ENGLISH 365:
19th-Century
British Poetry and Prose
SPRING 2004
Stephen C. Behrendt
319 Andrews
phone: 472-1806
office: 1230-130 TR and by appointment
Joy M. Currie
331 Andrews
phone: 472-1805
office: 1030-1130 MWF
TEXT: The Longman Anthology of British Literature,
Second Edition, Vols. 2A and 2B
REQUIRED READING ASSIGNMENTS
Beginning page numbers for each selection are indicated in parentheses. Unless
otherwise indicated, you are to read the entire selection, as well as all introductions
to the authors. Many of these are excerpts rather than complete works; in these
cases you should read all of the excerpt provided in the anthology.
Tentative Schedule of Required Readings and Activities
* = turn in reading
notes in class on these days
Jan 13 T: Introduction to the
period, the culture,
and the expectations for this course
Here
is a link to a wonderful website on the history of Britain during the age of
George III (1760-1820).
Jan 15 R: The Earlier Romantics, 1: Robinson and Wordsworth
"The Romantics and their Contemporaries" (3)
Mary Robinson: "January, 1795" (216), "The Camp" (220), "London's Summer Morning" (222), "The Haunted Beach" (221), "The Old Beggar" (223); Robinson's Letter the the Women of England, on the Injustice of Mental Subordination
William Wordsworth: Lyrical Ballads (337), "Simon Lee" (338), "We Are Seven" (341), "Lines Written in Early Spring" (342), "The Thorn" (343), "Note to The Thorn" (348), "Expostulation and Reply" (350), "The Tables Turned" (350), "Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" (352), "Preface to Lyrical Ballads" (356)
For an excellent, interactive full text of all editions of Lyricals Ballads, with comments and apparatus, click here.
Here are some modern views of the ruins of Tintern Abbey.
And here is a hypertext biography of William Wordsworth.
_____
Jan 20 T: The Earlier Romantics, 2: Charlotte Smith, William Wordsworth and Dorothy Wordsworth
Charlotte Smith: "To Melancholy" (50), "Written in the Church Yard at Middleton in Sussex" (51), "On being cautioned against walking on a headland overlooking the sea" (52), "On the Departure of the Nightingale"
Here are some additonal on-line poems by Charlotte Smith
And here is a link to the full text of her Elegiac Sonnets, 7th edition, from a copy at UNL
Anne Hunter: "To The Nightingale," "A Ballad of the Eighteenth Century"
Here is the full text of Hunter's Poems (1802)
William Wordsworth: "The world is too much with us" (386), "Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802" (386), "London, 1802" (387), "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (453), "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" (454)
Dorothy Wordsworth: "Address to a Child" (469), "The Grasmere Journals" (478)
Here is a link to views of Dove Cottage, the home of William and Dorothy Wordsworth for many years.
Jan 22 R: The Earlier Romantics, 3: Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "Sonnet to the River Otter" (522), "The Eolian Harp" (522), "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" (524), "Kubla Khan" (545)
Want to know what kind of tree Coleridge meant by a "lime-tree"? Click here.
Jan 23 F: Last
day to withdraw from this course without a "W" on your permanent record
_____
Jan 27 T: Coleridge, concluded
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, Part 1" (526), "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"[1817] (528)
Here is a digital copy of a wonderful 1858 illustrated edition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (without the marginal glosses).
Mary Robinson: "To the Poet Coleridge" (225)
Jan 29R: A day for catching up
_____
Feb 3 T: Byron
George Gordon, Lord Byron: Don Juan, Dedication (668), Canto 1 (672) and excerpt from Canto 2 (717)
For the full text of Don Juan, click here.
Feb 5 R: Byron, continued
George Gordon, Lord Byron: "Stanzas" ("When a man..."; 745), "On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year" (746)
_____
* 10 T: The Younger Romantics, 1: Poetry, Politics, and Social Responsibility
Percy Bysshe Shelley: "To Wordsworth" (754), "Mont Blanc" (754), "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" (758), "Ozymandias" (760), "England in 1819" (761),"To a Sky-Lark" (773)
Feb 12 R: The Younger Romantics, 2
Percy Bysshe Shelley: "Ode to the West Wind" (771), selection from A Defence of Poetry (800)
For the full text of A Defence of Poetry, click here.
_____
Feb 17 T: The Younger Romantics, 3 Shelley and Keats
John Keats: "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" (854), "On sitting down to reading Lear once again" (864), "Sonnet: When I have fears" (865), "The Eve of St. Agnes" (865)
Feb 19 R: Keats
John Keats: "Ode to a Nightingale" (879), "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (882), "To Autumn" (886)
Want to hear a nightingale? Click here.
This link contains audio clips of four different readings of "To Autumn." The clips are at the bottom of the page.
And here are images of some of Keats' manuscripts.
