Dr. Williams Office: 213 HPAC Phone: 503-5285 Email: gwilliams@uscupstate.edu IM (AOL/ MSN): ghwchats http://georgehwilliams.pbworks.com/411

This class meets on MWF 11:00-11:50 in Smith, room 202.   I hold office hours on Mondays & Wednesdays from 2:00-3:30, Thursdays from 11:00-1:00, and by appointment

 

Course Description

Between the years 1660-1740 British literary culture changed in many significant ways. An unprecedented increase in the production or printed material led to new classes of readers, writers, and literary genres. Audiences in the first forty years of the period had the privilege of watching some of the best plays ever written in English, especially comedy. A new form of fiction emerged for the first time and became extremely popular: the novel. Periodicals—first newspapers and then magazines—began to be produced, providing a lively venue for debates about matters of public interest. And caustic political and social satire became amusing hobbies that also sought to effect real change.

These and other developments will be our concerns as we read a broad selection of material this semester. Students are expected to think for themselves, to form strong opinions, to disagree, to argue persuasively and eloquently when they speak and when they write.

 

Required Texts

The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Volume 1C: The Restoration and the 18th Century

 Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

 Additional readings that I will supply for you as paper or electronic handouts

 

Course Requirements: You must complete all requirements to pass the class.

	5%	Paper 1: A summary and analysis of the introduction to the Longman Anthology.	Monday, January 22
	15%	Paper 2: A summary and analysis of a recent scholarly article.	Due: __________
	15%	Paper 3: A literary analysis of course texts using the Oxford English Dictionary.	Due: __________
	20%	Paper 4: An argumentative essay on 2 or 3 course texts.	Monday, April 30
	5%	Contributions to class discussion. You are responsible for thoughtfully answering questions posed by me and by your classmates.	Every day.
	10%	Two informal class presentations (5% each). One presentation will be based on your work for Paper 2, and one will be based on your work for Paper 3. One must take place during weeks 5 through 10 and the other during the remainder of the semester.	1. Due: __________ 2. Due: __________
	15%	Midterm Examination: In-class passage identification plus a take home essay question.	Friday, March 9
	15%	Final Examination: In-class passage identification plus a take home essay question.	Date: TBA Location: Smith 202

 

Course Policies

 

Academic integrity: This is a senior-level course, and so students are expected to be familiar with USC Upstate’s policies concerning plagiarism, cheating, and academic integrity. Be aware that the consequences of plagiarism range from a failing grade for the course to expulsion from the university. Please come speak with me if you need help understanding the standards for academic integrity.

 

Accommodations for special needs: To request accommodation for a disability, please contact the Office of Disability Services (CLC 107, 503-5123) and see the course instructor as soon as possible.

 

Attendance: Class time is important and impossible to make up. Your attendance is integral to your success as a student and to the success of this course; attendance is therefore mandatory. I do not distinguish between “excused” and “unexcused” absences. You can miss up to four class periods without lowering your grade. After four absences, each subsequent absence lowers your final grade by half a letter. Excessive absences can result in failure of the course. Please do not bring doctor’s notes or other evidence of crisis. If you miss class, email me within 24 hours, check with a classmate for notes, and return to class fully prepared.

 

Communication: You should take advantage of my office hours, during which time I am happy to talk with you in person. You may also call me on my office telephone, send me an email, or instant message me (feel free to add me to your list of contacts in your instant messaging client). I respond to phone calls and IMs instantaneously (if you reach me), and I do my best to respond to emails within 24 hours.

 

Written Assignments

Format: All work done outside of class to be turned in must be typed or produced on a word processor. Your papers should have the following:

  no cover page;

  one-inch margins all the way around the page;

  text that is double-spaced, 12 point/10 cpi (Times New Roman type face preferred);

  page numbers on every page;

  one staple in the upper left-hand corner.

  The first page should have your name, the due date, the course number, and my name on the first page in the upper left-hand corner, like this:

Chris Student

January 19, 2007

English 411

Dr. Williams

Your paper must adhere to MLA style, with proper in-text citations and a works cited page. Your introduction must have a clear, specific, well-defined thesis that is sophisticated in insight and statement. In your argument, avoid pointing out the obvious. Avoid rehashing things that have been said in class discussion. Support your assertions with textual evidence, where appropriate.

I do not accept papers turned in as email attachments to be graded; however, to provide you with (hopefully) helpful feedback, I am happy to look at an early draft of a paper sent via email attachment at least four business days before the paper is due. If I ask you to rewrite one of your papers, you must turn in the first graded version of the paper along with your revision.

