TRENT UNIVERSITY
Trent University in Oshawa (at UOIT and Durham)
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
COURSE SYLLABUS
2006-2007
ENGLISH 1003H OSH FA: INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH LITERATURE
Course Instructors
Margaret Steffler (Course Co-ordinator)
Office:
Simcoe Building 1164
Office Hours: Mondays 9:00-11:00 (by appointment)
Thursdays by appointment
Phone: (905) 721-3111 ext. 2041
E-Mail:
[email protected]
Trent@UOIT / Durham Office: (905) 721-3003
Michael Fralic
Office: C108 in Oshawa; TC WH 115 in Peterborough
Phone in Peterborough: (705) 748-1011, ext. 1753
Phone in Oshawa: TBA
Office Hours in Oshawa: TBA
E-mail: [email protected]
Trent@UOIT / Durham Office: (905) 721-3003
Course Description
This introductory course focuses on selected periods, issues, forms and movements in British and
American literature. The course aims to introduce students to the richness and breadth of
literature written in English and to the skills necessary for appreciating, understanding and
discussing literature in general. English 1003H examines two national literatures in English in
two focused units: British followed by American. The first unit begins with a series of sonnets
moving chronologically from the Elizabethan period to World War I. These sonnets express
yearnings for spiritual, artistic and dream worlds. The desire to explore and discover other worlds
continues as a focus in the first unit. The second unit moves outward from the British Isles to
English literature from America, introducing a variety of voices from the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. These voices work to create space and identity for the individuals and their
communities.
Course Format
This course is taught in a one-hour lecture and one-hour tutorial weekly.
Lectures
The general aim of the lectures is to provide a context for the works being studied. While they
will provide some historical background for the works, one of their main functions will be to
relate the works to each other and to their broader literary and cultural context. They will also
focus on the works themselves, and will often be illustrated by analyses of specific passages as a
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means of modelling the kind of critical attention necessary for deeply engaging with literary
works.
The contexts provided by the lectures are essential to the course. Students are expected to
become familiar with these contexts and to show evidence of their familiarity in their tutorials,
their essays and especially in the final examination. The lectures are therefore a crucial
component of the course.
Tutorials
Tutorials are the other crucial component of the course. Instructors will organize their tutorials
in different ways, but the two basic functions of all tutorials are the same: to explore the works
more closely than is possible in the lectures, and to give students the opportunity to
express, test and refine their own interpretations of the works.
Course Requirements and Method of Evaluation
Course requirements consist of the following:
• Essay One (approximately 1200 words or 4 pages) (with rewrite option) 20%
• Essay Two (approximately 2000 words or 7 pages)
30%
• Tutorial Participation
20%
• Final Examination (2 hours)
30%
Essays:
There will be two essays (worth a total of 50% of the grade) as follows:
1. approximately 1200 words: due Monday, October 16
20%
rewrite (optional) due Monday, November 20
2. approximately 2000 words: due Monday, December 4
30%
Essay One will provide the opportunity to write on one of two sonnets. The essay instructions and
rewrite requirements will be distributed at the first class. Essay Two will provide the opportunity to
write on one work from the syllabus. Topics and directions for Essay Two will be distributed by
your instructor. Please ensure that you read the policy on plagiarism included in this syllabus and
document your work with care and accuracy.
Essay Submission and Deadlines: Please consult your instructor’s tutorial contract for details about
essay submission and late penalties.
Essay Format: All English students should have a copy of Trent's style guide, Notes on the
Preparation of Essays in the Arts and Sciences. This guide to standard presentation (prepared by
the Academic Skills Centre) should be followed for all essays submitted in this course. Please pay
attention to details of format and documentation.
1003H syllabus
Oshawa
Fall 2006
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Tutorials:
Tutorials meet weekly for one hour. Your regular participation in tutorials is essential to your
success in the course. Your tutorial mark of 20% will be based on your preparation for, and
participation in, tutorial discussions and will take into account the quality of the tutorial
contributions and the extent to which the work has been considered and understood. All students
are expected to attend tutorials thoroughly prepared for tutorial discussion. This means that the
reading is completed and has been carefully considered before the tutorial meeting. The preparation
of short written notes and questions is often helpful for students who would like to engage actively
in tutorial discussions. Please consult your instructor’s tutorial contract for details about the
expectations, structure and format of your tutorial meetings.
Final Examination:
The two-hour final exam is based on course readings, lecture material and tutorial discussions.
Required Texts
For essay writing:
• Mary Anne Armstrong et al. Notes on the Preparation of Essays in the Arts and Sciences.
5th edition. Trent University: Academic Skills Centre, 2001.
