The Idea of the Classic in
Eighteenth-Century England

English 560, Spring 2008

Jack Lynch

Hours: Monday, 1:00–2:30, 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: ClassicIdea @ andromeda.rutgers.edu (for the whole class).

Course Requirements

• Written Assignments: There will be two argumentative and analytical papers, the first of eight to ten pages, the second either a new paper of eight to ten pages, or an expansion of your first paper to fifteen to twenty pages.
• Annotated Bibliographies and In-Class Reports: You'll be expected to give a brief presentation on one day's reading, and to present a short annotated bibliography on the topic. Be prepared to distribute a short bibliography of relevant criticism, and to begin class with an oral report of no more than ten minutes. The report should begin with a very brief discussion of the annotated bibliography you've prepared, giving a quick overview of the major scholarship on the topic (don't just read the bibliography!). Thereafter, the topic is anything relevant to the day's reading material. A good report will raise as many fruitful questions as possible and get discussion rolling. Anything that will help — handouts, short readings for the rest of the class — is welcome and encouraged.
• Readings: Check it out: it's possible to spend no money at all for the readings for a graduate class. How cool is that? All the readings will be available on-line on the World Wide Web. For easily available works too long to print or read on-screen (Paradise Lost, &c.), you're encouraged to find your own edition.

Schedule of Class Meetings

28 Jan.:

Introduction (class business, &c.).

4 Feb.:

Aristotle, Poetics; Horace, The Art of Poetry.

11 Feb.:

John Milton, Paradise Lost, front matter and books I–III; Richard Bentley's edition of Paradise Lost, Preface and Book I; Samuel Johnson, selections from The Life of Milton.

18 Feb.:

Milton, Paradise Lost, books IV and IX; John Dryden, selections from The State of Innocence; Joseph Addison, selections from The Spectator; William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, plates 4, 5, and 6; Percy Bysshe Shelley, selections from A Defence of Poetry.

25 Feb.:

Dryden, The Æneis of Virgil, books I and IV; Alexander Pope, The Iliad of Homer, book I.

3 March:

Jonathan Swift, The Battle of the Books; Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism.

10 March:

Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock.

17 March:

No Class: Spring Break.

24 March:

John Dryden, selections from An Essay of Dramatick Poesie; John Dryden and William Davenant, The Tempest; or, The Enchanted Island (also in PDF format). First Paper Due.

31 March:

Alexander Pope, Preface to The Works of Shakespear; Nahum Tate, King Lear (also in PDF format); Samuel Johnson, "Drury-Lane Prologue," selections from the Preface to Shakespeare, and notes on King Lear; Elizabeth Montagu, Introduction to An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespear.

7 April:

Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews, books I and II.

14 April:

Fielding, Joseph Andrews, books III and IV.

21 April:

William Henry Ireland, Vortigern and An Authentic Account of the Shaksperian Manuscripts.

28 April:

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound.

5 May:

John Keats, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," "On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again," "To Homer," "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the First Time," "Ode on a Grecian Urn." Second Paper Due.