Sept 3: Opening day, introduction to course.
Sept 5: Please do the following things, which will get you centered for the course: (i) send me an e-mail message so that I know you have an e-mail account and that you are in the class; (ii) read the opening "Glossary of Aesthetic Terms" at the beginning of the coursepack; (iii) read Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel (selections in coursepack); read Chapter 3 of E. J. Clery's The Rise of Supernatural Fiction 1762-1800, which is entitled "The Uses of History" (I will give this material to you on Sept. 3); read the introductory material in the Horace Walpole, Castle of Otranto. This means that you should read the Robert Mack introduction, and the two introductions written by Walpole. I've also included in the bulkpack an excellent introductory essay on Walpole, which you should examine if only for the pictures and to see what else Walpole wrote during his life. In class, we will concentrate on the Watt, the Clery, and Walpole's second introduction. ARTICLE SUMMARY DUE FOR WATT.
Sept 8-10: Read Chapters 2 and 5 from Thomas Lacqueur, Making Sex. Read Edmund Burke, "On Taste" and A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and the Beautiful (1758): Part I, Sections II, VI-XV; Part II, Sections I-VIII, and Part III, Sections I-XVIII. On Monday, we will focus on ideas of sexual difference as they work in first 40 pages of Castle of Otranto in comparison to Burke's highly gendered notions of the sublime and the beautiful. Questions for Monday: if you set up two columns, and in one note all that is sublime in the first half of Walpole, and in the other note all that is beautiful in Walpole, are they as cleanly gendered as Burke makes them? Do these columns confirm or contradict Lacqueur's claims in Making Sex about the Eighteenth Century's "discovery" of sexual difference? On Wednesday, we will look at "On Taste" and at how emotion and sympathy work in the first 40 pages of Walpole and especially in Walpole's Dedicatory Sonnet. Questions for Wednesday: How do emotion and sympathy work in this novel? Is emotion a subversive force in this novel or the opposite? Or both?
Sept 12: Read Peter Gay, "The Enlightenment in Its World" (selections in coursepack) and Immanuel Kant, "An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?" (1784, in coursepack). In class:we will focus on how emotion--particularly fear--operates in this novel. Question: Based on how Manfred attempts to manipulate sex and sexual desire in this novel, would you interpret Walpole as sympathetic or hostile to the Enlightenment?
Sept 15: Read the first seven chapters of The Italian. As this is a complex novel, I've supplied you with a plot summary of The Italian (in coursepack). ALSO: Read the article by Eve Sedgwick, "The Character in the Veil: Imagery of the Surface in the Gothic Novel." ARTICLE SUMMARY DUE
Sept 17: Read to Volume Two, Chapter Two of The Italian. Read Michel Foucault, "Panopticism" (in Discipline and Punish). Question: How does the architecture of San Stefano express power?
Sept 19: Landscape and The Italian. Read: Chapter 6 and Chapter 8 of E. J. Clery, The Rise of Supernatural Fiction. Look again at Burke's Philosophical Enquiry (selections above). Question: What is the relation between Burke's theories of the sublime and Foucault's analysis on the Panopticon? Why then does Ellena derive so much relief and pleasure from the sublime when at San Stefano?
Sept 22: Read through the end of Volume II of The Italian. Read the first three parts of Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality (through the chapter Scientia Sexualis). Question: Why is Schedoni called "The Confessor"? What light does Foucault shed on the relation between confession, the inquisition, penance, and sadomasochism?
Sept 24: Continue The Italian. You will find Chapters 6-8 (only about 35 pages) of E. J. Clery's The Rise of Supernatural Fiction extremely useful here. We will work from the response questions, and from your own questions.
Sept 26: Finish The Italian.
Sept 29: Begin The Monk; finish the first Volume One. Read Eve Sedgwick, "Toward the Gothic: Terrorism and Homosexual Panic." Question: Using Paulo-Vivaldi as a segue, go to Matilda-Ambrosio: how does power work in their relationship? What are the vague moments?
Oct 1: Read the next two chapters--to Volume Two, Chapter Three (through Raymond's interlude).
Oct 3: Finish Volume II of The Monk. Read Chapter 6 of Thomas Lacqueur, Making Sex. ARTICLE SUMMARY DUE.
Oct 6: Finish The Monk. Read Chapter 9 of E. J. Clery, The Rise of Supernatural Fiction.
