Instructor Information

Dr. Karen U. Fulton, Professor

Tel: 816-271-4317(work) 1-660-582-8830 (home)

e-mail: fulton@griffon.mwsc.edu

Office: JGM 304A (beginning of semester)

Office Hours 9-10 MW, 2-4 M, 2-3W

(JE) Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre ed. Beth Newman. Boston: Bedford Case

Studies in Contemporary Criticism, 1996

(E) Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. Selected Poems. London: Everyman, 1998

(J) Dickinson, Emily. Collected Poems ed. Thomas H. Johnson. Boston:

Back Bay Books, 1960 .

(FD) Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. New York:

Dover Thrift Edition, 1995.

(MF) Fuller, Margaret. Women in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Dover

Thrift Edition, 1999.

(H) Hawthorne, Nathanial. Young Goodman Brown and other Short Stories.

New York. Dover Thrift Edition 1992.

(HM) Melville, Herman. Bartleby and Benito Cereno. New York: Dover Thrift

Edition, 1990.

(EAP) Poe, Edgar Allan. The Raven and other Favorite Poems. New York:

Dover Thrift Edition, 1991.

(CR) Rossetti, Christina. Goblin Market and Other Poems. New York:

Dover Thrift Edition,1994.

(F) Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: Dover Thrift Edition, 1994.

(JRS) Sheridan, John R., ed. African-American Poetry. New York: Dover Thrift

Edition, 1997

(S) Swann, Brian, ed. Native American Songs and Poems: An Anthology.

New York: Dover Thrift Edition, 1996.

(CD) Thoreau, Henry David. Civil Disobedience and other Essays. New York,

Dover Thrift Edition, 1993.

(W) Thoreau, Henry David. Walden: Or, Life in the Woods. New York: Dover

Thrift Edition, 1995.

(ST) Truth, Sojourner. Narrative of Sojourner Truth. New York: Dover

Thrift Edition, 1997.

(L) Wolfson, Susan and Peter Manning, eds. The Longman Anthology of British

Literature, 2A The Romantics and Their Contemporaries. New

York: Longman, 1999.

Other Required Supplies

Access to word processor with spell-checker or a typewriter and a

good dictionary

3-ring binder with supply of notebook paper

A 3 ring-binder (spine no greater than 1") for submission of end of

semester portfolio.

English 354 Objectives

1. Identify the major characteristics of literature written in

English from 1800 to 1860 in light of the cultural, historical,

philosophical, economic, religious, and literary backgrounds.

2. Analyze the degree of interrelatedness and multicultural

cross-over of the writings.

3. Locate and determine web sites that enhance these

international and intercultural connections.

4. Report orally on web-site explorations and analysis of

connections.

5. Formulate coherent written critical arguments about the

text, its context and its subtext.

6. Appreciate literary connections and intertextuality within the period.

7. Understand the ethnic and cultural questions and ideology

which underpin the writings of the period.

ENG 354 means:

1. Oral reports given twice during the semester on assigned

topics (see below).

2. Two short written summaries of oral reports published for

class.

3. View and listen to video/DVD presentations of material.

4. Intertextualize in print and in discussion.

5. Three short papers.

6. Prepare and revise (as necessary) an end of semester

portfolio.

Class attendance is critical although I do not record

absence every day. I consider 3 recorded class absences

reasonable; more than 3 absences (excused or not) may result

in penalty to the overall grade. More than 6 recorded absences

places the student in danger of failing the course. A student

who is not prepared for class is considered absent and will be

so recorded.

The final session (May 7, 11:30 am in JGM 311) is required . Missing it

carries a heavy penalty--failure for the course. (Instead of a traditional

"final," you will write to next semester's class, present your

portfolio to this semester's class, and receive your copy of the

class publication.)

Students must submit their own work. Students who are guilty of

plagiarism or cheating in any form will automatically receive

a zero for the assignment involved and will place themselves

in jeopardy of failing the course.

Students who have a disability that might prevent maximum performance

in the class should make this known to the instructor immediately so that

provisions may be made for any assistance needed.

