English 251.002
Contemporary British Literature
Spring 2014: T-TH, 2:30-3:45, Humanities 314
Instructor: Dr. Erin Garcia-Fernandez
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 731-881-7286
Office Hours: MW: 1:30-4:00, TTh: 4:00-5:00, and by appointment; Humanities 132
Required Texts:
The Norton Anthology of English Literature Volume II – D, E, and F (8th edition)
The Turn of the Screw, Henry James (Penguin Classics edition)
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf (Harcourt edition)
General Course Objectives:
This course is designed to introduce students to a range of literature written in England, Scotland, Ireland,
and the British Empire. At the same time, the course shall provide cultural, historical, and artistic context with
which to analyze the literary selections. English 251 helps students understand the relationship between
literature and cultural phenomena, such as the Industrial Revolution, the suffrage movement, the Irish
Troubles, WWI, colonialism, Post-War culture, and so on.
Goals/Objectives:
 Employ various critical and analytical methods (e.g., close-reading, historical and linguistic analysis,
ideological analysis) in the study of literary texts from a variety of genres and historical periods
through written assignments
 Analyze important primary texts from British literature from the late eighteenth century to the
present
 Interpret literary texts as shapers, reflectors, and instruments of change and analyze how they have
impacted history and the human condition
 Place the literature of Britain within a global literary context, using a comparative approach to
consider the interplay of ideas and forms between different traditions.
Course Description:
This course will provide an introduction to the great works of British literature from the late 18th century to
the early 20th century. Beginning with the passionate and political Romantics, we will continue our study with
the erudite writers of the Victorian era and conclude with the alienated modernists of the 20th century.
Particular attention will be given to the influence of culture, history, and science on literature. We will also
explore innovations in print media developing throughout this time period and consider how the publication
format of periodicals, three-volume novels, and collections of poetry, short fiction, and essays influenced
representations of culture in the literature we will be reading. Notable authors will include William
Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christina Rossetti, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Henry James,
Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, and T.S. Eliot.
Course Policies
Communication:
If you need to reach me outside of class, you may visit me in my office (Humanities 132) during office hours
or you may request an appointment time outside of normal office hours, provided that it is convenient for
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both of us. You may also email questions or concerns to [email protected], but I require AT LEAST 24
hours to respond to email messages. Please keep in mind that if your email doesn’t ask a question or appear
to require a clear and immediate response, I may choose to discuss the issue with you in the next class rather
than respond to your written message. As well, keep in mind that if your message suggests that you plan to
visit me during upcoming office hours, I do not see this as a message requiring a response: simply come to
my office hours. I will only respond if I see that you are clearly asking a question and require a response. If
you wish to speak to me by phone, my office number is 731-881-7286. I will take calls during office hours,
but I will give priority to students who appear in person in my office. If you call outside of office hours, the
call may roll over to the English Dept. office, and the staff can leave a message for me in my mailbox. If you
leave a message, however, do not simply leave a number with a message for me to call you: it is your
responsibility to reach me with questions and concerns, not the reverse. If you do wish to speak with me
during the semester, remember to contact me during designated office hours or with at least 24 hours for a
written email response.
Plagiarism:
Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Plagiarism is defined as the act of intentionally representing the written work
or ideas of someone else as your own. Please see the section on Academic Integrity in The University of
Tennessee at Martin Undergraduate and Graduate Catalog and Guide to First-Year Composition for examples of
plagiarism. Students who plagiarize will be subject to disciplinary action, which will include failure in the
assignment or the course or even expulsion from the University.
Special Needs:
Any student eligible for and requesting academic accommodations due to a disability is requested to provide a
letter of accommodation from the Student Success Center within the first two weeks of the semester. I
cannot make any special accommodations without the proper documentation.
Grades:
Here is the breakdown of your grade: Composition Journal (15%), In-Class Participation and Discussion
Questions (15%), Essay 1 (15%), Essay 2 (25%); Midterm (15%); Final Exam (15%)
Procedures:
Attendance is a vital part of this course, so if you have excessive absences, you will be penalized in
your final grade. For a T/TH class, having four unexcused absences is excessive and would result in the
subtraction of one letter from your final grade (i.e., a B would become a C). Five unexcused absences would
result in the loss of two letters from your final grade, and six unexcused absences would automatically result
in an “F” for the course. Excused absences are those for University athletic events, physician-documented
illness, or the death or serious illness of a parent or sibling. If you are late to class three times, you will earn an
unexcused absence. Please be courteous and be on time. Discussion is essential to our course; therefore, you
must come to class not only having read the assigned material but also having prepared to say something
about it. I suggest you read actively: take notes, write in your books, record your thoughtful reactions to the
reading, and begin to construct arguments. Our goal is fruitful discussion in which ideas are shared and
developed. Each student begins with a C for participation. If you contribute regularly and thoughtfully, that
grade will improve. If you do not contribute, your grade will drop. Please turn off all electronic devices and
cell phones during class-time and exams.
I will expect you to turn in six composition journal responses as they are assigned on your syllabus.
Responses should be 250-300 words in length. Unless otherwise directed, pick the reading assignment or film
that has interested you most and write on that. All papers are due according to the due date and should be
submitted at the beginning of class. Papers will be penalized one letter grade for each day late. Given the
possibility of computer malfunctions, please begin your papers in time to deal with any problems that may
arise. All papers should be typed (in a font that is legible at the 12-pt size, such as Times New Roman or
Arial) and formatted according to MLA style, otherwise your grade on that work will be penalized.
