J. M. W. Turner. Chichester Canal (1830-31)
ENGLISH 4/865: ROMANTICISM
Presession 2001
J. M. W. Turner. Chichester Canal (1830-31)
Stephen C. Behrendt
314 Andrews; 472-1806
sbehrendt1@unl.edu
office: 1230-130 WMR
and by appointment
Required Text: Richard
Matlak and Anne Mellor, British Literature, 1780-1830
Notes:
- For all authors on this reading list, the introductory notes are required reading, along with the reading selections listed for those authors.
- Matlak/Mellor anthology: numbers in parentheses indicate page on which individual selections begin.
- Readings are generally grouped by day; we will normally consider them in the approximate order in which they are listed, but you should prepare all the assigned readings in advance so that we can consider the full range of texts and issues they represent at each of our daily meetings.
Tentative Schedule and Required Reading
May 21 M
Introductory considerations: background, assumptions, and expectations about British Romanticism, its contexts and the issues that defined it - and that define it today
the period; sample texts; visual art and culture; electronic (and other) resources for the study of Romanticism
------
22 T
Defining (and redefining) Romanticism: traits, characteristics, variables, and the times
"French Revolution. . . " section introduction (9)
Burke, from Reflections on the Revolution in France (13)
Wollstonecraft, from A Vindication of the Rights of Men (20)
Paine, from The Rights of Man (25)
Barbauld, from Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation (171)
W. Wordsworth, An Evening Walk [handout]
Coleridge, Conciones ad Populum, from "Introductory Address" (684), "Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement" (693), "Fears in Solitude" (694)
------
23 W
Romanticism and Slavery
"Slavery. . ." section introduction (53)
Cugoano, from Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species (58)
Equiano, from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vasa, the African (192)
Cowper, "The Negro's Complaint" (62) "Pity for Poor Africans" (63)
Southey, "The Sailor, Who Had served in the Slave Trade" (68)
More, Slavery, A Poem (206)
Barbauld, Epistle to William Wilberforce, Esq. on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade (169)
Blake, "The Little Black Boy" (278)
Opie, "The Black Man's Lament" (82)
-----
24 R
Romanticism, "the people," children, and the poor
"Society and Political Economy" section introduction (85)
Godwin, from Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness (90)
Malthus, from An Essay on the Principle of Population (96)
More, Village Politics (210), "Patient Joe; or, The Newcastle Collier" (216), "The Riot;, or, Half A Loaf Is Better Than No Bread" (217), "The Gin Shop; or, a Peep into Prison" (219)
Blake, "The Chimney Sweeper" [Inn.] (279); "The Chimney Sweeper" [Exp.] (300),"Holy Thursday [Inn.] (280), "Holy Thursday" [Exp.] (300), "The Little Vagabond" (302), "London" (302), ""The Schoolboy" (283)
Baillie, "A Winter's Day" (433)
Robinson, "The Wint'ry Day" (346), "A London Summer Morning" (347), "January, 1795" (348), "The Old Beggar" (350)
Opie, "The Orphan Boy's Tale" (557), "Lines Respectfully Inscribed to the Society for the Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debt" (558)
W. Wordsworth, "Michael, a Pastoral Poem" (586), "The Solitary Reaper" (599)
-----
25 F
Romanticism and Women
"Rights of Woman" section introduction (31)
Catherine Sawbridge Macaulay Graham, from Letters on Education (34)
Mary Hays, from Letters and Essays, Moral and Miscellaneous (37); from Appeal to the men of Great Britain in Behalf of Women (38)
Richard Polwhele, from The Unsex'd Females (42)
Priscilla Bell Wakefield, from Reflections on the Present Condition of the Female Sex, with Suggestions for its Improvement (45)
Wollstonecraft, from Vindication of the Rights of Woman (371)
Barbauld, "The Rights of Woman" (186)
Blake, Visions of the Daughters of Albion (294)
Edgeworth, from Belinda, "Rights of Woman" (541)
D. Wordsworth, "Thoughts on My Sick-Bed" (669)
-----
May 28 M Memorial Day holiday - no class meeting
------
29 T
The Work of William Blake
Taylor, "The Star" (839), "A Pair" (841)
Blake, all the selections from Songs of Innocence (277), all the selections from Songs of Experience (299), The [First] Book of Urizen (304), letter to Rev. Dr. Trusler (311), extract from A Vision of the Last Judgment (316)also read selectively (your choice) from the selections in Mellor and Matlack, section 6, "Aesthetic Theory and Literary Criticism" (pp. 125-161)