Mid-term grades

Mid-term grades will be based on completed oral reports,

in class graded responses, class attendance, completion

of required work, and class participation. This grade will

then count as 20% of the final course grade.

Final grade

The other 80% of the grade will be determined on the

basis of a portfolio submitted on April 13, 2001. This portfolio will

addition to the self-reflective essay). Two of these four pieces must

Portfolio

During the first two weeks of class, more detailed portfolio

You will self-grade your portfolio when you submit it, using

You have only one opportunity to resubmit a portfolio.

In order to pass (grade of "D") the class the student must

*complete all written assignments;

*complete both oral presentations and their summaries

*submit a self-graded portfolio on April 13, 2001;

*not exceed 6 absences for the semester;

*attend the scheduled portfolio conference; and

*participate in the final session.

Failure to complete any one of these results in failure for the course.

Papers

Three written papers will be due during the course of the semester. Guidelines and specifications will be distributed at least two weeks prior to the due date. Each paper specification sheet will contain multiple options.

Paper #1 due February 9

Paper #2 due March 2

Paper #3 due March 23

Oral Presentation 1: Beginning January 22, 2001 and each Monday

thereafter, one or two students will be assigned to present to the class a five- year period (1800 to 1805 will be the first one). If you are assigned this period, it will be your job to use the web, the library, the texts, and other material to research it. At the beginning of class, you will have (a total of) five minutes to talk about the results of your research with the class without referring to notes or reading prepared remarks. Your job is to share your insights into this specific period of time. What was the thing that impressed you the most? Surprised you? Why? Were great developments taking place in England? In America? What was happening to the disenfranchised? Women? Slaves? Where was England on the slave question at this point in history? What authors were publishing? Were there significant publication events during this period?

By the Friday class period of that week, you must have a 2-page summation of your presentation to give to the instructor, who will duplicate copies for all members of the class. At the end of the semester, everyone will have at least twelve of these 5 year-breakdowns covering the years 1800 to 1860. By the end of the semester, you will have amassed a valuable historical resource.

Oral Presentation 2: Beginning January 24 and on each succeeding Wednesday, two students will be designated to make an oral presentation on a relevant web page of no more than 5 minutes total. Students are required to visit the site and give an evaluation to the class as to its usefulness and suitability.

By the following Friday’s class, a one-page summary of the presentation is due to the instructor who will make copies for each member of the class. By the end of the semester, you will have amassed a valuable resource of web pages.

These oral reports will be evaluated on the basis of the rubric distributed today. Credit will not be given until the written copy is distributed to the class.

Most classes will incorporate a short fastwriting. Bruce Ballenger defines this technique as encouraging us to think through writing rather than before writing. "Basically you just write down whatever comes into your head, not worrying about whether you're being eloquent, grammatical, or even very smart." (Curious Researcher, 1). On Monday and Wednesday, the fastwriting will follow the oral presentation to give you a chance to react to what you have heard.

At our second session, you will be given a 60 year time line on which to note births and deaths of authors, publication dates of works studied, historical events, etc. You are expected to bring this with you to each class and use it to arrange materials presented chronologically.

In order to facilitate publishing, all drafts of papers (including the summaries of the oral reports) must be word-processed in double spaced 12 point Arial.

Oral reports must be completed on the day assigned. No provisions are made to incorporate missed oral reports later in the semester. It is vital you are ready to speak on the day assigned.

Written papers are scheduled so I can do three readings of your work, prepare an audiotape and return the work to you at the next class period. If the work does not come in at the time assigned, it may not be returned to you until the end of the semester. Credit will not be given until the instructor has commented on the work.

Letter grades are not given on the writing assignments. Instead feedback is given by way of an audio-tape containing my spoken on your paper, written comments on your paper, and a rough ranking (by thirds) of your paper in comparison to the other papers submitted on the assignment.

These indicators are not convertible to letter grades. I welcome conferences with anyone who has questions about the paper, the tape, or how the paper might fit into the final portfolio.

