ENGLISH 2310: ENGLISH LITERATURE BEFORE 1790
FRANK GRADY FALL 2011
455 LUCAS MW 12:30-1:45
516-5592 / fgrady@umsl.edu SSB 207
M & W 10:30-12:00, W 3:00-5:00, [SEC. 002, #11192]
&
by appointment
In this course we will be reading, writing about and discussing
"representative works of selected major writers" from the tenth
century through the seventeenth. While
surveying the first seven centuries of English poetry, prose and drama, we'll
be asking what makes some works "representative" and some writers
"major," and what these works want of their readers--not so much what
they want us to know, but what they want us to do, what they want to do to us,
and why we might sometimes want to resist their designs for us. The author of The Battle of Maldon might assume that
you are a tenth-century, land-owning, English-speaking, Viking-hating patriot,
but you're not, and while there can certainly be some literary pleasure derived
from pretending for a little while that you are, there's often more to be
gained from resisting that assumption.
Thus we will be exploring the context as well as the content of the
texts we study, so as to expose and understand the things they take for granted
that might or might not be true for us today.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
(What I want you to do):
> Come to class. More than four unexcused absences (almost 15%
of our brief semester) will have an adverse effect on your grade, and you will
certainly miss some quizzes, which cannot be made up. I take attendance every day.
> Keep up with the reading. This won’t always be easy; this is a survey
course, which means that we'll be moving fairly quickly through a heavy and
largely unfamiliar reading load, one that cannot be adequately digested in the
forty-five minutes before class.
Remember that we are not just reading
the texts assigned, but studying
them, so
> Think about the reading and be
prepared to discuss it: what happens in it (and to whom), what it assumes that
you know (about the world, about how people behave and how they ought to, about
what form writing should take), what it thinks is interesting, how it tries to
make you feel and whether it succeeds.
And please learn the names of characters. (Further details on the
English Department’s goals for survey courses can be found here.)
> Take one midterm (20%), one final
(20%), and write one short two- to three-page essay (10%) and two longer four-
to six-page essays (20% each). A class
grade based on attendance, discussion, oral summaries
(more on this later) and quizzes (there's that word again!) will make up the
final 10%. You will have three chances
to write the two longer papers, and I will distribute suggested topics about
ten days in advance of each due date (though you will not be limited to those
topics). Plagiarism on papers,
electronic or the old-fashioned kind, will mean an instant F for the
assignment, my undying disapprobation, and possible disciplinary action by the
university; please refer to this site for further
details, and please please
please ask me if you have any questions.
REQUIRED TEXT:
The Norton Anthology of English
Literature, Vols. 1A, 1B and 1C. Ed. M.H. Abrams, et. al. 8th ed.(Norton,
2006;hence ANA , BNA, CNA)
Additonal Resources:
>Though
relevant documents (e.g., essay topics) will be posted on MyGateway,
the main course page will be at http://www.umsl.edu/~gradyf/F11SYLL2310.htm,
which can also be reached through my home page (www.umsl.edu/~gradyf).
>Norton maintains a very
useful web page designed to supplement our use of the Anthology at http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/, to which we will make frequent reference; in fact
some of the texts we’ll be reading are stored in their on-line archive.
TENTATIVE SYLLABUS:
M AUG 22 Introduction;
The
Wanderer (ANA 112-13)
W Aug 24 Old English (ANA 1-7); Beowulf ll. 1-1250 (ANA 29-61)
M AUG
29 The Battle of Maldon
(online
@ http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/01Maldon_1_6.pdf)
W AUG 31 Maldon, cont.; Caedmon’s
Hymn (ANA 24-27); The Dream of the Rood (ANA 27-29)
M SEP 5 Labor Day: No Class
W SEP 7 Marie de France, Lanval
(ANA 141-55); “Anglo-Norman
Literature” (ANA 7-10)
*F SEP 9 SHORT ESSAY DUE
DATE*
A
brief guide to quoting from the text
M SEP 12 Chaucer:
“Geoffrey Chaucer” (ANA
213-18) and General Prologue
to the Canterbury Tales 1-286 (ANA 218-225);
“Middle English Literature…” (ANA
10-14) and “Medieval
English” (ANA 15-19)
W SEP 14 Chaucer, Wife of Bath’s Prologue
(in translation on MyGateway; Middle English
is at ANA 257-75)
M SEP 19 Chaucer, Wife of Bath’s Tale (ANA 275-84)
W SEP 21 Gower, “The
Tale of Florent“ from Confessio Amantis (MyGateway)
M SEP 26 Medieval
and Renaissance Drama: Play
of Abraham and Isaac
(online @ http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/pdf/13BromePlay_1_12.pdf); Everyman ll. 1-392 (ANA 463-472);
The Elizabethan Theater (BNA
506-511); Marlowe, Doctor
Faustus, Scenes 1-3 (BNA 1022-32)
W SEP 28 Doctor
Faustus, Scenes 4-end (BNA 10355);
Medieval to Renaissance: “The Sixteenth
Century, 1485-1603” (BNA 485-506);
*F SEP 30 FIRST ESSAY DUE DATE *
M OCT 3 King Lear, Acts 1-2 (BNA 1139-80); “William
Shakespeare” (BNA
1058-60)
W OCT 5 King
Lear, Acts 3-4 (BNA 1180-1212)
M OCT 10 King Lear,
Act 5 (BNA 1213-23)
W OCT 12 King
Lear (concl); “The Early Seventeenth Century” (BNA 1235-51)
Samuel
Johnson on Lear, 1765
M OCT 17 MIDTERM
W OCT 19 16th- and
17th-century sonnets (poems
tba)
M OCT 24 sonnets
(cont.); John Donne (poems
tba); The
Revolution (BNA
1251-57)
W OCT 26 Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 1 (BNA 1830-50)
*F OCT 28 SECOND ESSAY DUE DATE*
M OCT 31 Paradise
Lost, Books 2 & 3 (BNA 1850-87)
W NOV 2 Paradise
Lost, Book 4 (BNA
1887-1908)
M NOV 7 Paradise
Lost, Books 5-6 (BNA 1908-1946)
W NOV 9 Paradise
Lost, Books 7 & 8 (BNA 1946-1973; you may skip Book 7)
M NOV 14 Paradise
Lost, Book 9 (BNA 1973-98)
W NOV 16 Paradise
Lost, Book 10 (BNA 1998-2021)
M NOV 21
Thanksgiving
Break: No Class
W NOV 23
M NOV 28 Paradise Lost, Books 11 & 12 (BNA 2021-55)
W NOV 30 Paradise Lost, concl.; Restoration and Eighteenth Century (CNA 2057-80)
M DEC 5 Pope, The Rape
of the Lock (CNA 2513-32)
W DEC 7 Pope, cont.; Conclusions
TH
DEC 8 *THIRD ESSAY DUE DATE*
W DEC 14 FINAL
EXAM 10:00-12:00
Students with disabilities who believe that they may need
accommodations in this class are encouraged to contact the Disability Access Services
Office in 144 Millennium Student Center at 516-6554 as soon as possible to ensure that such accommodations
are arranged in a timely fashion.