• Mary Ann Armstrong. Writing the English Essay: Substance and Style. Trent University:
Academic Skills Centre, 2006
In reading order:
Sonnets in the Syllabus: Shakespeare, Donne, Wordsworth, Hopkins, Sassoon, Owen, Rossetti
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein ISBN: 0451527712 Signet Classic
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness ISBN: 1551113074 Broadview
Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn ISBN: 0192824414 Oxford
Emily Dickinson, Selected Poems ISBN: 0486264661 Dover (Thrift)
Walt Whitman, Selected Poems ISBN: 0486268780 Dover (Thrift)
Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye ISBN: 0452282195 Plume Penguin
Recommended Texts
• Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 8th edition. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth,
2005.
• Avery, Heather et al. Thinking It Through: A Practical Guide to Academic Essay Writing
Peterborough, Ontario: Academic Skills Centre, Trent University, 1995.
• Other Academic Skills Centre Publications: Building Sentences, Powerful Punctuation
Academic Dishonesty
Academic dishonesty, which includes plagiarism and cheating, is an extremely serious academic
offense and carries penalties varying from failure in an assignment to suspension from the
University. Definitions, procedures, and penalties for dealing with plagiarism and cheating are set
out in Trent University's Academic Dishonesty Policy which is printed on pages 16-20 in the 20061003H syllabus
Oshawa
Fall 2006
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2007 Trent University Calendar and can be found in the section on undergraduate regulations on
the Trent University website at www.trentu.ca/calendar.
While scholarly work often involves reference to the ideas, writing and data of other scholars, it is
intellectually dishonest to present the work of others without explicitly and clearly giving them
credit and appropriate reference. Plagiarism means passing off another person's work as one's own
(including other students' essays, internet material and purchased essays). Debts to secondary
sources must always be indicated in footnotes, endnotes or in parenthetical citations within the text
of the essay. There is a debt to another writer if 1) the writer's exact words are used; 2) the writer's
work is paraphrased; 3) the writer's ideas are used. See Notes on the Preparation of Essays in the
Arts and Sciences for the proper format in acknowledging sources.
For further details on Trent University's policies and procedures governing academic dishonesty,
please see http://www.trentu.ca/deansoffice/dishonestypolicy.html
If you have any questions about plagiarism or the proper documentation of source material, please
speak to your instructor, preferably before an error in judgement is made.
English Department Website
For the most complete up-to-date information on the English Department--courses, faculty,
procedures, policies, special events--check the English Department website at
www.trentu.ca/english.
WebCT
This course will use WebCT in order to post announcements and supplementary materials and
provide links to relevant sites.
LECTURE SCHEDULE
Unit One—England: Exploring Other Worlds
Sept. 11
Sept. 18
Sept. 25
Oct. 2
Oct. 9
Oct. 16
1003H syllabus
Oshawa
Fall 2006
Introduction to the Course
Sonnets: Shakespeare, Sonnet 29—“When, in Disgrace,” Donne, Sonnet
14—“Batter my Heart,” Wordsworth, “The World is Too Much With Us”
Writing the English Essay
Sonnets: Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur,” Sassoon, “Dreamers”
Owen, “Anthem for Doomed Youth,” Rossetti, “In an Artist’s Studio”
Shelley, Frankenstein (M. Fralic)
Shelley, Frankenstein
THANKSGIVING (no class)
Conrad, Heart of Darkness ESSAY ONE DUE
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Oct. 23
READING BREAK (no class)
Unit Two—America: Creating Space and Identity
Oct. 30
Nov. 6
Nov. 13
Nov. 20
Nov. 27
Dec. 4
Twain, Huckleberry Finn
Twain, Huckleberry Finn
Dickinson, Selected Poems (M. Fralic)
Whitman, Selected Poems ESSAY ONE REWRITES DUE
Morrison, The Bluest Eye (R. Bode)
Morrison, The Bluest Eye ESSAY TWO DUE
Course and Instructor Evaluation
Exam Discussion and Course Summary
The Final Exam is on Monday, December 11 from 2:00 to 4:00 pm. Please note that the exam
must be written at this time.
Sonnets for September 11 and September 18
God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
-1877
1003H syllabus
Oshawa
Fall 2006
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Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare (1609)
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee—and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Sonnet 14 by John Donne (1633)
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for You
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town to another due,
Labor to admit You, but O, to no end;
Reason, Your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love You, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto Your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to You, imprison me, for I,
Except You enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me.
Dreamers by Siegfried Sassoon (1918)
Soldiers are citizens of death's gray land,
Drawing no dividend from time's tomorrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.
I see them in foul dugouts, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.
Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen
(1917)
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
The World is Too Much With Us
By William Wordsworth (1807)
In An Artist’s Studio by Christina Rossetti (1856)
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.—Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
One face looks out from all his canvases,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
A saint, an angel -- every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more or less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.
1003H syllabus
Oshawa
Fall 2006