The Mask of Anarchy,” and
“England in 1819” and the essays by Bewell and Wolfson.
Thurs 11/25 No Class: Happy Thanksgiving!
Tues 11/30 All You Need is Love?
Shelley, Prometheus Unbound
Position Paper/Presentation: Is Shelley re-writing Caleb Williams?
Thurs 12/2 The End
Shelley continued and discussion of research projects.