English 3351:003

British Literature I

Fall 2007

Thomas A. Ryan Tuesday/Thursday 11:00 a.m.-12:20 p.m.

202 Carlisle Hall 210 Preston Hall

817-272-2758 or 817-272-2692

Email: ryan@uta.edu Web page: http://www.uta.edu/english/TAR/tar.html

Office Hours: TR 1:00-1:50 p.m.

Text: Norton Anthology of English Literature. Eighth Edition, vols. 1A, 1B, 1C

Course Description: The primary focus of this course will be the literature of England from its beginnings to about 1800.

Course Goals: There are three interdependent goals that this course will seek to accomplish this semester. These goals are to acquaint students with a wide selection of works from the first ten centuries of British literature, to provide students with an understanding of literary history and the British literary tradition, and to enable students to read, appreciate, and explicate poetry. In order to accomplish these goals, the students will be asked to read the assigned literary texts and the introductions in the Norton Anthology, to participate in class discussions--both oral and electronic--, and to write explications of poems. I tentatively plan to devote part of each class period to explication of poetry to allow you to prepare for these explications.

Attendance and Drop Policy: Attendance in class and class participation are important. Frequent absences will have a deleterious effect on your grade. It is extremely important that you read the assigned material before coming to class. I will give reading quizzes, if necessary, as an incentive. If for some reason you cannot continue in the class, remember to officially drop the course. It is now against University policy for faculty members to drop students.

Course Requirements: In addition to a Midsemester and a Final Examination, both of which will be part Scantron and part essay/explication, four (4) explications (each three to five pages in length) will be required on poems to be assigned throughout the semester. These explications may be submitted electronically. Be sure to acknowledge and correctly document any secondary sources you use. Additionally, you will be encouraged to contribute to an ongoing electronic discussion about the reading assignments and your exploration of Internet resources for the course. You may join the class list by sending an email to listserv@listserv.uta.edu with the request “sub engl3351 Your Name” in the body of the email.

Course Evaluation and Final Grade: The two examinations (which will be part machine-graded multiple choice and part essay/explication) will count fifty (50) percent, the four out-of-class explications will count forty (40) percent, and your contributions to class discussion and the course list will count ten (10) percent. The in-class and out-of-class explications will be graded on their coherence, their use of evidence from the poems, the degree to which they convey thematic and formal insight into the work, and their writing mechanics.

Student Evaluation of Teaching: Toward the end of the semester, I shall ask your opinion of the course by having you complete the Student Evaluation of Teaching Survey.

Americans with Disabilities Act: The University of Texas at Arlington is on record as being committed to both the spirit and the letter of federal equal opportunity legislation; reference Public Law 93112: The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended. With the passage of new federal legislation entitled Americans with Disabilities Act [ADA], pursuant to section 504 of The Rehabilitation Act, there is renewed focus on providing this population with the same opportunities enjoyed by all citizens.

As a faculty member, I am required by law to provide "reasonable accommodation" to students with disabilities, so as not to discriminate on the basis of that disability. Student responsibility primarily rests with informing faculty at the beginning of the semester and in providing authorized documentation through designated administrative channels.

Academic Dishonesty: It is the philosophy of the University of Texas at Arlington that academic dishonesty is a completely unacceptable mode of conduct and will not be tolerated in any form. All persons involved in academic dishonesty will be disciplined in accordance with University regulations and procedures. Discipline may include suspension or expulsion from the University.

"Scholastic dishonesty includes but is not limited to cheating, plagiarism, collusion, the submission for credit of any work or materials that are attributable in whole or in part to another person, taking an examination for another person, any act designed to give unfair advantage to a student or the attempt to commit such acts." (Regents' Rules and Regulations, Part One, Chapter VI, Section 3, Subsection 3.2, Subdivision 3.22)

Tentative Schedule

Tu	Aug 28	Introduction
Th	Aug 30	Caedmon’s Hymn, “Dream of the Rood”; “The Wanderer,” “Judith,” “The Wife’s Lament”
Tu	Sep 4	Beowulf; AS Chronicle
Th	Sep 6	Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales: from The General Prologue; from The Parson's Tale
Tu	Sep 11	Chaucer, Miller's Tale; Wife of Bath's Prologue & Tale; Pardoner’s Tale
Th	Sep 13	Margery Kempe; Julian of Norwich; William Langland, Piers Plowman, Prologue, Passus VII, Passus XVIII
Tu	Sep 18	Arthurian Literature (119-127; 439-456); “Lanval,” Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Th	Sep 20	Presentation on Poetry Sonnets: Wyatt, Surrey, Shakespeare, and others
Tu	Sep 25	Sidney, The Defense of Poesy, Astrophil and Stella
Th	Sep 27	Spenser, The Faerie Queene: A Letter ...; Book One; Amoretti
Tu	Oct 2	Marlowe, The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus
Th	Oct 4	Shakespeare, King Lear
Tu	Oct 9	Shakespeare, King Lear, cont.
Th	Oct 11	Midsemester Test
Tu	Oct 16	Donne; Crashaw; Herbert, poems
Th	Oct 18	Jonson; Herrick; Marvell; etc., poems
Tu	Oct 23	Jonson, Volpone
Th	Oct 25	Milton, Paradise Lost, Books 1, 4, 9, 12
Tu	Oct 30	Pepys; Bunyan
Th	Nov 1	Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel; Mac Flecknoe; Criticism
Tu	Nov 6	Congreve, The Way of the World; Astell; Defoe
Th	Nov 8	Swift, Gulliver’s Travels: Part 3, Part 4
Tu	Nov 13	Pope, An Essay on Criticism, An Essay on Man
Th	Nov 15	Debating Women (2589ff); Hogarth
Tu	Nov 20	Gay, The Beggar’s Opera
Th	Nov 22	Thanksgiving
Tu	Nov 27	Johnson, A Dictionary . . ., The Preface to Shakespeare, Lives of the Poets
Th	Nov 29	Thomson, Gray
Tu	Dec 4	Goldsmith, Crabbe, Cowper
Th	Dec 6	Catch-up and Review
Tu	Dec 11	Final Examination, 11:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.