Late papers: If you turn your paper in on time, I will return it to you with a grade and with comments in response to what you have written. If you turn it in up to one week late, I will return it to you with a grade but no comments. If you turn it in more than one week late, I will not accept it and you will receive a grade of zero (0) for the assignment. Do not leave papers outside my door. A paper is not considered turned in until I have it in my hands. Please plan accordingly.

 

Written Assignment Details

 

Due Date:  Friday, January 22

Length:  500-750 words

Value:  5% of your final grade

Description:  The purpose of this essay is to allow me to get a sense of you as a writer. In part, I’d like to evaluate some basic writing skills. Do you know how to quote, paraphrase, and summarize effectively? Do you know how to format your writing according to MLA style? Are you able to avoid major errors of grammar, syntax, and punctuation? And in part, I’d like to be able to evaluate your critical thinking skills.

This assignment requires you to write a summary and analysis of Stuart Sherman and Steven N. Zwicker’s essay “The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century” (Longman, 2121-2144). You must quote from the text at least once to demonstrate that you know how to do so in accordance with proper MLA style. Remember that even when you paraphrase or summarize, you still must provide parenthetical citations.

 

Due Date:  Variable. Enter your due date here:__________

Length:  750-1000 words

Value:  15% of final grade

Description:  Do not wait until the last minute to start this assignment. Step 1: read a scholarly article relevant to that week’s discussion, chosen from a list provided by me. Step 2: read the article, making notes and highlighting passages as appropriate. Step 3: meet with me to discuss the article (What is the main argument? How does it enhance our reading of the literature? What 2 or 3 questions have you generated for class discussion based on the article?). Step 4: class presentation. Your presentation will inform us of the article’s argument and will explain how it enhances our reading. Focus on specific passages from the text. Ask 2 or 3 questions designed to generate class discussion. Step 5: write a short paper about that article, due one week after your presentation. There are three parts to this paper:

1.  Bibliographic Entry: At the top of the first page--underneath your name, the due date, the course number, and my name--provide an MLA-style citation for the article.

2.  Precis: The next part (about one and a half pages) is strictly a summary of the argument being made. At the top of this section use the heading “Precis.” You should start this section with a one- or two-sentence statement in your own words of the argument being made in the article; the argument is usually stated by the author in the first couple of paragraphs. Following that, summarize the essential points being made by the author in support of that argument. Do not get caught up in the details or examples used by the author. You might provide some brief quotes from the article where appropriate. These quotes should be formatted in MLA style.

3.  Analysis: The next part (about one and a half pages) is an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the argument being made. At the top of this section use the heading “Analysis.” Your analysis is not about whether you liked the article or not. Nor is it about whether you understood the article or not. Instead, you must evaluate the quality of the author’s argument. Is appropriate evidence from the text used? Are the conclusions drawn from that evidence reasonable? If you are able to, identify the scholarly approach taken by the author (for example, deconstruction, new historicism, feminism, reader response, cultural materialism, book history, psychoanalysis).

 

Due Date:  Variable. Enter your due date here: __________

Length:  750-1000 words

Value:   15% of final grade

Description:  Do not wait until the last minute to start this assignment. Step 1: Choose one word from one or more of the texts that we have read for that week’s discussion. Make sure it is a word that is both interesting in its varied shades of meaning and important to what we are reading. Look up the word in the Oxford English Dictionary online, available through the USC Upstate library website. Step 2: print out the definitions of the word and analyze the texts in terms of that word’s various meanings. What different meanings did the word have in the eighteenth century? How are those meanings different than what the word meant before and after the eighteenth century? Why is the word important to the text or texts you’re analyzing? How does our interpretation of the text or texts change when we apply the different meanings of the word as described in the OED? Step 3: meet with me to discuss your observations. Step 4: class presentation. Your presentation will inform us of your observations about the significance of the word. Focus on specific passages from the text. Ask 2 or 3 questions designed to generate class discussion. Step 5: write a short paper about the word’s meanings and your observations about the texts for that week’s reading.

 

Due Date:  Monday, April 30

Length:  1,500-2,000 words

Value:  25% of final grade

Description:  This assignment requires you to write a persuasive argument supporting a clearly stated thesis concerning at least two but no more than three of the works we have read this semester. Any topic you choose should be cleared by me before. Near the semester’s end, you will meet with me to discuss your paper idea(s). Your paper must cite at least five scholarly sources. Your paper must use textual evidence to support your argument and to engage in thoughtful analysis.

 

Participation

 

Every student is expected to complete each day's reading assignment in time for class, to make some notes containing their thoughts on the reading, and to be prepared to participate in the discussion taking place that day concerning the reading.

I expect basic academic etiquette—attend class, arrive on time, come prepared, stay until the end of class, turn cell phones off during class, listen to classmates and respond with civility to divergent opinions—and I expect deep and sustained attention to the course texts and concepts. Demonstrate the latter by contributing regularly and substantively to class discussions, and by undertaking the whole writing process for each paper: pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading.

