English
931: English
931:
Symposium in Romanticism --
British Women Poets of the Romantic Period
Fall 2007
Stephen C. Behrendt
319 Andrews Hall
472-1806
Office: 10-30-11:30 MWF
and by appointment
TEXTS:
British Women Poets of the Romantic Era: An Anthology. Ed. Paula R. Feldman. 1997.
Women’s Writing of the Romantic Period, 1789-1836. Ed. Harriet Devine Jump. 1997.
Some of our materials will be accessed on-line via the Internet. Other resources include the British Women Romantic Poets project at UC, Davis and local archives (like UNL’s Corvey collection and the associated websites. Plan also to read widely and eclectically in criticism and theory, especially feminist theory and reception theory, and in period criticism and biography.
AIM:
I have set up this symposium so that we may explore together some of the poetry written and published by women in the British Isles during the Romantic era, c. 1780-1835. These poets were a large and active group who in many cases knew one another’s work, as well as the poetry and prose of their male contemporaries, and who participated in a complex and richly textured conversation in print. Many of these poets were well known in their lifetimes and exerted considerable influence upon British writing; in many cases, their names (and their reputations) remained prominent until quite late in the nineteenth century. Then in the twentieth century, the enculturation of a male-centered academic culture, together with the rise of New Criticism (which held the literature of Romanticism in low regard anyway) led to the marginalization and neglect of the women poets (and many of their male contemporaries), so that for many generations “British Romanticism” was largely summed up in the poetry of five (or six) male poets, plus the novels of Walter Scott (which also lost status) and Jane Austen (who was typically regarded as an “eighteenth-century” novelist).
In our own time, scholars and readers generally have begun to rediscover these poets and to reassess their place in the literary and cultural history of Great Britain. This process of recovery and reassessment, which has in recent years begun to consider also laboring-class writers (of both sexes) has initiated a wholesale reassessment of the literary landscape of British Romanticism. Our task is to consider both the poetry itself and the larger cultural, critical, theoretical, and pedagogical implications of these breathtaking changes.
We will study a wide range of writers, using Paula Feldman’s excellent anthology to generate some overall sense of this diverse material and to begin to examine some of the crucial issues of canonicity, periodicity, and aesthetics that emerge when women’s poetry is considered both with and against that of their male contemporaries. I envision this symposium as a “workshop,” in part because we are likely to have members who are not specialists in 18th-century or Romantic-er literature and whose primary interests may well be in areas like Composition and Rhetoric or Creative Writing, if not in the literature of other historical periods entirely. Therefore we shall use the Romantic-era women poets, in at least one respect, as “test cases” for examining issues of canonicity, periodicity, and the dynamics of literary reputation, and for asking some of the questions relating to aesthetics and valuation that arise whenever the traditional canon (or any canon, for that matter) is interrogated.. At the same time, we will consider some of the issues that are at the forefront of contemporary literary and cultural studies, including the place of electronic scholarship in the profession (some of which we will examine), the principles of scholarly editing (including the preparation of electronic texts), and the revision of curricular and pedagogical models. We will also venture into areas of Women’s Studies including feminist approaches to literature and the cultural status of women (and women writers) both today and two centuries ago.
Everyone will have the opportunity to design a symposium project that best reflects and suits her or his individual interests and professional goals. Some may opt for a traditional research essay, others may take up an editorial project, others may wish to create electronic texts or other materials, and still others will propose other options (I am quite open to negotiation). I will work individually with each of you to help you design and focus these projects, and I will make available for your assistance whatever resources I have in my own collections and archives.
TEACHING METHOD:
This will be a symposium in the true sense of the word. We will work as colleagues in a study group, pooling our efforts, our experiences, and our energies to contribute – both individually and collectively – to remapping the Romantic literary landscape. I want our sessions to be conversational in nature and collaborative in function. This may be unsettling to some of you, at least at first, considering that we will be studying materials that in many cases have gone largely unexamined for well over a century. One thing we will need to teach ourselves, then, is how to evaluate such materials without resorting unthinkingly to the sort of gendered assumptions that have governed literary history during the past century-plus. To that end I will also furnish bibliographies and other finding guides for materials not included in our assigned readings. For example, Love Library holds the Corvey Collection of Romantic-era literary works (more than three thousand titles in English alone), and among these are many volumes of poetry. We also have access to on-line resources, some of which are housed here at UNL, and to which you are welcome to contribute.
In addition to our regular assigned reading, then, I will ask each of you to explore some of these riches and to report back to us on your findings. This will allow us to expand exponentially the number of texts and authors we cover, allowing us to get a still wider view of the scene.
We will also consider issues of pedagogy as they bear upon our subject. How – and why – does one teach these poets and their works? What issues govern everything from the text selection of texts to in-class approaches to the work of teaching? And who decides? What are the appropriate scholarly, intellectual, critical, theoretical, and pedagogical considerations involved in recovering and reassessing (including teaching) historically underrepresented texts and their authors in a twenty-first century academic culture?
SYMPOSIUM REQUIREMENTS:
A preliminary note on Discussion. This is a “given,” a prerequisite for any advanced study in the field, whether in this department or elsewhere. As a study group we are, by definition, partners and collaborators. Only if each of you are willing to participate and contribute in this fashion to do so can we achieve our full potential as a study group. For some who may not be entirely comfortable with spontaneous and candid discussion, this requirement may seem difficult. It is, however, a requirement that I set with full awareness of how small graduate courses operate elsewhere. You are implicitly both peers with – and competitors of – those other students, and you will remain so both in the job market and, more important, in the intellectual life to which you have committed yourself in this profession. Practice now, among congenial companions, the skills you will need later on for success – indeed for survival – in the profession.
1. Each of you will present, and lead the discussion over, one poet from the syllabus. Probably, given our projected numbers, I will ask at least two of you to prepare to lead discussions (sometimes over the same poet, sometimes on different ones) at any given session. When you are not presenting or leading the discussion, I expect each of you to join fully and generously in the group discussions.
2. Each of you will prepare some sort of symposium project appropriate to a 900-level graduate seminar. This may take the form of a conventional research paper (and article), a scholarly edition of another poet, selected from one of our resources, an annotated edition or other production (including electronic), or another project upon which we can agree to our mutual satisfaction.
3. We may decide among ourselves to do brief, informal “position papers” to help us frame up our discussions. Any such position papers will be short and conversational in nature.
OTHER NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS:
Because we will be working both as a study group and as a compact of discrete scholars working on individual projects, we will all need to budget our time and resources effectively and – perhaps most important of all – to keep one another appraised of how we are doing on each of these tasks. I will set up a discussion list for your convenience in interacting with one another outside our weekly sessions (I will also circulate your phone and email contacts). I will also do whatever I can to assist you with your individual projects, and I will serve as a liaison with the appropriate resource people at Love Library (and elsewhere) with whom you will work over the course of this semester, and beyond. Please keep me posted, therefore, on the evolving design and progress of your work and on anything you may need from me as you proceed.
Please feel free to contact me at any time with questions, comments, complaints, uncertainties, or whatever. I teach at 930-1020 MWF and will often be in (or near) my office for most of the day on Monday (before our symposium meets), Wednesday, and Friday. I am not scheduling office time on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but we should be able to work out alternatives if need be. In any case, it is a good idea to make an appointment for times other than my regularly scheduled office hours.
Because I have young children at home, I’d appreciate your not calling me at home. Leave a message on my office answering machine or with the Department Receptionist in 202 Andrews, or in my mailbox on the second floor. Or email me; there is a direct email link on the course web page.