English 102 Syllabus (Erickson, Summer 2004)
| Welcome to the English Department Knowledge Base at the University of California, Santa Barbara. |
|---|
Professor Robert A. Erickson
Office: South Hall 2706
Office hours: MTWR 3:10-3:30
Office phone: 893 2453 (no voicemail)
E-mail: erickson@english.ucsb.edu)
Required texts:
1. John Milton, Paradise Lost, ed. S. Elledge, 2nd ed.(Norton Critical Edition paperback)
2. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1C: The Restoration and the Eighteenth-Century
3. English 102 Reader, available at Grafikart 6550 Pardall Rd.
- Note: if you own the Norton Anthology Vol. 1B you may use the edition of Paradise Lost in that text instead of the Elledge ed.)
Course description:
In this course we read and discuss works mainly by English authors relevant to early modern English and American literature and culture from 1650 to 1789. We will focus on the Early Modern Center (EMC) theme this year of "Home and the World." In the first half of the course we read and discuss Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, one of the most influential texts in early American culture, noting among other things Milton's representation of humankind's first "home," and of Eve and Adam as the original married couple. In the second half of the course we pay special attention to Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Lock," Swift's Gulliver's Travels, and Johnson's Rasselas. We also read and discuss certain texts by American writers such as Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor, Phyllis Wheatley, and Philip Freneau. Nearly all the works we read are concerned in one way or another with these topics: colonialism, nationalism, and imperialism; class and society; gender, sexuality, and desire; Puritanism and religion; paradise or utopia; hell and the nature of evil; sin, violence, and betrayal; transgression and conversion, themes that appear with all kinds of variations in American literature also from its origins to the present day.
Schedule of readings:
Week One
June 21: Introduction: Puritanism in England and Early America
6/22: Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 1; Revelation, p. 460; The Universe, p. 461
6/23: PL, Book 2; Angels, p. 466
6/24: PL, Book 3; God, p. 468
Week Two
June 28: Paradise Lost, Bk 4; Paradise, p. 472; Song of Solomon, in Reader, p. 129
6/29: PL, Bk 5
6/30: PL, Bks 6,7
July 1: PL Bk 8
Week Three
[Monday, July 5 holiday]
7/6: Paradise Lost, Bk 9; Freedom, p. 469; Areopagitica, pp. 382-91
7/7: PL, Bk 10
7/8: PL, Bks 11, 12
Week Four
July 12: Exam I (bluebook)
7/13: John Wilmot (Earl of Rochester), "The Imperfect Enjoyment": Norton p.
2163 and Aphra Behn, "The Disappointment": Norton, 2167
7/14: Pope, The Rape of the Lock, cantos 1,2,3: Norton, p. 2525; William
Hogarth, The Harlot's Progress in Reader
7/15: "The Rape of the Lock," cantos 4,5; Hogarth, Marriage a la Mode:
Norton, p. 221
Week Five
July 19: John Donne: Elegy 19. To His Mistress Going to Bed: Reader, p.
133; Jonathan Swift, "A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed": Reader, p.
153;
7/20: Swift, Part 4 of Gulliver's Travels: A Voyage to the Country of the
Houyhnhnms: Norton pp. 2428-60
7/21: Swift, Part 4, pp. 2460-end; Swift, "A Modest Proposal": Norton, p. 2473
7/22: Samuel Johnson, Rasselas: Norton, p. 2678; proposal for term paper
due (1-2 pp.)
Week Six
July 26: Anne Bradstreet: "The Prologue," "The Flesh and the Spirit,"
"The Author to her Book," "Before the Birth of One of her Children," "To
My Dear and Loving Husband": Reader, p. 55
7/27: Edward Taylor: "Prologue," "The Reflexion," "Meditation 39,"
"Meditation 150," "Upon Wedlock and the Death of Children": Reader, p. 67
7/28: Phillis Wheatley: "On Being Brought from Africa to America," "On
Imagination": Reader, p. 79; Philip Freneau: "The Power of Fancy," "To
Sir Toby": Reader, p. 83; term paper due (6 typewritten pp. minimum,
including illustration and the original proposal, with my comments,
attached)
7/29: Exam II (bluebook)
Required Work (and weighting of grade):
- Familiarity with the reading assignment for each class period
- Class participation, including reader's theater
- Exam I
- Exam II
- Term paper (including proposal)
Failure to complete any of the required work means failing the course. The proposal (1-2 pp. or longer) for the term paper should include the topic for the paper, a sample first paragraph indicating the thesis or argument (i.e. what you hope to prove or demonstrate), a brief outline, and a brief bibliography. The 6 pp. minimum term paper must discuss works by at least two authors; it should be on any one of the course themes (above), and may incorporate one of the critical essays in the text or Reader. It does not have to include both British and American works. The paper must be illustrated and carefully proofread, double-spaced, with pages numbered and the proposal with my comments attached; it may undergo some changes from the proposal. Any citations of the required reading must be from the required texts and anything quoted from the Internet must by printed out and attached to the paper. The English department annually awards the William and Marjorie Frost prize for the best undergraduate paper written in an English class (usually about 10 pp.).
NB:
Please be in class on time, and refrain from walking out and coming back in during the class period. Let me know if you must miss a class. Incompletes are given only for medical or emergency reasons (if you are having serious trouble please tell me before it's too late). Plagiary ("to pass off another's work as one's own," including material from the Internet) is grounds for suspension or dismissal.