------
30 W
The Romantic Collection: Lyrical Ballads, Lyrical Tales
W. Wordsworth, "Lines Written at a Small Distance from My House, . . ." (564), "Simon Lee . . ." (564), "We Are Seven" (566), "Lines Written in Early Spring" (567), "The Thorn" (567), "Expostulation and Reply" (571), "The Tables Turned . . ." (571), "Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798" (573), extract Preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (573)
Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere (698) and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (734), "The Nightingale . . ." (707)
Robinson, "All Alone" (320), "The Poor, Singing Dame" (322), "The Haunted Beach" (323), "Deborah's Parrot" (324), "The Alien Boy" (326)
------
31 R
The Romantic First-Person Discursive Mode
Smith, "The Emigrants" (231), "Beachy Head" (244)
W. Wordsworth, "Ode" (603), "Resolution and Independence" (593)
Keats, excerpt from "Sleep and Poetry" (1257)
-----
June 1 F
Romanticism, Sensibility, and Sentiment
Adam Smith, from The Theory of Moral Sentiments (141)
Mary Wollstonecraft, from Mary, A Fiction (144), from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman (144)
W. Wordsworth, "Strange Fits of Passion I Have Known" (582), "Song [She dwelt among th' untrodden ways]" (582), "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal" (582), "Lucy Gray" (583)
D. Wordsworth, "Floating Island at Hawkshead, . . ." (659), "Irregular Verses" (667), "Thoughts on My Sick-Bed" (669)
Coleridge, "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" (709)
Lamb, "The Old Familiar Faces" (799)
Keats, "La Belle Dame sans Merci" (1278), "Ode on Melancholy" (1298), "When I have fears that I may cease to be" (1312)
Hemans, "The Homes of England" (1241)
Landon, "Love's Last Lesson" (1386), "Revenge" (1394)
------
4 M
Romanticism and the Sublime
Burke, from A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (134)
Gilpin, from Three Essays: On Picturesque Beauty, On Picturesque Travel, and On Sketching Landscape (138)
Coleridge, "Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement" (693), "Kubla Khan: or A Vision in a Dream" (729)
P. B. Shelley, "Mont Blanc . . ." (1063), "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" (1065), "Ode to the West Wind" (1101)
Keats, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" (1257)
-----
5 T
Romanticism and the Resurgence of the Sonnet
Smith, from Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Poems--sonnets I, XXVII, XXXV [To Fortitude], XLIII, XLIV [. . . Church-yard . . .], XLVII [To Fancy], LVII [To Dependence], LIX [. . . September 1791 . . .], LXV [. . . Dr. Parry . . .], LXX [On Being Cautioned . . .], LXXIV [The Winter Night], LXXXIV [To the Muse], XCI [Reflections . . .] (these are pp. 227-30)
Coleridge, excerpt from "Lecture Six" of the Bristol Lectures (689)
W. Wordsworth, NOTE: read in the following order: "I Griev'd for Buonaparte" (597), "Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1803" (596), "It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free" (596), "On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic" (597), "To Toussaint L'ouverture" (598), "Composed by the Sea-Side, near Calais, August, 1802" (597), "Calais, August, 1802" (597), "September 1st, 1802" (598), "Written in London, September, 1802" (598), "London, 1802" (599), "The World Is Too Much with Us; Late and Soon" (596), "It Is Not to Be Thought" (599)
P. B. Shelley, "Sonnet: England in 1819" (1166)
Keats, "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles" (1261), "On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again" (1311), "Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art" (1311)
-----
6 W
The Romantic Dilemma
Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale" (1296), "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (1297), "Ode to Psyche" (1295)
Hemans, "Woman and Fame" (1247)
Landon, "Felicia Hemans" (1401)
------
7 R
Remapping the landscape of the Romantic literary community:
Review and final considerations for British Romanticism in 1998A review and reconsideration; the future of Romantics studies
-----
Final Examination: 9:30 - 12:00 Friday, 8 June