Any project will be returned unread and uncredited if required materials (especially the audiotape) are not submitted correctly; and correct word-processing and spell checking have not been completed.

Rather than proceeding chronologically, this class will take up four major themes of this period: nature, the woman question, slavery, and the nature of freedom. These four themes dominated the collective mind of the English-speaking world during the years 1800-1860. In order to understand them, we will explore literature cross-culturally and cross-chronologically.

In our exploration of nature for example, we will look at not only at traditional authors like Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats but also nontraditional approaches such as Native American nature songs, selections from Thoreau’s Walden, sections of Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle, and sections of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as well as a women’s perspective in the poetry of Rossetti and Hemans.

This cross-cultural emphasis will be apparent in our exploration of the women question where we will look at supporters of education, suffrage, and equality for women from America in conjunction with supporters in Britain.

The section on the question of slavery will consider biographical writings of Okaydah Equinao, Frederick Douglass, and Soujourner Truth as well as abolitionist writings from both sides of the Atlantic (Thoreau in America; More and Clarkson in England). We will also look at the woman’s view of slavery in writer’s like Truth, Dickinson, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Finally, we will explore the issue of what constitutes human "freedom" regardless of race, sex, or country. Is it imagination, self-discipline, intellectual freedom, or the ability to live affirmatively. We will conclude with a study of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, a book that synthesizes all of these issues into a complete and coherent whole. We will study this novel in both a historical context and a critical one.

Week 1

W January 17 Introduction, distribution of syllabus, overview of class and procedures

F January 19 Assignment of oral reports, discussion of portfolio, distribution of portfolio guidelines

Week 2

M January 22 Time Line # 1 1800-1805

Wordsworth "Tintern Abbey" (L 328), "My Heart Leaps Up" (L 434)

Shelley "To Wordworth" (L 653)

W January 24 Web Report #1 "Voice of the Shuttle" http://www.ucsb.edu/shuttle/eng-rom.html#quick

Keats "The Eve of St. Agnes" (L 758) Rossetti "Spring" (CR 20-21)

F January 26 Hemans "Indian Woman’s Death-Song" (L724)

"Song of the Earth" (S 7) "Luiseno Songs of the Seasons" (S16)

"Six Dream Songs" (S 17)

Week 3

M January 29 Time Line #2 1805-1810

Darwin "Preface" and "Ch. 1" of The Voyage of the Beagle (hand-out)

Thoreau "Where I Lived and What I Lived For" (W 53-63)

W January 31 Web Report # 2 "The Romantic Chronology" http://english.ucsb.edu591/chrono

Darwin from Ch. 10: Tierra del Fuego of "The Voyage of the Beagle (hand-out)

Thoreau "The Ponds" (W 112-130)

F February 2

Darwin from Ch. 17 Galapagos Archipelago (hand-out)

Thoreau "Brute Neighbors" (W 144-153) and "Winter Animals" (W 182-193)

Week 4

M February 5 Time Line #3 1810-1815

Mary Shelley Frankenstein

W February 7 Web Report # 3

Continue Frankenstein

F February 9 Paper #1 Due

Continue Frankenstein

Week 5

M February 12 Time Line #4 1815-1820

"The Wollstonecraft Controversy and the Rights of Women" (L 247-287)

W February 14 Web Report # 4

4a "Women of the Romantic Period" 4

4b "The Elizabeth Cady Stanton – Susan B. Anthony Papers Project Online"

http://ecssba.rutgers.edu/

Hemans "Women and Fame" (L 731), Dickinson "Publication is the Auction" (#

709, J 348) "I’m ceded" (#508, J247)

F February 16

Stanton (hand-outs), Dickinson "They shut me up in prose" (#613, J302) "My life

had stood a loaded gun" (#754, J369)

Week 6

M February 19 President’s Day – no school

W February 21 Web Report #5

5a "American Memory"

5b Margaret Fuller"

http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transweb/onfuller.htm

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, from "Aurora Leigh" (E 68-98)

