English
Junior Seminar

English 301
Junior Seminar in English Literary History
The Fallen World: The Anglo-American Literary Tradition

Jay Dickson
Vollum 126, T/Th 2:40-4
Office hours: M 3-4, T 4-4:30, W 10-11 ETC 218 x7906
Fall, 2005

Description:

This course, a study of the methods and a sample of the materials of English literary history, will focus on the treatment of the postlapsarian condition following the example of John Milton's Paradise Lost. There will be substantial reading in literary theory. We will consider questions about genre, tradition and innovation, canon formation, authority, and influence. Prerequisites: junior standing and two English courses at the 200 level or above.

Texts:

Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, ed. Richard J. Dunn (Norton)

Frank Lentricchia, ed., Critical Terms for Literary Study (Chicago)

Herman Melville, Billy Budd and Other Stories (Penguin)

John Milton, Paradise Lost, ed Gordon Teskey (W. W. Norton)

Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (Vintage)

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, ed J. Paul Hunter (W. W. Norton

(recommended) M. H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham, eds., A Glossary of Literary Terms, 8^th ed. (Thomson/ Wadsworth)

(recommended) Joseph Gibaldi, MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6^th ed. (MLA)

***Please note: Because we will be using critical essays from these particular editions with these novels and long poems it is imperative that you purchase ONLY these editions, and not substitute others. There are copies of all of the required texts, however, on reserve in Hauser Library.

Requirements:

1. Regular attendance and informed participation in discussion.
   
   
2. One 5-6 pp. essay on Paradise Lost
   
   
3. One take-home timed essay on either Frankenstein or Wuthering Heights
   
   
4. Two library assignments (the second is connected to the annotated bibliography and critical essay-see below).
   
   
5. An annotated bibliography and a brief (10-12 pp.) critical history of approaches to a particular literary text written originally in English. The statement of topic will be due Sept 13^th; the list of 40 articles (from which 25 will be chosen for your final annotated bibliography) is due Oct. 28^th; the rough draft of the critical history is due November 30^th; the final draft of the entire project is due Dec 9^th. You cannot pass the course without doing satisfactory work on the bibliography and critical history; it is the central project of the course.
   
   The purpose of the annotated bibliography is to familiarize you with the critical history of a particular literary text. In the process you will learn about some of the main developments in literary history and theory as well as how to use the library and the scholarly materials of the discipline.
   
   Works for the annotated bibliography can be drawn from among literary texts (poems, plays, or fiction) that have at least a fifty-year critical history (so the cut-off year for publication is 1955). Shorter novels (such as The Picture of Dorian Gray, Pride and Prejudice, Mrs. Dalloway, etc.) or famous lyric poems (such as the Keats odes, or a famous Shakespeare sonnet) would be appropriate. I do not recommend obscurer works by famous authors (such as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and Damned). I also do not recommend works that were only comparatively recently "re-discovered" and newly given critical attention (Wilkie Collins' Armadale, for example) because you will not find the historical spread of criticism you will need for this assignment. As you think about which work to choose, remember that it needs to be of manageable length so you can read it quickly and immerse yourself in its critical issues expeditiously. It also needs to be a work you can happily live with at close range for the semester. If you dislike the text intensely, you are just as likely to dislike the criticism and find the work slow going.
   
   The assignment will be spread out over the course of the whole semester. In essence, you will do the following: find forty critical works on a text of your choice; after some preliminary investigation, choose twenty-five works to comprise an annotated bibliography. Balance the distribution of works over time: for example, five works should (if possible) date from before 1955; five from 1955-1968; five from 1968-85; five from 1985 to 1995; and five from 1995 to the present. Do annotations for each of the twenty-five articles (writing in complete sentences, of course). Arrange your bibliography chronologically from the oldest critical work to the newest. Write an introductory essay covering critical taxonomy (that is, how you would group the articles by varying schools of scholarship, such as psychoanalysis, New Historicism, gender studies, etc.), your rationale for inclusion or exclusion of works, and a brief account of the main trends in scholarship. Finally, suggest at some length concerns that you think scholarship still needs to address, or directions in which it might fruitfully move. The essay should be ten to fifteen pages long, double-spaced.

Attendance Policy:

You are expected at each and every class meeting and every scheduled library meeting; the only excuses I will allow for absences are illness and family emergency. If you cannot make it to class discussion you are required to e-mail me or call my office (or have a friend do so) to explain where you are. Since we meet twice a week for thirteen weeks, even one unexcused absence could affect your grade in the course; more than three will be regarded as grounds for failure from the course.

Written Work Policy:

Written work is due the day indicated on the schedule below unless you have asked me (and I have explicitly agreed) well ahead of time for an extension. Otherwise your written work will be downgraded one half of a grade for every day it is late.

Unless written work is handed to me in class, it should be handed in directly to my faculty mailbox in Eliot (please do not put it underneath my office door).

I am the only person who can grant extensions for your work in this class.

Schedule

[Starred readings are secondary to the primary material, but are required. "CT" refers to Frank Lentricchia, ed., Critical Terms for Literary Study. "Hunter" refers to the assigned Norton edition of Frankenstein; and "Dunn" to the assigned Norton edition of Wuthering Heights. All the other readings are on e-reserve.]

Created by: Jack Levine, English Liaison & Jay Dickson, English Professor