 

Calendar

Complete these readings before we discuss them in class. All selections are from The Longman Anthology of British Literature, unless otherwise indicated. Page numbers are (usually) provided in parentheses.

 

Week 1, January 17-19

  Wednesday: Introduction to the course and to each other.

  Friday: Stuart Sherman and Steven N. Zwicker, “The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century” (2121-2144).

 

Week 2, January 22-26

  Monday: Samuel Pepys, The Diary (2145-2160); The London Gazette on the fire of London (2455); Jonathan Swift, “A Description of the Morning” (2500-2501), “A Description of a City Shower” (2501-2503). Paper 1 due on Monday, January 22.

  Wednesday: John Evelyn, Kalendarium (2160-2172); John Gay, Trivia, or The Art of Walking the Streets of London (handout); Daniel Defoe, from A Journal of the Plague Year (2446-2452)

  Friday: John Dryden, selections from Discourse concerning the Original and Progress of Satire (handout), Mac Flecknoe (2239-2245)

 

Week 3, January 29-February 2

  Monday: Jonathan Swift, Battel of the Books (handout)

  Wednesday: Alexander Pope from The Dunciad (2694-2706)

  Friday: Article (Handout)

 

Week 4, February 5-9

  Monday: Aphra Behn “The Disappointment,” “The Golden Age”; John Wilmot, selections; Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, “The Lover: A Ballad” (2716-2717)

Assignment for Monday: Pick one word from these poems. Do an OED search. Be prepared to discuss the different meanings of the word and how those meanings affect our reading of the poems.

  Wednesday: Alexander Pope, “Epistle 2. To a Lady: Of the Characters of Women” (2684-2692); Mary Leapor, “An Essay on Woman” (2692-2694)

  Friday: Jessica Munns, “‘But to the Touch Were Soft’: Pleasure, Power, and Impotence in ‘The Disappointment’ and ‘The Golden Age’” in Aphra Behn Studies, Janet Todd, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996): 178-96. (Handout).

 

Week 5, February 12-16

  Monday: Mary Astell, Some Reflections Upon Marriage (2427-2437)

  Wednesday: William Wycherly, The Country Wife

  Friday: William Wycherly, The Country Wife

 

Week 6, February 19-23

  Monday: William Wycherly, The Country Wife

  Wednesday: Eliza Haywood, Fantomina: Or, Love in a Maze (3081-3099)

  Friday: “Perspectives: Reading Papers” (2453-2498); Jurgen Habermas on the public sphere (handout)

 

Week 7, February 26-March 2

  Monday: “Perspectives: Reading Papers” (2453-2498)

  Wednesday: “Perspectives: Reading Papers” (2453-2498)

  Friday: Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (2131-2652)

 

Week 8, March 5-9

  Monday: The Rape of the Lock (2131-2652)

  Wednesday: Jonathan Swift, “The Lady’s Dressing Room” (2506-2510); Montagu, “The Reasons that Induced Dr. S. to write a Poem called ‘The Lady’s Dressing Room’” (2510-2512); Anon., “The Gentleman’s Study” (handout). Midterm prep discussion, assignment of take-home essay.

  Friday: Midterm

 

Week 9, March 12-16

  Spring Break! No classes

 

Week 10, March 19-23

  Monday: Pope, An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot (2673-2684)

  Wednesday: Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal”

  Friday: Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (The Penguin edition, not the selections in Longman.)

 

Week 11, March 26-30

  Monday: Gulliver’s Travels

  Wednesday: Gulliver’s Travels

  Friday: Gulliver’s Travels

 

Week 12, April 2-6

  Monday: Gulliver’s Travels

  Wednesday: Gulliver’s Travels

  Friday: viewing scenes of adaptations of Gulliver’s Travels

 

Week 13, April 9-13

  Assignment: Start on your final paper. Make appointment to meet to discuss your paper idea(s)

  Monday: William Hogarth, The Rake’s Progress

  Wednesday: The Rake’s Progress

  Friday: Article. (Handout)

 

Week 14, April 16-20

  Monday: John Gay, The Beggar’s Opera

  Wednesday: The Beggar’s Opera

  Friday: The Beggar’s Opera

 

Week 15, April 23-27: “High” culture and “Low” culture

  Monday: Listening to and viewing performances of The Beggar’s Opera

  Wednesday: Listening to and viewing performances of The Beggar’s Opera

  Friday: Peer editing of final paper

 

Paper 4 due on Monday, April 30

 

Final Exam. Date: as listed in Schedule of Classes. Location: our regular classroom.