Fall 2003
Office: Founders 101
Email (the most reliable way to reach me): “Alison Hickey” on FirstClass or ahickey@wellesley.edu
Phone: x2572
Office hours: Tues., Fri., 2:45-4:00 by appointment and other times by appointment.

Required: The Longman Anthology of British Literature, vol. 2A: The Romantics and Their Contemporaries, 2nd. ed., ed. Susan Wolfson and Peter Manning.
Optional: Blake, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience (Dover).
Additional texts to be distributed in class or via FirstClass.

(subject to adjustment--please listen for announcements in class and check FirstClass conference regularly)

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT WEDNESDAYS: This class has an extra session every other Wednesday from 9:50 to 11:00, starting Wednesday, Sept. 17. The syllabus as it stands follows the official “ALT 1" schedule (minus the first Wednesday), but if everyone in the group is willing and able, we may customize the distribution of Wednesday meetings over the course of the semester. If you haven’t yet committed your non-ALT1 Wednesday 9:50 slots to some other worthy endeavor, please try to keep them free until we can come up with a plan we all love. Note the optional rhythm and meter workshop on Wed. 11 Sept.

Tues. 2 Sept. Introduction. William Blake: Songs of Innocence and Experience.

Wed. 3 Sept. No class.

Fri. 5 Sept. Introduction to the Romantic period (to be distributed).
Introduction to Blake in Longman anthology.
Blake: Songs of Innocence and Experience--read all the selections; emphasize “Introduction,” “The Lamb,” “The Little Black Boy,” “The Chimney Sweeper” (Innocence and Experience versions), “The Divine Image,” “Holy Thursday” (Innocence and Experience versions), “Nurse's Song” (Innocence and Experience versions, the latter to be distributed), “The Clod and the Pebble,” “The Tyger,” “The Sick Rose,” “Ah Sun-Flower,” “The Garden of Love,” “London,” “A Poison Tree,” “A Divine Image”; “Auguries of Innocence.”
Note Color Plates 6-9.

Recommended websites (gorgeous reproductions of Blake's illuminated books):

http://www.blakearchive.org/ (Blake Archive)

http://www.blakearchive.org:80/cgi-bin/nph-dweb/blake/Illuminated-Book/SONGSIE/@Generic__CollectionView;cv=java (access to several editions of Songs of Innocence and Experience).

You can navigate down from the former address to the latter. I recommend browsing around, comparing plates from different editions, and seeing what else there is to see.

Tues. 9 Sept. Blake: Songs of Innocence and Experience, continued. “Proverbs of Hell” from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Plates 3 (from “Without contraries”) through 10 (pp. 137-41). Optional: “There Is No Natural Religion [a],” “There Is No Natural Religion [b].”

Wed. 11 Sept. Optional rhythm and meter workshop. If you can't make it, I can meet with you individually or in small groups at some other time.

Fri. 12 Sept. More Blake. Visit to Special Collections to see Songs of Innocence.

Tues. 16 Sept. Introduction to Wordsworth and Lyrical Ballads in Longman.
Wordsworth: from Preface to Lyrical Ballads (356ff); from Lyrical Ballads: “Simon Lee,” “We Are Seven,” “The Thorn” and note, “Expostulation and Reply,” “The Tables Turned,” “Lucy” poems (pp. 363-67).
Optional: “Companion Readings” starting on p. 380 (highly entertaining reading!).
Optional: “Michael.”
Recommended website: http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/LB/ (Lyrical Ballads, an electronic scholarly edition)

Wed. 17 Sept. Introduction to Coleridge in Longman.
Coleridge: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (read both the excerpt of the 1798 version starting on p. 526 and the whole of the 1817 version starting on p. 528; from Table Talk (p. 544).

Fri. 19 Sept. Coleridge: “Kubla Khan,” including Coleridge's note. Optional: Christabel.

Tues. 23 Sept. Coleridge: “The Eolian Harp,” “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison,” “Frost at Midnight.”

Wed. 24 Sept., 12:30-2:15 p.m. (optional): Triple Helix Piano Trio lecture-performance: “A Fresh Look at Felix Mendelssohn’s World,” Jewett Auditorium. Open to the public, free of charge.
For more about Triple Helix, see http://www.wellesley.edu/Music/triplehelix.html

Sun. 28 Sept., 7 p.m. (optional) Triple Helix Piano Trio performs Beethoven and Mendelssohn, Houghton Memorial Chapel. Open to the public, free of charge.

