ENG1303: An Introduction to British Literature
Juan Christian Pellicer, ILOS, spring 2012
[email protected]
All texts in Norton Anthology, 2 vols, 8th edn, except where otherwise
indicated. LION is the Literature Online Database (Chadwyck-Healey),
to which all students have access through the University subscription:
http://lion.chadwyck.co.uk/
NB No lectures week 8 (‘vinterferie’) and of course Easter: week 14 and Monday of week
15. Juan’s seminars will not convene in week 8, but other teachers may choose to teach
this week: consult your seminar schedule.
Lectures are on Tuesday 12.15—14.00 (the first three weeks) and 12.15—13.00 (the six
subsequent weeks), Auditorium 1, Sophus Bugges hus.
Seminars: See semester pages
http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/ilos/ENG1303/v12/tid-og-sted.html
Exam: 6 June 2012
http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/ilos/ENG1303/v12/eksamen.xml
Lectures start in week 3 (the first day of term is Monday 16 January 2012)
Seminars start in week 4 (beginning Monday 23 January)
Essay deadlines
All essays—drafts as well as final versions—are to be submitted on
Fronter.
First draft: Monday 5 March
Final version: Monday 23 April
NB: A note about secondary reading. The timetable below only tells you when
specific authors and primary texts will be treated. But you must not forget that there
is another kind of obligatory text, namely the sections in the Norton Anthology
specified on your syllabus:
http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/ilos/ENG1303/v12/pensumliste.xml
These are the introductory chapters on literary periods from the Renaissance until
the present day: they are obligatory reading. You will also be expected to read
and think critically about the headnote to each of the authors you read in the
Norton Anthology. In other words, you will be expected to know what the Anthology
presents as introductory information in its headnotes about the lives of Shakespeare
(vol. 1, pp. 1058—1061) and Clare (vol. 2, pp. 850—1) and all the other authors. You
should also read the headnotes to authors you read in read in editions apart from the
anthology, for instance Jane Austen (vol. 2, pp. 514—f) and Virginia Woolf (vol. 2, pp.
2080—2). (To neglect this opportunity would of course be unwise and I’m sure you
2
don’t need this reminder: but still.) What I’m not going to indicate on the schedule is
exactly when you’re expected to have read the various chapters on literary periods.
This is a matter of relevance that anybody ought to be able to work out for
themselves. In week 5, I notice, I’ve announced a lecture on John Donne ‘and the
Renaissance’, which of course gives it away, but in all other cases I’m counting on you
to figure out for yourselves that Dickens, say, is a Victorian novelist—or that he wrote
during the period we call Victorian, which is not quite the same thing—and that you
should therefore read the Anthology’s chapter on ‘The Victorian Age’ (vol. 2, pp.
979—99) if you want to prepare for lectures and seminars on Dickens…
You get the picture.
Let me add one more thing. It is naturally not the case that everything in the
Anthology’s ‘background’ chapter on the Victorian period is equally relevant to
Dickens—or to any other Victorian author. I will try to suggest some historical
circumstances that seem to me especially relevant. But I can’t do the job for you. You
each need to discover what you think is most relevant: and that requires hard work
and lots of reading. That’s what education is!
And finally, don’t forget to investigate the Anthology’s appendices at the back of each
volume, especially the appendix on Literary Terminology! The Anthology is much
more than a collection of primary texts: it is a study aid.
Lecture 1 DOUBLE (Wk 3, 17 January)
1 Why Study English Literature?
2 Kinds of Literature
3 How to Study English
4 The ‘Stories’ of Eng. Lit.
5 Literary Periods
Lecture 2 DOUBLE (Wk 4, 24 January)
NB SEMINAR DATES FOR JCP’S
GROUPS ONLY; other
groups scheduled separately
NB: No seminars in
week 3
1) Shakespeare, sonnet 130; Donne, ‘Death be not
proud’; Milton, ‘When I consider how my light is
spent’; Wordsworth, ‘The world is too much with
us’; Clare, ‘Decay’; Duffy, ‘Prayer’
Seminar 1 (Wk 4):
SONNETS:
1) Shakespeare, sonnet 130; Donne,
‘Death be not proud’; Milton, ‘When I
consider how my light is spent’;
Wordsworth, ‘The world is too much
with us’; Clare, ‘Decay’; Duffy,
‘Prayer’
2) Owen, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’
2) Owen, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’
Lecture 3 DOUBLE (Wk 5, 31 January)
1) Shakespeare and Julius Caesar
Seminar 2 (Wk 5):
THE SHORT STORY
2) John Donne and the Renaissance (‘The Sun
Rising’, ‘Death be not proud’)
1) Joyce, ‘The Dead’
(NB: On Joyce, ‘The Dead’, see Fronter
for JCP’s script for a previous lecture)
THE SONNET
(NB: On Donne, ‘Death be not proud’, see Fronter
for JCP’s script for a previous lecture)
2) Mansfield, ‘The Garden Party’
3
Lecture 4 (Wk 6, 7 February)
Jane Austen, Emma
The novel: Aesthetic pleasure and ethical reflection
Free indirect style
‘Gentility’
Seminar 3 (Wk 6):
1) Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
2) Donne, ‘The Sun Rising’, ‘Death be
not proud’
Those who wish to prepare for this lecture: read Graham
Hough, ‘Narrative and Dialogue in Jane Austen’, Critical
Quarterly 12 (1970), 201—29. I have posted it on Fronter: it
is warmly recommended. JCP
Lecture 5 (Wk 7, 14 February)
Wordsworth, ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’
Keats, ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’
Seminar 4 (Wk 7):
1) Browning, ‘My Last Duchess’
2) Eliot, ‘Prufrock’
Lecture 6: (Wk 9, 28 February)
Dickens, Great Expectations
Seminar 5 (Wk 9):
Austen, Emma
Dickens, Great Expectations
Lecture 7 (Wk 10, 6 March)
Auden, ‘The Shield of Achilles’
Harrison, ‘A Kumquat for John Keats’
Seminar 6 (Wk 10):
1) Keats, ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’;
Harrison, ‘A Kumquat for John Keats’
2) Auden, ‘The Shield of Achilles’
Lecture 8 (Wk 11, 13 March)
Woolf, Mrs Dalloway
Seminar 7 (Wk 11):
1)Woolf, Mrs Dalloway
Lecture 9 (Wk 16, 17 April)
Stoppard, Arcadia
2) Heaney, ‘Punishment’
Yeats, ‘Leda and the Swan’
Seminar 8 (Wk 16):
Stoppard, Arcadia