English Pre-Romantics

English 317, Autumn 2002

Jack Lynch

Course Description

Hours: Wednesday, 3:00-5:00, and by appointment (appointments are best).

Home: (609) 882-4642 (before 10:00 p.m.!).

E-mail: jlynch@andromeda.rutgers.edu (the best way to reach me).

Listserv: preromantics @ andromeda.rutgers.edu (for the NCAS section);
     preromantics-uc @ andromeda.rutgers.edu (for the UC section).

Course Requirements

• Written Assignments: There will be two papers, the first of around 1,500 words (six pages), the second of 2,000 (eight pages). There are also four short "OED Exercises," in which you'll provide brief reports of your discoveries in the Oxford English Dictionary (we'll discuss these in class).
• Final Exam: A final examination will include identification of quotations, close reading, and short essays.
• Attendance: Almost any excuse, given in advance (in person, by phone, or by E-mail), will receive my blessing. Absences not excused in advance will be frowned upon, and your final grade will be lowered by half a grade for each unexcused absence. The same policy applies to late papers: I'll grant extensions, but only if you talk to me before the due date.
• Class Participation: Regular and active class participation (including doing the readings) is essential, and counts for a large part of your grade.
• Computing: Some essential information will be available only electronically. All students therefore must have an E-mail account by the end of the first week of classes, and must be able to use the World Wide Web. Participation in the mailing list (see "listserv" above) will count toward the class participation grade. I'll provide any computing help you need.
• Plagiarism: It should go without saying, but all work in this class must be your own. Handing in someone else's work as your own will result in an F for the course with no second chance, and may result in disciplinary action. I encourage you to use outside sources, but you have to cite anything you didn't write yourself. If you have even an inkling of a doubt about what's legitimate or how to cite something, see me before handing in the paper.
• Readings: All the books are available from New Jersey Books; many readings are also available on-line. "ECP" refers to Eighteenth-Century Poetry, edited by Fairer and Gerrard. Classroom discussion is easier if you use the editions I've ordered, but if you own the works in other editions, you needn't buy new copies.

Schedule of Class Meetings

Wed., 4 Sept.

Introduction (class business, &c.).

Mon., 9 Sept.

Introduction to the history of the English language.

Wed., 11 Sept.

Jonathan Swift, "A Description of the Morning" (ECP 72), "A Description of a City Shower" (ECP 72-74); John Gay, from Trivia; or, The Art of Walking the Streets of London (ECP 43-58).

Mon., 16 Sept.

Alexander Pope, Windsor-Forest (ECP 102-13), "An Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot" (ECP 155-66).

Wed., 18 Sept.

Thomas Parnell, "A Night-Piece on Death" (ECP 61-63); Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, "A Nocturnal Rêverie" (ECP 33-35). OED Exercise Due: Report on three words from Swift, Gay, or Pope.

Mon., 23 Sept.

John Dyer, "Grongar Hill" (ECP 228-32); Stephen Duck, "The Thresher's Labour" (ECP 249-56); Mary Collier, "The Woman's Labour" (ECP 257-62).

Wed., 25 Sept.

James Thomson, Spring (ECP 193-220).

Mon., 30 Sept.

Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard" (ECP 329-33).

Wed., 2 Oct.

Thomas Gray, "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" (ECP 325-27), "The Progress of Poesy: A Pindaric Ode" (ECP 333-38), "The Bard: A Pindaric Ode" (ECP 338-43).

Mon., 7 Oct.

William Collins, "Ode on the Poetical Character" (ECP 344-47), "Ode to Evening" (ECP 347-49), "The Passions: An Ode for Music" (ECP 354-57). OED Exercise Due: Report on three words from Parnell, Finch, Dyer, Duck, Collier, Thomson, or Gray.

Wed., 9 Oct.

NO CLASS — I'll be away.

Mon., 14 Oct.

Joseph Warton, "The Enthusiast; or, The Lover of Nature" (ECP 358-64), "Ode to Evening" (ECP 365); Thomas Warton, "The Pleasures of Melancholy" (ECP 367-74), "Verses on Sir Joshua Reynolds's Painted Window at New-College Oxford" (ECP 378-81).

Wed., 16 Oct.

Christopher Smart, "My Cat Jeoffry" from Jubilate Agno (ECP 387-89); William Cowper, The Task, Book One, The Sofa (ECP 487-505).

Mon., 21 Oct.

James Macpherson, selections from Fragments of Ancient Poetry (ECP 408-11), "A Dissertation concerning the Antiquity, &c. of the Poems of Ossian the Son of Fingal" (on-line). OED Exercise Due: Report on three words from Collins, the Wartons, Smart, or Cowper.

Wed., 23 Oct.

Thomas Chatterton, "Mynstrelles Songe" (ECP 412-14), "Stay, Curyous Traveller" (ECP 414-15), "An Excelent Balade of Charitie" (ECP 415-18); William Henry Ireland, An Authentic Account of the Shaksperian Manuscripts (on-line).

Mon., 28 Oct.

Robert Burns, "To a Mouse" (ECP 459-60), "To a Louse" (ECP 460-62), "Tam o' Shanter: A Tale" (ECP 465-70).

Wed., 30 Oct.

Charlotte Smith, "Sonnet: Written in the Church Yard at Middleton in Sussex" (ECP 514-15), "Sonnet: To Fancy" (ECP 515), "Sonnet: The Gossamer" (ECP 515), "Sonnet: On Being Cautioned against Walking on an Headland" (ECP 516); William Lisle Bowles, "Sonnet: Written at Tinemouth, Northumberland, after a Tempestuous Voyage" (ECP 519-20), "Sonnet: To the River Wensbeck" (ECP 520), "Sonnet: Written at Ostend" (ECP 520); Anna Seward, "Sonnet: To the Poppy" (ECP 527-28). FIRST PAPER DUE (five to seven pages).

Mon., 4 Nov.

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

Wed., 6 Nov.

Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (continued).

Mon., 11 Nov.

William Godwin, Caleb Williams, volume 1 (pp. 1-109). OED Exercise Due: Report on three words from Chatterton, Burns, the sonnets, or Blake.

Wed., 13 Nov.

Godwin, Caleb Williams, volume 2 (pp. 111-213).

Mon., 18 Nov.

Godwin, Caleb Williams, volume 3 (pp. 215-337) and Appendix I (pp. 339-46).

Wed., 20 Nov.

Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, chapters 1-4.

Mon., 25 Nov.

Wollstonecraft, Vindication, chapters 5-8.

Wed., 27 Nov.

NO CLASS — Friday schedule.

Mon., 2 Dec.

Wollstonecraft, Vindication, chapters 9-13; Anna Laetitia Barbauld, "The Rights of Woman" (ECP 481-82).

Wed., 4 Dec.

William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads: the Advertisement (pp. 3-4), "The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere," "The Foster-Mother's Tale," "Lines Left upon a Seat in a Yew Tree," "The Nightingale," "The Female Vagrant."

Mon., 9 Dec.

Wordsworth and Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads (continued): "Goody Blake and Harry Gill," "Lines Written at a Small Distance from My House," "Simon Lee," "The Thorn," "The Last of the Flock," "The Dungeon," "The Mad Mother," "The Idiot Boy," the Preface of 1800 (pp. 133-79).

Wed., 11 Dec.

Lyrical Ballads (continued): "Lines Written near Richmond," "Expostulation and Reply," "The Tables Turned," "Old Man Travelling," "The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman," "The Convict," "Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey." SECOND PAPER DUE (eight to ten pages).