Fall 2005 | English 6175-01 | Victorian Literature
Professor - Dr. Gregg A. Hecimovich
Email | 252.328.4822
Office Hrs M, W - 11 AM - Noon; Erwin 221
Class Meets - MWF Noon - 12:50 PM, Bate 2024
Website - http://literature.typepad.com/english_6175
Podcast - search "victorian literature" at iTunes Music Store
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syllabus
course description
Why the fascination today with Victorian culture? From Merchant/Ivory and Douglas McGrath films to BBC mini-series recreations, from Jane Austen as one of Hollywood's hottest property to "Great Expectations" dating services, from big budget adaptatations (Polanski's Oliver Twist, September 2005) to underwear from Victoria's Secret-- nostalgic trips back to the nineteenth century are a major growth industry in the new century.
In this course we will read Victorian literature against the backdrop of today's revival of "Victoriana." Popular appropriations and misappropriations of the past have much to teach us about the real nature of the Victorians and about ourselves.
The course follows, in part, a course designed by my mentor, Jay Clayton at Vanderbilt University. It provides students an opportunity to explore how commerce produces culture-- from two perspectives, the nineteenth century and the twentieth. Students will study textual production and consumption and the silent control market forces hold over epistemology and ideology. The presence of the past will be explored as we contemplate the popular mediums of the serial novel and the circulating libraries both in the nineteenth century and in our own (movies and circulating libraries like Blockbuster Video). If the novel is a bourgeois invention designed to affirm the construction of the modern self, how do the great novels of the nineteenth century further that work in their latest incarnation in film and television? By focusing on sequences of works and juxtaposed works, this course examines how literature interrogates and revises received traditions. The course also provides, by using a comparative model, an understanding how literature, over time, reflects and records intellectual, perceptual, and aesthetic changes.
required texts.
• Trollope. The Warden. Oxford World Classics.
• Bronte. Jane Eyre. Penguin Classics.
• Dickens. David Copperfield. Penguin Classics.
• Thackeray. Vanity Fair. Penguin Classics.
• Altick. Victorian People and Ideas. Norton.
optional texts.
• Damrosch. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Volume 2B.
• The Barchester Chronicles DVD-Giles (1983/2005).
• Jane Eyre DVD-Amyes (1983/2005).
• David Copperfield DVD-Curtis (2000/2005).
• Vanity Fair DVD-Munden (1999/2003).
course goals.
The course has three primary goals. The first goal is to read critically and widely from representative Victorian Literature. Proceeding from this first goal, the second aim is to work toward some definition of the term "Victorian" in a modern context. How is the term useful? how is it misleading? what are its central tenets or competing ideas? how has the term influenced our own time?
Three ways of reading will inform our aims:
1. Text: we will study each work intrinsically as text, as a verbal unit of motifs and signs that interrelate and collectively shape the meaning the reader eventually understands. This is always the first level of understanding any work of literature.
2. The Text in Context: We will study each author's situation in its historical and social context, for no author writes in a vacuum. The author may be aware of how politics, society and history shape him or her, but more often than not the context is that vast pool of influences that acts as formatively on the creative imagination as does the subconscious. We may even argue that the latter is largely shaped by the former.
3. The Intertextuality of Texts: Texts are written because of other texts, even seemingly radical new ways of writing are transformations or reaction formations to previous texts. The key terms in intertextuality are therefore: allusion, influence, convention, genre, and archetype. The critical readings assigned at the outset of the course will prepare both our contextual and intertextual discussions.
By realizing the difficulty of our aims (as well as the need to attempt them), you should leave the class better prepared—and encouraged—to read those many writers not on our list but still important in shaping the literary history of the period.
By the end of the semester, you will have a strong base knowledge of nineteenth-century literature .
outcomes.
1) Critical Thinking Goals: By learning the skills of research, analysis, and reasoning, students prepare to become active participants in an ongoing dialog of ideas. Instruction in critical thinking helps students assess the ideas of others, discover their own creative/critical voice, and hone the skills needed for developing, supporting, and articulating their ideas. Critical thinking is thus an active component of reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
2) Reading Goals: Though silent, reading is nevertheless a dialogue between author and reader. Competence in this interactive enterprise demands of the reader skills of interrogation, clarification, evaluation, and adaptation to the text. Reading skills both depend upon and foster competence in critical thinking and writing.
3) Writing Goals: Far more than mechanics, writing is the very formulation and articulation of ideas. Competent writers need to be able to craft correct, coherent, and effective messages in a variety of genres for a variety of audiences. Effective writing depends on critical thinking and reading skills and on an understanding of the composing processes used by expert writers.
4) Speaking Goals: Effective oral presentations require the essential skills of critical thinking and writing as well as the agility to adapt message content and delivery to fit an immediate audience, establishing contact and credibility with that audience during the presentation. In addition to public speaking skills, competent speakers must be able to contribute to group discussions, advocating for their own ideas while fostering collaborative group interaction.
