EL 303.02 Restoration and the Augustan Age
Fall 2014
Instructor: Başak Demirhan
[email protected]
Restoration and the Augustan Age
What is good literature? What does it mean to be human? What determines moral
actions? Do cosmetics make women vain and hypocritical? How should political power
justify itself? Can we trust our senses to acquire knowledge and wisdom? What is beauty?
What does the world outside Britain look like? British writers of the eighteenth century
sought answers to these questions and many more in their incredibly artful and witty works.
In this course, we will read examples of essay, mock-epic, drama, and novel to understand the
period and its persisting issues.
Course Materials:
Copies of the textbook are at Günel Copy. In addition to the textbook, you will need to buy a
copy of Jonathan Smith’s Gulliver’s Travels.
Course Requirements:
Attendance and participation
Quizzes and response papers
Midterm paper
Midterm exam
Final paper
15% of the final grade
15% of the final grade
25% of the final grade
25% of the final grade
30% of the final grade
Reading Schedule
Week 1
23 Sept Tue
26 Sept Fri
Week 2
30 Sept Tue
Introduction
Introduction; Jonathan Swift “Lady’s Dressing Room”
3 Oct Fri
Lady Mary Montague “The Reasons that Induced Dr. Swift to Write a Poem
Called the Lady’s Dressing Room”; Mary Astell “Some Reflections upon
Marriage”
HOLIDAY
Week 3
7 Oct Tue
10 Oct Fri
Literary Criticism
HOLIDAY
Dryden “An Essay of Dramatic Poesy”
Week 4
14 Oct Tue
17 Oct Fri
Restoration drama
Johnson “Preface to Shakespeare”
Wycherley “The Country Wife”; Hogarth “Marriage a la Mode”
Week 5
21 Oct Tue
24 Oct Fri
Wycherley “The Country Wife”
Dryden “All for Love”
Week 6
28 Oct Tue
31 Oct Fri
Satire
HOLIDAY
Lecture on satire; Pope “The Rape of the Lock” Midterm paper is due today
Week 7
4 Nov Tue
7 Nov Fri
Pope “The Rape of the Lock”
Pope “The Rape of the Lock”
Week 8
11 Nov Tue
14 Nov Fri
Romance and travel
Behn Oroonoko
Behn Oroonoko
Week 9
18 Nov Tue
21 Nov Fri
Pope “Eloisa to Abelard”
Pope “Eloisa to Abelard”
Week 10
25 Nov Tue
28 Nov Fri
Week 11
3 Dec Tue
5 Dec Fri
Enlightenment
Kant “What is Enlightenment?”; Cavendish
Johnson The History of Rasselas
Week 12
9 Dec Tue
12 Dec Fri
Moral Philosophy and Crime
Bentham “Utility Principle”; Hogarth “The Four Stages of Cruelty”
John Gray The Beggar’s Opera
Week 13
16 Dec Tue
19 Dec Fri
Satire and the novel
Swift Gulliver’s Travels
Swift Gulliver’s Travels
Week 14
23 Dec Tue
Swift Gulliver’s Travels
Johnson The History of Rasselas
Johnson The History of Rasselas