_____
Feb 24 T: Directions of later Romanticism: Hemans
Felicia Hemans: "The Wife of Asdrubal" (812), "Evening Prayer, at a Girls' School" (818), "Casabianca" (819), Records of Woman (820), "The Bride of the Greek Isle" (820), "Properzia Rossi" (825), "The Homes of England" (833), "The Graves of a Household" (834)
Here is an 1863 illustration for Hemans' "Evening Prayer at a Girls' School"
For the full text of Hemans' Records of Woman (1828), click here.
Feb 26 R: Midterm
Examination
_____
Mar 2 T: Introduction to the Victorian
Period
"The Victorian Age" (1008)
Here is a link to a website called "The Peel Web," which covers Britain's history during Sir Robert Peel's major years, 1830-1850.
For a very large collection of images of Queen Victoria and her family members, click here.
And for even more fun, here is a link to The Victorian Dictionary, which has links to all aspects of British life during the Victorian era.
Mar 4 R: The Victorians and Work
Thomas Carlyle: Past and Present (1035; all selections);
Another Carlyle web portal is here.
For the complete text of Past and Present, click here.
And here are some critical comments on Past and Present.
Parliamentary Papers: (1053; both selections)
Charles Dickens: from Hard Times: [Coketown] (1057)
For the complete text of Dickens' Hard Times, click here.
Friedrich Engels: from The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (1060); review of Carlyle's Past and Present
For the complete text of The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, click here.
The Penny Magazine: a weekly magazine (1832-35) aimed at the working class
Mar 5 F: Last day to
change your grade status to or from "Pass / No Pass" for this course
_____
Mar 9 T: The Victorian Individual, and the
ordinary lives of the Victorians
John Stuart Mill: On Liberty (1075; both selections); The Subjection of Women (1086)
For the full text of On Liberty, click here.
For the full text of The Subjection of Women, click here.
Charles Darwin: The Descent of Man, Chapter 21: "General Summary and Conclusion" (1259)
For the full text of The Descent of Man, click here.
* 11 R:
19th-century British visual art
Here
is a link to the Tate
Gallery collections, the premier collection of British art.
For
a gateway portal to the arts during the Romantic era, click here.
For
a gateway portal to the arts during the Victorian era, click here.
_____
March 14 -21: Spring Break
- No Classes
_____
Mar 23 T: Charles
Dickens and Victorian Fiction
Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol (1357)
Here are some study materials and links for a Christmas Carol.
Mar 25 R: A Christmas Carol, continued;
see also "Dickens
and Christmas"
_____
Mar 30 T: Victorian Poetry,
1: Tennyson
Alfred, Lord Tennyson: "Mariana" (1139), "The Lady of Shalott" (1141), "Ulysses" (1150), "Tithonus" (1152), "Break, Break, Break" (1153), "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1195), "Crossing the Bar" (1229)
Apr 1 R: Tennyson, continued
Alfred, Lord Tennyson: selections from In Memoriam, A. H. H. (1165: specific sections will be assigned in class)
For the full text of In Memoriam, click here.
_____
Apr 6 T: Victorian Poetry, 2: Robert
Browning
Robert Browning: "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister" (1309), "My Last Duchess" (1311), "Home-Thoughts, from Abroad" (1314), "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church" (1315), "Love Among the Ruins" (1321), "Fra Lippo Lippi" (1328)
Apr 8 R: Victorian Poetry, 3: Elizabeth
Barrett Browning
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Sonnets from the Portuguese (1108; all selections), Prologue to "A Curse for a Nation" (1133), "A Musical Instrument" (1135), "The Best Thing in the World" (1136)
For a full text of Sonnets from the Portuguese, click here.
_____
Apr 13 T: A day for catching up
Apr 15 R: The
Victorian social context: read anthology selections as follows:
Frances Power Cobbe (1517), Sarah Stickney Ellis (1521), Caroline Norton (1528), Thomas Hughes (1536), Isabella Beeton (1538), Queen Victoria (1540)
Godey's Lady's Book: the most famous Victorian women's magazine
_____
*
20 T: Aesthetes,
Decadents, and the closing of the Victorian era
"Aesthetes, Decadence, and the Fin de Siècle" (1939)
James McNeill Whistler: from "Mr. Whistler's ‘Ten O'Clock'" (1945)
Here is the full text of "Mr Whistler's 'Ten O'Clock'."
Algernon Charles Swinburne: "The Leper" (1652), "Hymn to Proserpine" (1658), "A Forsaken Garden" (1661)
Apr 22 R: Aesthetes and Decadents, 2
Walter Pater: The Renaissance, Preface (1665) and Conclusion (1669).
For the full text of The Renaissance, click here
Oscar Wilde: "Impression du Matin" (1862), "The Harlot's House" (1863), "Symphony in Yellow" (1864), selection from The Decay of Lying (1864), Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray (1883)
For the full text of The Decay of Lying, click here.
For the full text of The Picture of Dorian Gray, click here.
_____
Apr 27 T: A week of review, reconsideration, some
tentative conclusions, and a look ahead
Course
Portfolio due IN CLASS today
Apr 29 R: Discussion concludes, as does the course
_____
Final Examination: 1:00
- 3:00 Wednesday, 5May