5) Listening Goals: Listening is not the same as hearing. Listening is an active skill, requiring understanding and technique as well as effort. Competent listeners do more than hear; they delay their responses while achieving understanding, use clarifying techniques to assess comprehension, and develop techniques to record and interpret what others say.
requirements.
Documented Paper - 45% / DSIR's, Reading Quizzes, Class participation - 15% / Context Report 10% / Examination 30%
There will be one major exam covering all our work up to Wed. Nov. 02 (the date of the exam).
There are three sections included in this examination:
1. multiple choice - this section is factual and based on the biographical and critical backgrounds to our readings; review your class lecture notes and notes from the course website;
2. identification - the second section is comprised of 10 quotations from our reading; you are responsible for identifying the work, the author, the speaker, and the significance of the passages you choose to identify;
3. essay - the final section holds one wide-ranging essay question; you are invited to choose one out of two that you wish to address.
The exam comprises %30 of your grade.
reading quizzes.
I will ask you to take periodic reading quizzes in this course. The times and dates for these quizzes appear on the course schedule. All reading quizzes will be conducted outside of class, on-line through blackboard. On days where I have asked you to complete a reading quiz, I will end class 10 minutes early to acknowledge the time spent out-of-class for these assignments.
papers and context report.
A. The Documented Paper (45%): Our course will include a documented research paper, that is, a graduate-level research paper. You will be expected to contextualize and intertextualize your interpretation of one or more of our readings. A simplistic comparison/contrast study that is exclusively based on your insights will not be acceptable. You should make use of materials placed online, as well as the Context Reports prepared by other class participants. A set of "Instigator Questions" will be provided before Thanksgiving break to and will help direct you to possible approaches for The Documented Paper.
Click here - Documented Paper Guidelines
B. The Context Report (10%): This is an exercise in research and summary; appropriate sources of information should be reviewed. Consultation in advance with the instructor is highly recommended.
For class presentation: Three to five students will be working on each report subject. Collaboration is expected when you share in a report. For the presentation to the class, presenters should work in concert to instruct, entertain, and delight the class. Note: direct your presentation to the class, not to the teacher. No more than a 10-15 minute group presentation is allowed (delinquents will be interrupted).
Click here - "Romanticism and language" (example)
Your presentation should be given from notes and should be creative. Costumes, play-acting, food, games, and other 'Illuminating' devices are expected. The group presentation should be designed to give classmates useful information on a subject that they might otherwise have had to research themselves-- and to do so in an entertaining and engaging fashion. Be clear, brief, and inventive!
Click here - Context Report Groups
Click here - Context Report Guidelines
grade reports.
When I complete grading an assignment, I will e-mail you a memo noting your score. The assignment will be returned the next class period. Periodically, I will also be sending you a comprehensive grade report informing you what grade you are currently earning in the class.
I want my grading to be open and transparent so you can best gauge where you stand.
course participation.
This is not a lecture course. The format of the course and its overall success depend upon your active and informed contributions. The response papers (or DSIR's) and reading quizzes (noted above) will allow you a couple of "formal" ways to guide and participate in class discussion. Note that 15% of your final grade will be determined by your participation including your work on DSIR's and Reading Quizzes (see Requirements). That means a significant portion of your grade will be up to you and how much you want to participate in the course’s various conversations.
Note: your participation grade also includes the quality and/or frequency of contributions; your supportiveness and quality of input during the paper conference also helps determine your seminar participation grade.
double-sided illuminated readings, or dsir's.
You will be required to submit a close reading (or brief analysis) for select class meetings. The close reading will be a critical analysis of some aspect of that day's assignment. The DSIR's will be a half-page typed or hand-written summary and critical analysis of that day's reading assignment.
Illustrations, mathematical equations, doodles are welcomed. These close readings should cite a passage from the reading, and then analyze and interpret the passage. You should consider these open, free, and informal. This is the place to muse freely. If you would like to see some examples please click the following: example 1, example 2, example 3, and example 4.
DSIR's cannot be made up or turned in after class. If you know you will not be in class to turn yours in, make arrangements to have someone else turn it in for you.
attendance policy.
You need to be in class all the time. I allow up to five absences, whether excused or unexcused. Each absence after that will lower your final grade 20 points. Ten or more absences will result in a failing grade.
accommodation for special needs.
East Carolina University seeks to fully comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Students requesting accommodation based on a covered disability must go to the Department for Disability Services, located in Brewster A-114, to verify the disability before any accommodations can occur. The telephone number is 252-328-6799.
plagarism.
The ECU student handbook defines plagiarism as “Copying the language, structure, ideas and/or thoughts of another and adopting some as one’s own original work.” Be aware that the writing you do for this course must be your work and, primarily, your words. It is proper to incorporate the words of other from articles, essays, and interviews as evidence in support of your ideas, but when you do so, you should be sure to cite the source appropriately. We will talk about citation during the course. Penalties for plagiarism are severe—they can include failing the course, suspension, or even expulsion from the university, so be sure to see me about any doubts you may have before you turn in an assignment.