Tues. 30 Sept. Wordsworth: “There Was a Boy”; Prelude, from Book 1 (read headnote on pp. 388-89; then start with line 272 and read through the end of Book 1--or, better yet, go ahead and read the whole book); from Book 2; Book 11, lines 243-397 (“spots of time”).

Wed. 1 Oct. Wordsworth: Prelude, continued from above; and from Book 5 (as excerpted in Longman). Optional: Book 6, lines 488-572 (Travelling in the Alps; Simplon Pass); from Book 13 (at least through line 119, plus “Concluding Retrospect and Prophecy”).

Fri. 3 Oct. Introduction to Dorothy Wordsworth in Longman.
Readings in Dorothy (and William) Wordsworth to be drawn from the following: Alfoxden and Grasmere journals (excerpts in the anthology, plus Alfoxden entries to be distributed); “Grasmere–A Fragment,” “Floating Island,” “Thoughts on My Sick-bed”; William Wordsworth: “A Night-Piece” (compare Dorothy’s journal entry for 25 January 1798, to be distributed), “Nutting” (compare “Grasmere–A Fragment”), “Resolution and Independence” (compare 3 October 1800), “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (compare 15 April 1802).

Tues. 7 Oct. Coleridge: “Dejection: An Ode,” “Work Without Hope,” “Constancy to an Ideal Object,” “Epitaph”; from Biographia Literaria, chapter 13 (pp. 573-75).
Optional: “To William Wordsworth” (to be distributed).
*First possible day to start working on take-home midterm assignment. The assignment is designed to take a few intense hours, but you'll be allowed to work on it over 48 hours. The questions will be available through FirstClass. You may start the work at any time between today and the submission deadline of midnight on Wed., Oct. 22 (i.e., 12 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 23). The completed assignment must be submitted within 48 hours of the start time, on or before the general deadline, by email attachment (Mac users, be sure to include the extension “.doc”). If you are traveling during break, be sure to plan ahead to ensure smooth electronic transactions. If you do not have 24/7 access to a networked computer and it would pose a significant hardship for you to download and submit your exam electronically, please see me. You are on your honor to confine your work to a 48-hour period, start to finish. This does NOT mean that I expect anyone to work on the exam non-stop for two days–just that I want to give you the flexibility to find several hours within a two-day period of your choice between Oct. 7 and 22.

Fri. 10 Oct. Wordsworth: “My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold,” “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.”
Optional: “Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle.”

FALL BREAK

Wed. 15 Oct. Introduction to Barbauld in Longman.
Barbauld: “The Mouse’s Petition to Dr. Priestley,” “On a Lady’s Writing,” “To a Little Invisible Being Who Is Expected Soon to Become Visible,” “Washing-Day,” “The First Fire.”

Fri. 17 Oct. Introduction to Robinson in Longman.
Robinson: “The Haunted Beach,” “London’s Summer Morning,” “To the Poet Coleridge.”
Wordsworth, “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802” (compare to “London’s Summer Morning”)
Start Shelley assignment: “To Wordsworth.”

Tues. 21 Oct. Introduction to Shelley in Longman.
Shelley: “To Wordsworth,” “Ozymandias,” “Sonnet: England in 1819," lines from Epipsychidion (to be distributed), essay “On Love” (to be distributed).

*Wed., Oct. 22, midnight (aka 12 a.m. on Thursday). Deadline for submitting midterm. See above for details.

GENERAL ASSIGNMENT: Introduction to Longman anthology by end of next week.

Fri. 24 Oct. “Mont Blanc,” “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty.”

Tues. 28 Oct. Shelley: from A Defence of Poetry (as excerpted in Longman); “Ode to the West Wind.”

Wed. 29 Oct. “Ode to the West Wind” (concluded), “To a Sky-Lark,” late lyrics (to be distributed).

Thurs. 30 Oct., 8 p.m. (also Monday the 27th and Saturday the 28th) Boston Symphony Orchestra. All-Berlioz program, including “Harold in Italy,” inspired by Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. (Not free, alas, but I’ll investigate discount possibilities.)

Fri. 31 Oct. Keats’s birthday!
Introduction to Byron in Longman.
Byron: “‘Manfred’ and Its Time,” pp. 638-44; “Prometheus”; from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, cantos 3 and 4 (as excerpted).
Optional: Manfred, act 2, scenes 1 and 2; more from “‘Manfred’ and Its Time”; Shelley: from Julian and Maddalo (to be distributed).

