Junior Sem Home Page

 

Gail B. Sherman
Office Hours (CC 313): T, Th 2-3 and by app't.
extension 7278; home phone 245-0571 (before 10 PM, please)

This course offers a study of the methods and a sample of the materials of English literary history focusing on epic and novel, with texts ranging from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to Morrison's Paradise. In addition, there will be substantial reading in literary theory. We will consider questions about representation, narration, genre, literary authority, gender, intertextuality, and canon formation.

Texts: The following texts are available at the Reed Bookstore: Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales: The First Fragment (ed. Alexander) and The Wife of Bath (ed. Beidler); Milton, Paradise Lost (ed. Flanagan); Fielding, Joseph Andrews (ed. Goldberg); Shelley, Frankenstein (ed.McDonald and Scherf); Morrison, Paradise; Lentricchia, Critical Terms for Literary Studies; MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (fifth edition); pamphlet of critical readings. Additional texts have been recommended and are available in limited numbers: Kolln, Rhetorical Grammar; Cook, Line by Line : How to Improve Your Own Writing.

Writing &Due Dates: Writing assignments in this class aim to help you develop your skills in literary analysis, research, and evaluation of critical texts. In addition to frequent informal writing, assignments include a major project that will involve some group work to compile a critical casebook. Each student will write a long critical essay (12-15 pp., or 3000-4000 words), an annotated bibliography of 25 articles , and a critical history (5-6 pp., or 1500 words) of a text of your choice. The group will add a preface to the casebook, and prepare a collated annotated bibliography. I hope working in groups and learning to give and receive comments on written work, ideas, and research will lighten the burden of this large project, enliven and broaden your thinking about your project, and help you develop skills in analysis, cooperation, and communication. Please give me a hard copy of all writing assignments AND post electronic copies on the class folder for other members of the class to consult if necessary.

Electronic access: The course web page is located at <http://academic.reed.edu/english/courses/english301/. For various aspects of the class, we will use a blitzmail group mailing list (Eng301-302) as well as a class folder on the Griffin exchange.

Class participation: Active and informed participation in class discussion is an expected part of this course. Handing in written assignments but not participating actively in class discussion will not fulfill the minimum requirements of this course.

Week 1

  • August 29
    Introduction.
    Optional: noon-1PM Brown Bag lunch and Middle English
  • Aug 31
    Canons
    Patterson, "Literary History" in Lentricchia and McLaughlin, Critical Terms for Literary Study (hereafter CT); Menand, "Diversity" in CT; Guillory, "Canon" in CT
    Optional: noon-1PM Brown Bag Lunch and Middle English

Week 2

  • Sept. 5
    History and Historicisms
    Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (First Fragment) "The Knight's Tale"
    Coleman, "English Culture in the Fourteenth Century" in Boitani, Chaucer and the Italian Trecento and in pamphlet;
    "Historical Theory and Criticism" in Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism (hereafter JH).
    Optional: noon-1PM Brown Bag Lunch and Middle English

 

  • W Sept. 6: Precis of Coleman, Guillory or Menand due

 

  • Sept. 7
    History and Narration
    Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (First Fragment) "The Knight's Tale"
    De Man, "Literary History and Literary Modernity" in Blindness and Insight and in pamphlet;
    De Man in JH

 

Week 3

  • Sept. 12
    Genre
    Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (First Fragment) "The Knight's Tale"
    Miller, "Narrative" in CT;

     

  • W Sept. 13 Research proposal due

 

  • Sept. 14
    Epic, Romance, and/or Novel?
    Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (First Fragment) "The Knight's Tale;"
    Independently located critical essays and Ferster, Chaucer on Interpretation, ch.2.

Week 4

  • Sept. 19
    Reading and Representing Re-reading
    Chaucer, Canterbury Tales "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale"; "Biographical and Historical Contexts," Beidler 3-29; "
    Bakhtin, "Epic and Novel" in The Dialogic Imagination;
    Bakhtin in JH.

 

  • W Sept. 20 Knight's Tale Citation and Precis due

 

  • Sept. 21
    Chaucer, Canterbury Tales "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale"; "A Critical History of the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale," Beidler 89-114.
    Library Seminar Room (Lib 221): research and bibliography with Jack Levine.

  

 

Week 5

  • Sept. 26
    Genre and History.
    Chaucer, Canterbury Tales "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale";
    Harpham, "Ethics" in CT; Patterson and Finke essays in Beidler (133-154, 171-188).

