Spring 2007
Mondays, 7-9:30 pm
4019 Wescoe Hall

Professor Kathryn Conrad
Office hours:  202 Nunemaker, Tuesdays 1-3 pm; other days & times by appointment
Office phone: 4-3314
E-mail (best way to reach me): kconrad @ ku.edu
Course website:  http://people.ku.edu/~kconrad/314s07.html
Blackboard website (for discussion blogs, grades): https://courseware.ku.edu/webapps/login/?campus_id=1

Prerequisites (from University timetable):
    Admission to English courses numbered 300 and above is limited to students who have completed the freshman-sophomore English requirements or their equivalents. All students are required to enroll in ENGL 101 and to remain continuously enrolled in ENGL 101 or ENGL 102 until ENGL 102 (or ENGL 105) has been completed.   All CLAS students, as well as students from several other schools, are also required to complete a 200-level English class.
 
Enrollment (from University timetable) : Students may neither add nor change sections in any English course after January 25, 2007,, without departmental permission. For courses numbered above 200, instructor's permission is required to add or change sections.
    The Department of English reserves the right to terminate administratively the enrollment of any student who misses two consecutive class meetings during the first two weeks of the semester. Should an emergency situation cause the student to miss two consecutive class meetings, the student should contact the instructor or the English Department, 864-4520, immediately. Students are expected to submit promptly requests to drop should they decide to disenroll from English classes.

Course description and texts:
This course is a survey of British literature of the Romantic, Victorian, Modernist, and contemporary periods. We will be concerned in this course not only with close readings of the literature and literary form but also with some of the political and social issues that serve as context for the literature. Our readings will include essays, poetry, drama, short fiction, and novels. Do note that this will be a poetry-intensive course.

    These books are available for purchase.

• Damrosch, David, ed. The Longman Anthology of British Literature, 3rd edition, vols. 2A, 2B, and 2C.  
• Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre.  Norton.
• Recommended: Lunsford, Andrea A.  The Everyday Writer.  3rd ed.  Boston & New York:  Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005.
  

1. 15%:  Attendance, participation in discussion (online and in class), group work, and short assignments.  Students will be expected to access materials online and participate in Blackboard discussion blogs. Students must participate in the Blake blog, the Virginia Woolf blog, any blog discussions that replaced days cancelled by the University or Prof. Conrad, and at least four others. Students are responsible for keeping track of their blog postings. All readings and blog postings to be completed by date listed on the syllabus.  Students are expected to attend every class and should contact me by e-mail (kconrad @ ku.edu)  before your absence if you must miss class. All unexcused absences will negatively impact a student's grade.  Three unexcused absences will result in failure of this course.  Students are responsible for keeping track of their own absences.
 2.  30%:  Exams: a midterm and final examination (identification and short essay) as listed on the syllabus. (15 % each.)
 3.  55%:  Two papers of 2000 words (approx. 7 pages).  Paper topics will be available online two weeks prior to the due date; see links to topics below in the Reading and Assignment schedule. At least one paper must be on a poem.  Please see plagiarism policy below.  Paper topics and guidelines for papers are also available on the Blackboard website.

• Students with Disabilities: The staff of Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD), 135 Strong (Lawrence), 785-864-2620 (v/tty), coordinates accommodations and services for KU courses. If you have a disability for which you may request accommodation in KU classes and have not contacted them, please do as soon as possible. Please also see me privately in regard to this course (Adopted from SSD statement).
• Writing Center:  Most colleges and universities have a writing center, a place for students to talk about their writing with trained peer consultants. At KU, we call our writing centers Writer's Roosts.  When you visit, bring your work in progress and an idea of what you would like to work on-organization, support, documentation, editing, etc.  The Roosts are open in several different locations across campus; please check the website at http://www.writing.ku.edu/ for current locations and hours. The Roosts welcome both drop-ins and appointments, and there is no charge for their services. For more information, please call 864-2399 or send an e-mail to writing@ku.edu (Adopted from Writing Center Statement).
• External links:  The Blackboard website contains a list of relevant external links.
• Weather cancellations:  Call 864-SNOW to discover whether classes have been cancelled by the University due to inclement weather.

Back to top of page

Reading and assignment schedule 

    This schedule is likely to change.  For the most accurate reading and assignment schedule, pay attention to updates given in class.  Updates will eventually be reflected on this website.  
    All readings should be completed by the day listed on the syllabus.  Online discussions are listed on the date on which they are likely to start; the due date for participating in the discussion for credit is listed in parentheses (although of course you are welcome to discuss beyond the deadline).  All texts, including online discussion texts, marked with * before them are fair game for the midterm and final, even if not discussed in the classroom.  Check this site before studying for the exam for the most up-to-date list of fair-game texts.

January 22: Introduction.
Course outline and goals.
Introduction to the Romantic period.
Online discussion (before Jan 29):  Blake, from *Songs of Innocence and *Songs of Experience 156-166; 169-183. 
Recommended:  Browse illuminated Blake plates at The William Blake Archive.  (It'll take you a few clicks to get to the pictures, but once there, you'll have a huge range of choices.  When you get to an actual poem, you can use the center menu to look at different versions [click the "compare" button] and you can also enlarge the images.)