Tuesday 4 Nov. TANNER CONFERENCE. No class.

Fri. 7 Nov. Byron: Don Juan, canto 1; letters (as excerpted in Longman, plus photocopies). Be sure to read headnote to Don Juan; skip “Dedication” (or read it if you like), and proceed to canto 1.
John Wilson and John Scott on Byron, pp. 666-67.

Tues. 11 Nov. Introduction to Felicia Hemans in Longman.
“Evening Prayer, at a Girls’ School,” “Casabianca,”“Indian Woman’s Death-Song,” “The Homes of England,” “The Graves of a Household,” “Corinne at the Capitol,” “Woman and Fame.”
Companion readings.

Wed. 12 Nov. Introduction to Keats in Longman.
Keats: “On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer,” “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles,” “When I Have Fears”; letters through p. 904, plus letter to Woodhouse starting on p. 907.
Optional: Lockhart, from “On the Cockney School of Poetry.”
For more Keats letters (when the library’s closed): http://www.john-keats.com/

Fri. 14 Nov. Keats: The Eve of St. Agnes, “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”; letters to Bailey on pp. 900 (reread) and 907.

Tues. 18 Nov. Keats: continued.

Fri. 21 Nov. Keats: “Ode to Psyche,” “Ode to a Nightingale”; letters, through p. 912.
Optional: The Fall of Hyperion.

Tues. 25 Nov. Keats: “Ode to a Nightingale” (continued) “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Ode on Indolence,” “Ode on Melancholy.”

THANKSGIVING BREAK

Tues. 2 Dec. Keats: odes, continued.

TO BE SCHEDULED–possibly Wed. 3 Dec.: Visit to Special Collections to see first editions and manuscripts of Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Hemans, and others.

Fri. 5 Dec. More Keats.

*Tues. 9 Dec. Keats: “When I Have Fears” (reread), “To Autumn,” “Bright Star,” “This Living Hand”; letters on pp. 913-15.
Optional: Christopher Ricks, “Taking Leave,” from Keats and Embarrassment.
*Second paper due (approx. 1200-1600 words) by 3:00 in my box in Founders 103 or by email attachment. Suggested topics to be distributed.
NOTE: If you'd like to receive comments, attach a large self-addressed envelope (with adequate postage if you give an off-campus address).

A. Attendance and class participation. I expect everyone to participate actively in the course. “Participation” includes contribution to class discussions, but I recognize the value of other kinds of participation as well (posts to the conference, informal conversation, setting up a study group: anything that helps to make the course a vital, intelligent organism). It is important that you attend every class and arrive on time. Missing more than two classes without a compelling excuse will have a negative effect on your grade.

B. Papers and exams. The course requires two short papers, a take-home open-book midterm assignment, and a self-scheduled final exam (2-1/2 hours). See above for details.

C. FirstClass conference. I've set up a FirstClass conference for the course. I envision this as a forum for enthusiastic discussion, questions, answers, advice, last-minute changes to the syllabus--whatever seems most interesting and useful. The conference will be a good place for you to suggest topics for class discussion, to pursue or clarify points raised in class, and to work out ideas for papers.
To get to the conference, go to Wellesley Conferences>Courses>Eng>Eng241-F03. I’ll also take the liberty of putting the shortcut on your desktops once enrollment is settled.

D. Memorization (optional). I encourage you to commit to memory some lines of your choice. (It'll be fun--really!--and it will gain you a bit of extra credit.) You're cordially invited to come recite your lines to me in my office. I'll also offer bonus points on the final exam to anyone who writes out fourteen or more memorized lines. The purpose of this exercise is to help you to hear the voices of the Romantic poets in your mind's ear.

E. Visits to Special Collections. Two visits: one to see Blake’s Songs of Innocence; the other to see first editions and manuscripts of Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Hemans, and others. For information about Special Collections: http://www.wellesley.edu/Library/SpecColl/SCstart.html

F. Further reading and websites. There's a modest selection of books on reserve at Clapp, and I'll be mentioning more along the way. I'll also call your attention to useful websites as the occasion arises. To start with, I enthusiastically recommend the superb Romantics page on the Voice of the Shuttle site: http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2750
The Wellesley Library page has an excellent list of resources for literary study: http://www.wellesley.edu/Library/Research/english.html

G. Grading. The grade you earn will reflect the following:

If your work improves over the course of the semester, the later grades will bear more weight.