Oct 8: Read select reviews of The Monk (in coursepack), and Coleridge's reviews of The Monk and The Italian (in coursepack). For Discussion: Samuel Coleridge, Christabel (first book).
Oct 10: Finish Christabel. Read Karen Swann, "'Christabel': The Wandering Mother and the Enigma of Form." >Essay #1 Due.
Oct 13: FALL BREAK
Oct 15: Interlude #1: Who read? Reread the selections from Ian Watt's Rise of the Novel (1957) from the first day of class, and read the following three articles and/or book chapters: Chapter 5 of E. J. Clery's The Rise of Supernatural Fiction; Jan Fergus, "Eighteenth-Century Readers in Provincial England: The Customers of Samuel Clay's Circulating Library and Bookshop in Warwick 1770-72," and Edward Jacobs, "Anonymous Signatures: Circulating Libraries, Conventionality, and the Production of Gothic Romances."
Oct 17: Interlude #2: Why did they read? Read Anna Letitia Barbauld, "On the Pleasure Derived from Objects of Terror, With Sir Bertrand, A Fragment"; David Hume, "Of Tragedy."; Edmund Burke "On Tragedy" (Part I, Section XIV of A Philosophical Enquiry); and Joanna Baillie "Introductory Discourse" (selections in coursepack).
Oct 20: Interlude #3: How have we viewed them? Read David Punter, "Introduction" and "Origins of Gothic Fiction" in The Literature of Terror (1980), and Anne Williams, "Introduction" to Art of Darkness: A Poetics of Gothic (1994).
Oct 22: Romances and Anti-Romances. Begin Northanger Abbey (first three chapters). Read Mary Wollstonecraft, Preface to the Female Reader (1789).
Oct 24: Finish Volume One of Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (through Chapter 15). Read Marilyn Butler, "The Juvenalia and Northanger Abbey" in Jane Austen the War of Ideas (1975). Essay #2 Due.
Oct 27: Austen and Conduct Literature. Read John Gregory, A Father's Legacy to His Daughters (selections).
Oct 29: Continue Northanger Abbey. Read Anna Clark, "Women's Pain, Men's Pleasure: Rape in the Late Eighteenth Century,". Read Enid G. Hildebrand, "Jane Austen and the Law".
Oct 31: Finish Northanger
Abbey. Read Lawrence Stone, "Sex,
Money, and Murder in Eighteenth-Century England."
Nov 3: Begin Mary Wollstonecraft, The
Wrongs of Woman. Question: Why does Wollstonecraft open by
referring to Gothic?
Nov 5: Continue The
Wrongs of Woman. Read Katherine Binhammer, "The Sex Panic of the
1790s." ARTICLE SUMMARY DUE.
Nov 7: The
Wrongs of Woman. Read James Grantham Turner, "The Properties of
Libertinism." ARTICLE SUMMARY DUE
Nov 10: Read The Rules. Question: Is The
Wrongs of Woman a conduct book? In what way?
Nov 12: Finish The
Wrongs of Woman. The question of the endings.
Nov 14: Read Joanna Baillie, Orra.
Nov 17: Finish Orra.
Nov 19: Read Acts 1-2 of Percy Shelley, The
Cenci.
Nov 21: Read Acts 3-4 of Percy Shelley, The
Cenci.
Nov 24: Finish Percy Shelley, The
Cenci.
Nov 26: Long
Essay Due.
Nov 27: Thanksgiving.
Dec 1: Read John Keats, Isabella, or The Pot
of
Basil.
Dec 3: Finish Isabella, or The Pot
of
Basil. Begin John Keats, The Eve of St.
Agnes.
Dec 5: Finish The Eve of St.
Agnes. Read as well John Keats, "La Belle Dame Sans
Merci."
Dec 8: Last day of class.
PORTFOLIO DUE DECEMBER 12TH AT 4:00 PM AT MY OFFICE.
Also, this course will have an electronic mailing list (known as a
listserver) that will have all of our names on it. If you send a message
to gamer250@dept.english.upenn.edu,
your message will go to everyone in the class. This way, you will be able
to do many things: 1) conduct discussions outside of class, 2) ask for
information on what we did in class if you miss a meeting, 3) test paper
ideas out on each other, 4) brainstorm regarding the final exam, etc. On
the first day of class, I will, as part of our first assignment, get those
of you who know about e-mail to take twenty minutes to teach those of you
who don't know about e-mail how to use it. Michael and I are more than
willing to set up group appointments with you in order to teach you how to
use this technology--so if you feel lost, you simply need to say so.