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For additional support, please visit the Writing Center at Humanities 209 or
http://www.utm.edu/organizations/wcenter/
Elastic Clause:
This syllabus is subject to change throughout the course of the semester. Students will be notified if
any changes occur. You are responsible for knowing the assignment and for being prepared at the beginning
of class. Readings are due on the day that they appear on the schedule and occasionally may be met with
quizzes.
Thursday January 9: Introductions
Tuesday January 14: Introduction to the Romantic Period (1-23); Charlotte Smith, from Elegiac Sonnets (4042, stop before The Emigrants); William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience, (81-97);
Robert Burns (144-147);
Thursday January 16: The Revolution Controversy and the “Spirit of the Age” (148-149); William
Wordsworth, from Preface to Lyrical Ballads (262-273), Expostulation and Reply (250251), The Thorn (252-258), Poems from 274-279 (stop before Nutting), Ode: Intimations on
Immortality (308-312), Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg (321-322)
Tuesday January 21: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria Chapter 14 (478-483), Christabel (449464); the Romantics in the periodicals: Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and the
London Magazine
Thursday January 23: Charles Lamb, selections from Essays of Elia (496-514);
Discussion on the Periodicals, Mohawk Magazine, and the death of John Scott;
Hazlitt/Hogg/DeQuincey/Scott/Wilson/Maginn/Lockhart: excerpt from Noctes
Ambrosianæ
JOURNAL DUE
Tuesday January 28: Jane Austen, Love and Friendship: A Novel in a Series of Letters (515-535)
Discussion on Form, Letter-Writing, Memoirs
Excerpt from Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott
Thursday January 30: Lord Byron, Poems from 611-617, Don Juan (670-734 ***split into groups)
Responses to Byron, perspectives on reading and education
Tuesday February 4: Percy Shelley Mutability (744), Hymn to Intellectual Beauty (766-768), Ozymandias
(768), Ode to the West Wind (772-775), Intro and Preface to Prometheus Unbound
(775-778); Discussion on body-snatching (refer back to Noctes), science, the
Gothic, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Thursday February 6: John Keats poems from 888-909, Lamia (910-925***split into parts)
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Discussion on writing about literature, close-reading
JOURNAL DUE
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Tuesday February 11: Introduction to The Victorian Age (979-1001);
A Look at the British Periodicals Database: in-class excerpts
William Makepeace Thackeray short essay – TBA
Charles Dickens A Visit to Newgate (1239-1248)
George Eliot from Silly Novels by Lady Novelists (1342-1349)
Thursday February 13: Read intro to Carlyle (1002-1005); Read John Stuart Mill What Is Poetry? (10441051); Tennyson The Lady of Shalott, The Lotos-Eaters, Ulysses, (1114-1125) Read
intros to In Memorian A.H.H. and Idylls of the King
Tuesday February 18: Industrialism and Children
The Children’s Employment Commission First Report (1562-1564); Friedrich
Engels from The Great Towns (1565-1572); Elizabeth Barrett Browning The Cry of
the Children (1079-1082); Christina Rossetti Goblin Market (1466-1479);
Brief excerpt from G.W.M. Reyolds’s The Mysteries of London
Thursday February 20: Discussion on Science in Victorian literature and culture
Charles Darwin from The Origin of the Species (1539-1545), The Descent of Man (15461549); Huxley; MIDTERM REVIEW
Tuesday February 25: MIDTERM
Thursday February 27: Culture and Education
Matthew Arnold, excerpts from Culture and Anarchy, Dover Beach
John Ruskin The Stones of Venice, from Of Queen’s Gardens
Florence Nightingale Cassandra (1598)
JOURNAL DUE
Tuesday March 4:
SPRING BREAK
Thursday March 6:
SPRING BREAK
Tuesday March 11: Victorian Poetry, Art, and Aestheticism
Robert Browning, George Meredith, Michael Field, Walter Pater
Discussion on Gift Books, Annuals, and Collected Works
Thursday March 13: PAPER #1 DUE
Victorian Theatre, Oscar Wilde Importance of Being Earnest (1698-1740),
from The Critic as Artist (1689-1697)
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Tuesday March 18: Discussion on the Realist Novel, the Domestic Novel, the Sensation Novel, etc.
Henry James, The Turn of the Screw
JOURNAL DUE
Thursday March 20: Henry James, The Turn of the Screw
Tuesday March 25: Film discussion
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Thursday March 27: Introduction to Modernism
Thomas Hardy On the Western Circuit
Tuesday April 1: Irish literature (looking back and looking forward)
Excerpt from Anthony Trollope
William Bulter Yeats, The Stolen Child (2022), The Lake Isle of Innisfree (2025), Easter,
1916 (2031), The Second Coming (2036); Sailing to Byzantium (2046)
Thursday April 3: James Joyce The Dead (2172-2199)
D.H. Lawrence Why the Novel Matters (2269), Excerpts TBA
Tuesday April 8: T.S. Eliot From Four Quartets: Little Gidding (2312-2319)
Georg Simmel The Metropolis and Mental Life
Virginia Woolf, The Mark on the Wall (2082)
JOURNAL DUE
Thursday April 10: Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Tuesday April 15: Mrs. Dalloway
Incorporating Research into your Final Paper
JOURNAL DUE
Thursday April 17: Finish Mrs. Dalloway
Tuesday April 22: Literature and the World Wars, (Excerpts TBA)
Post-war Poets: Stevie Smith, W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin,
Seamus Heaney (Selections TBA)
Thursday April 24: Paper #2 Due
Final Review
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