ENGLISH 4/865: Romanticism
FALL 1998
Stephen C. Behrendt
337B Andrews; 472-1806
sbehrend@unlinfo.unl.edu
office: 1030-1130 MW, 130-230 W
Tentative Schedule and Required Reading
Notes:
- For all authors on this reading list, the introductory notes are required reading, along with the reading selections listed for those authors.
- Mellor/Matlak anthology: numbers in parentheses indicate page on which individual selections begin.
- Readings are generally grouped by week; we will normally consider them in the approximate order in which they are listed, but you should prepare the week's readings in advance so that we can consider the full range of texts and issues they represent at each of our meetings for the week.
Aug 24 (M)Introductory considerations: background, assumptions, and expectations about British Romanticism, its contexts and the issues that defined it - and that define it today
-----
Aug 31 (M) 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)
recommended supplementary reading:
Gaull, English Romanticism: The Human Context
from Curran: Simpson, "Romanticism, criticism and theory"
Sep 4 (F) --Last day to drop this course without it appearing on your permanent record. If you drop this course after today it will still appear on your permanent record with a 'W.'
-----
Sep 7 (M) Labor Day Holiday -- no class meeting
Sep 9 (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)
-----
Sep 14 (M) Romanticism, "the people," 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)
recommended supplementary reading
from Curran: Dawson, "Poetry in an age of revolution"
-----
Sep 21 (M) Romanticism and Women, I
"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)
Lucy Aikin, Epistles on Women, Exemplifying Their Character and Condition in Various Ages and Nations (816)
recommended supplementary reading
from Curran: Curran, "Women readers, women writers"
-----
Sep 28 (M) Romanticism and Women, II
Mary Hays, The Victim of Prejudice
Sep 30 (W) *** mid-term examinations due today ***
-----
Oct 5 (M) Romanticism and the Arts
recommended supplementary reading
from Curran: Eaves, "The sister arts in British Romanticism"
William Vaughan, Romanticism and Art
read selectively (your choice) from the selections in Mellor and Matlack, section 6, "Aesthetic Theory and Literary Criticism" (pp. 125-161)
Oct 7 (W) 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)
-----
Oct 12 (M) 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)
recommended supplementary reading
from Curran: Butler, "Culture's medium: the role of the review"
Oct 16 (F) --Last day to change your course registration to or from 'Pass / Fail.'
-----
Oct 19 (M) Fall Semester Break - no class meeting
Oct 21 (W) 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)
-----
Oct 26 (M) 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)
recommended supplementary reading
from Curran: Brown, "Romanticism and Enlightenment"
-----
Nov 2 (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)
recommended supplementary reading
from Curran: Thorslev, "German Romantic Idealism"
-----
Nov 9 (M) Questioning Romantic Idealism
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
Nov 13 F --Last day to withdraw from this course.
-----
Nov 16 (M) 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)
recommended supplementary reading
from Curran: Curran, "Romantic poetry: why and wherefore?"
-----
Nov 23 (M) Romantic Drama
Byron, Manfred, A Dramatic Poem (927)
P. B. Shelley, The Cenci (1069)
Peake, Presumption (in the Broadview Frankenstein)
Hemans, The Siege of Valencia (1190)
26-29 Thanksgiving Holiday
-----
Nov 30 M The Romantic Drama, continued
Dec 4 F 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)
*** Course Projects due IN CLASS today ***
-----
Dec 9 (M) Remapping the landscape of the Romantic literary community: Review and final considerations for British Romanticism in 1998
recommended supplementary reading
from Curran: Kelly, "Romantic fiction"
-----
Final Examination: 1:00 - 3:00 Friday, 18 December