IF YOU ARE SHY, HERE'S WHAT TO DO: Simply bring in one question
that you want to ask the rest of us AND ASK IT--and you should, when
possible, choose interpretive questions ("I don't understand how these two
passages can be part of the same poem") rather than factual questions
("When did Robinson write this?") In particular, I urge you to pay
special attention to those points where you don't understand something in
the reading--where you've tried to find out the answer for yourself and
failed--because they are the most important for the class.
Plagiarism: I will report all instances of Plagiarism to the
Office of Student Conduct. If you have any doubts over whether you're
plagiarizing from something, please come see me or the course's WATU
Tutor.
COMPUTER INFORMATION:
You are required to have an electronic mail account: I do not
require you to use the world wide web, or any of the internet, but an
electronic mail account--and checking it at least a couple of times a
week--is required. Until you send an electronic mail message to
me, I will not consider you registered for the class, and I will
drop those of you on the course lists who do not get electronic mail
accounts. I do this because I will use electronic mail as my chief way of
making course announcements, sending out reminders, and communicating with
you.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Attendance: As this is a 50-minute class, please show up on time
or even early. Regarding Absences: since I know that disasters happen
unexpectedly during the semester, I allow you three absences.
Therefore, please do NOT explain to me why you miss class unless it
involves a major illness that you can document. Since there's no such
thing in this class as an "excused" absence, I don't want to know why you
miss class; these two absences are your business. Missing more than two
classes is equally your business, but it will significantly lower your
grade, since it will inhibit your ability to contribute significantly to
our discussions. You should count on 3-4 absences lowering your grade by
1/3 (B to B-, for example), 5-6 by 2/3 (B to C+), 7-8 by one full grade (B
to C), etc. More than 10 will constitute failing the course.
Participation: This class will conduct itself as a discussion
rather than a lecture. I say this now because I do not want anyone taking
this class to expect it to be a lecture class. I do sometimes lecture for
5-15 minute stretches, but the bulk of our time will be spent in real
discussion, and the topics of our discussion will be determined as much by
your intellectual interests as by my own. This means that you should
expect class periods to be intense and often fun--a place to test out your
own ideas about what we're reading. You can expect me to come in every
class with 50 minutes of my own agenda planned; in turn, I will expect the
25 of you to have at least 25 minutes of questions, observations, and
discoveries about the reading. Students who do not participate in our
discussions will most likely see their final grade go down; the four or
five students who end up carrying much of the burden of discussion will
probably see their hard work reflected in their grade as well.
Reading and Writing Assignments: As this course is a
lower-level, introductory course, I am assuming that you have little or no
experience in reading poetry. Consequently, the reading load for this
course is relatively light (usually under 6 hours per week), and the
writing load for this course is relatively heavy (several one-paragraph
article summaries, four short one-paragraph discussion "instigators," five
listserv responses, two short essays, and a longer essay with an annotated
bibliography attached to it). Instructions concerning all of these
assignments are below.
GRADED WORK FOR THIS COURSE:
Your grade will be determined by three components: the quality of your
in-class performance (including the article summaries, the paragraphs, and
the listserver responses, 25% of your grade), your performance on the
final exam 25% of your grade), and the quality of the portfolio of work
that you hand in at the end of the semester (50% of grade). These various
assignments are listed and described below:
Late Work and Extensions:
During the semester, I DO NOT
ACCEPT LATE WORK. If you do not make a deadline, it does not directly
affect your grade; you simply lose that opportunity for me to read your
work and provide you with feedback. For example, if you miss the second
paper deadline, you simply lose that opportunity for me to read your work
and help you with feedback. I do this because I do not want anything to
do with the hassles of students asking for extensions, bringing excuses,
etc. I will only read each paper you write once before the portfolio.
However, I am happy to discuss work in progress with you during my office
hours or by appointment; and will be very happy to talk with you about an
essay that I've commented upon. It is a good idea to bring in a draft
with specific questions about it. It is much more instructive to discuss
specific questions and writing problems in a draft than general, abstract
questions concerning your writing.