     

  • Sept. 28
    Interpretation and Intertextuality.
    Chaucer, Canterbury Tales "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale";
    Graff, "Determinacy/Indeterminacy" in CT; Fradenburg and Leicester essays in Beidler (205-220; 234-254).

     

  • F Sept. 29: List of 15 Citations due

 

Week 6

  • Oct 3
    Authority, Tradition, and Innovation.
    Milton, Paradise Lost, I-II;
    Jehlen, "Gender" in CT; "Feminist Criticism . . ." in Beidler (255-269).

     

  • W Oct.4 Milton Web assignment #2 due

     

  • Oct 5
    Gender
    Milton, Paradise Lost, III-IV;
    "Feminist Theory and Criticism" in JH

 

  • F Oct.6 Partial annotated bibliography due, part I (5+ annotations, 20+ citations)

 

Week 7

  • Oct. 12
    Epic Beginnings
    Milton, Paradise Lost, V-VII
    Fish, "Rhetoric," in CT.

     

  • Oct. 14
    Representation and Intertextuality
    Milton, Paradise Lost, VII-VIII;
    Martin, The Ruins of Allegory, ch. 6 (pamphlet).

     

  • F Oct 13 Partial annotated bibliography due, part II (15+ annotations, 25 citations)

OCTOBER 14-22 FALL BREAK!

Week 8

  • Oct. 24
    Readers and Literary Authority
    Milton, Paradise Lost, IX-X;
    Fish, "The Interpretive Choice", Surprised by Sin , Ch. 5
    Fish in JH

     

  • Oct. 26
    Tradition, Innovation, and Misreading(s)
    Milton, Paradise Lost, X-XII; Bloom, "Clinamen, or Poetic Misprision" from The Anxiety of Influence (pamphlet); Renza, "Influence" in CT.
    Bloom in JH

     

  • F Oct. 27: RD of essay due

 

Week 9

  • Oct 31
    Genre and Gender
    Milton, Paradise Lost, I-XII
    Froula, "When Eve Reads Milton: Undoing the Classical Economy" in Canons, ed. von Hallberg (pamphlet).

     

  • Nov. 2
    Epic, History, and Representing Paradise
    Milton, Paradise Lost, I-XII.
    "Fiction Theory and Criticism," and "Narratology" in JHG

     

  • F Nov. 3: Annotated bibliography due (25 citations)

 

Week 10

  • Nov. 7
    Epic Beginnings?
    Fielding, Joseph Andrews;
    Watt, "The Reading Public and the Rise of the Novel," and "Fielding and the Epic Theory of the Novel" in The Rise of the Novel (pamphlet).

     

  • Nov. 9
    Novels and Narrative
    Fielding, Joseph Andrews;
    McKeon, "Watt's Rise of the Novel within the Tradition of the Rise of the Novel" (pamphlet).

 

  • F Nov. 10: Draft of critical history due

 

Week 11

  • M Nov. 13: Comments on essay rough drafts due to writers;
  • Fielding Web Assignment #3 due
    •  
  • Nov. 14
    Intertextuality
    Fielding, Joseph Andrews;
    Gallagher, "Nobody's Story" in Eighteenth-Century Literary History (pamphlet);

     

  • Nov. 16
    History and genre
    Shelley, Frankenstein;
    Hogle, "Frankenstein as Neo-Gothic" in Romanticism, history and the possibilities of genre (pamphlet).

 

Week 12

 

  • Nov. 21
    Epic Beginnings?
    Shelley, Frankenstein
    Bewell, "An Issue of Monstrous Desire: Frankenstein and Obstetrics." Yale Journal of Criticism. (1988): 104-128; (pamphlet).

 

  • Nov. 23 Thanksgiving

 

Week 13

 

  • Nov 28
    Gender and Genre
    Morrison, Paradise.
    Morrison, "Unspeakable Things Unspoken." Michigan Quarterly Review. 28 (1984): 1-34;

 

  • Nov 30
    Epic, History, and Representing Paradise
    Morrison, Paradise;
    Appiah, "Race" in CT.

 

  • Dec. 1 Final Draft of Essay and Critical History due

 

Week 14

  • Dec. 5
    Narratives and Endings
    Morrison, Paradise; Storace, "The Scripture of Utopia" (pamphlet)

 

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Last revised August 1999.
ContactGail.Sherman@Reed.edu with questions or comments about the course.