F February 23

Fuller, Margaret "Women in the Nineteenth Century" (MF 1-59)

Week 7

M February 26 Time Line #5 1820-1825

"Perspectives: The Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade" (L 149-194)

W February 28 Web Report #6

6b "Henry David Thoreau’s "Civil Disobedience’" http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transweb/civil.htm

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett "Hiram Power’s Greek Slave" (E 21), "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point" (E 21) Phillis Wheatley Peters "On Being Brought from Africa to America" (JRS 1), George Moses Horton "Liberty and Slavery" (JRS 2-3), Joshua McCarter Simpson, "Away to Canada" (JRS 6-8), "To the White People of America" (JRS 8-9), James Monroe Whitfield "How Long?" (JRS 9-13), Frances Ellen Watkins Harper "Bury Me in a Free Land" (JRS 16-17) "To the Union Savers of Cleveland" (JRS 17-18)

F March 2

Thoreau, Henry David "Civil Disobedience" (CD 1-19)

Paper # 2 due

Week 8

M March 5 Time Line #6 1825-1830

Thoreau "Slavery in Massachusetts" (CD 19-31)

W March 7 Web Report # 7

7a "Sojourner Truth Institute"

7b Frederick Douglass http://www.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl311/douglass.html

Truth, Sojourner "The Narrative of Sojourner Truth" (SJ 1-74)

F March 9

Douglass, Frederick "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" (FD 1-69)

Spring Break

Answer 1: Imagination

Week 9

M March 19 Time Line #7 1830-1835

Coleridge "Kubla Khan" (L 501-503), from Chapter 13 Biographia Literaria,

Imagination and Fancy" (L 528-531)

W March 21 Web Report #8

Poe "The Raven" (EAP 26-29) Poe "The Philosophy of

Composition" (hand-out)

F March 23

Keats "On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer" (L 748) "La Belle Dame sans Mercy" (L 768) "To Benjamin Bailey" [The Truth of the Imagination]" (L 794-5) "To George and Thomas Keats" [Intensity and Negative Capability]" (L 795-6)

Paper # 3 due

Week 10

M March 26 Time Line #8 1835-1840

Continue with Keats

Web Report #8c "John Keats: A Comprehensive Study of His Life and Work"

http://www.englishhistory.net/keats.html

W March 28 Web Report #9

9b"Christina Georgina Rossetti" http://www.walrus.com/~gibralto/acorn/germ/crossetti.html

Rossetti "Goblin Market" (CR 1-16)

F March 30

Dickinson "I keep my pledge" (#46 J 26), "I never lost as much but twice" (#49 J 27) "I haven’t told my garden yet—" (#50 J27-28) "Whether my bark went down at sea—" (#52 J28-9) "If I should cease to bring a Rose" (#56 J30) "I Started Early – Took my Dog –" (#520 J254-5) "I never saw a Moor" (#1052 J480)

Week 11

M April 2 Time Line #9 1840-1845

Byron "Don Juan" Canto 1 (L 570-616)

W April 4 Web Report #10

10a and b "Byronmania"

Bryon "Don Juan" Canto 1 (L 570-616)

F April 6

Hawthorne "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" (H 96-111)

Week 12

M April 9 Time Line #10 1845-1850

Keats "The Odes of 1819" (L 770-779)

W April 11

Melville "Bartleby" (M 1-34)

F April 13 Portfolio due

Continue with Keats and Melville

Week 13

M April 16 No class, portfolio conferences

W April 18 No class, portfolio conferences

F April 20 Bronte Jane Eyre

(N.B. entire novel should be finished by class)

Week 14

M April 23 Time Line #11 1850-1855

Bronte Jane Eyre

W April 25

Bronte Jane Eyre

F April 26

Bronte Jane Eyre

Week 15

M April 30 Time Line # 12 1855-1860

Bronte Jane Eyre

Last day to resubmit a portfolio.

W May 2 Study day

Final Session

M May 7 11:30-1:20 in JGM 311