January 29: The Romantic period (Longman Vol 2A)
Blake, poems from *Songs of Innocence and *Songs of Experience 156-166; 169-183
see also color plates 6 - 9 at the beginning of Vol 2A
browse Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell 183-196
Blake, "Jerusalem" at Poet's Corner (also available on Wikipedia and other sites.) 
Recommended:  Browse illuminated Blake plates at The William Blake Archive.  (see note above)
Online discussion (before Feb 5 class): W. Wordsworth, *"Preface to Lyrical Ballads" 408-420.

February 5: The Romantic period
W. Wordsworth,*"Preface to Lyrical Ballads" 408-420
  *"Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802  450
  *"I wandered lonely as a cloud" 526
  *"Ode:  Intimations of Immortality..." 528 
 "Surprized by joy" 536
D. Wordsworth, *"A Field of Daffodils," from Grasmere Journals 555
    "Thoughts on My Sick-bed" 548
Joanna Baillie, *"London" 362
Online discussion (before Feb 12 class): Robinson and Coleridge.

February 12: The Romantic period
Coleridge
  *"The Eolian Harp" 572
  *"Kubla Khan" (with preface) 614
  *"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" 580
Mary Robinson, *"To the Poet Coleridge" 616
Online discussion (before Feb 19 class): Shelley and Keats.

February 19: The Romantic period
Keats
  *"La Belle Dame sans Mercy" (both versions) 946-949
  *"Ode on a Grecian Urn" 955
Shelley
    from *"A Defence of Poetry" 867-876
    "To Wordsworth" 816
  *"Ozymandias" 823
  *"Ode to the West Wind" 835 

February 26:The Romantic period & the Victorian period.
Bronte, *Jane Eyre (1st half, through Jane's arrival at Thornfield.)
Online discussion (before March 5 class): *Jane Eyre.

[Back to top of page]

March 5: The Romantic period & the Victorian period (Longman Vol 2B)
First draft of paper #1 due.
Bronte,*Jane Eyre (finish).
Online discussion (before March 12 class):  Jane Eyre, part 2

March 12:
MIDTERM EXAMINATION. No rescheduling without detailed medical documentation. Exam will only take 1 1/2 hours.

March 16, 11:59 pm:  Final draft of paper #1 due.  If you don't have it by 5 pm, send it by e-mail (.rtf, .doc, or .pdf--.txt if you're desperate) and bring a hard copy to class on March 17.

March 19:  SPRING BREAK
Note: asterisks from here on out denote material that is fair game for the final.

March 26: The Victorian period
C. Rossetti, *"Goblin Market" 1731
Darwin, from *The Descent of Man 1362-68
R. Browning, *"Porphyria's Lover" 1411
  *"My Last Duchess"  1415
Arnold, *"Dover Beach" 1662
Recommended: Scott McCloud's adaptation of "Porphyria's Lover" and Anthony Hecht's "Dover Bitch" 1663.
Online discussion (before April 2 class): Modernism 

-REMINDER:  Have you done your 4 required blog postings yet (not counting Blake and Woolf)?-

April 2: The Modern Period (Longman Vol 2C)
*Vorticist manifesto 2310
Eliot, *"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" 2509-2512
Yeats, *"The Second Coming" 2399
          "Sailing to Byzantium" 2401
Online discussion (before April 9 class): Joyce.

[Back to top of page]

April 9: The Modern Period
Joyce, *"Nausicaa," from Ulysses 2473-2495
Joyce, selection from Finnegans Wake 2501-2505.  Browse this selection before class; we will discuss a different selection from the Wake in class, which I will distribute on this date.
Online discussion (before April 16 class): Woolf.

April 16: The Modern Period
Virginia Woolf, *Mrs. Dalloway (first half, through page 2608).
Online discussion (before April 23 class): Woolf, part 2.

April 23: The Modern Period
Virginia Woolf,* Mrs. Dalloway (finish).
Online discussion (before April 30 class): Auden. 

April 30: The Modern Period
First draft of paper #2 due.
Auden, *"Museé des Beaux Arts" 2903
Bruegel's Icarus painting at http://web.sbu.edu/theology/bychkov/bruegel_icarus.html
  "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" 2904
  "Lullaby" 2908
  *"September 1, 1939" 2909
Online discussion (before May 7 class):  What is British literature?

May 7: Contemporary "British" Literature
Last day; final evaluations
Heaney, *"Punishment" 3057
ní Dhomhnaill, "Why I Choose to Write in Irish, or, The Corpse That Sits Up and Talks Back" 3100-3108
  *"As for the Quince" 3099
Monty Python, *"Travel Agent" 2832 
Walcott, *"A Far Cry from Africa" 3047
[Note: online discussion after May 7 class does not count as one of the 4 total required discussion postings, although it does count toward the more general participation grade.]

May 11 (STOP DAY): Final draft of paper due by 5 pm.  You may drop off a copy with the receptionist at Nunemaker or send it to me at my e-mail address.  

May 14:
FINAL EXAMINATION, 7-9 pm (NOTE: regular classroom, regular time).  Rescheduling available for students with conflicting final examination times, following University rescheduling rules. Students must make arrangements prior to May 11.

[Back to top of page]
[Back to top of reading and assignment schedule]