Description and Goals
We will study important literary works from the mid-nineteenth century through the high modern period within their historical contexts, aiming to establish connections across time between different writers, genres, and eras. The course is designed to give you a sense of literary history, an understanding of some central texts, and a grasp of how British literature and its readers have developed in the past century and a half. You will be required to read carefully and to write critically. The course will combine lecture and discussion.

This website, which reflects the outlines of the course only, may not reflect all aspects of the class as it is taught in the current semester. Download the current syllabus for an accurate calendar and list of requirements.

Texts (all required)
Abrams et al.The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 7th edition, Volume II    OR 
Abrams et al., The Victorian Age and The Twentieth Century (Vols 2B and 2C of the Norton Anthology, Vol. II)
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (Penguin)
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)

Requirements
Weekly writings (50% of your final grade). You will prepare for class each week by writing responses to study questions on the week's reading. These writing assignments will help you better understand the readings and prepare you to write about them in greater depth in the midterms and final. Study questions will be due at the start of class each Tuesday. Since we will go over these questions in class, no late writings can be accepted. Your lowest weekly writing grade will be dropped at the end of the semester.

Exams (40% of your final grade). There will be two midterms and a final exam (see calendar on current syllabus for exact dates).

Attendance and Participation. Students who participate constructively in class learn more, increase the quality of the class, and introduce important ideas and questions. If you participate regularly and constructively (speaking at least once, and preferably more often, per class meeting) you will receive a bonus, based on my estimate of the value of your contribution, on your final grade. Conversely, if your participation is negative - whispering with friends, passing notes, chowing down on a noisy meal, leaving litter behind, sleeping in class, etc. - you will receive a deduction, based on my estimate of the value of your behavior, from your final grade.

I do not reprise class for students who are absent; if you miss class, have another student discuss his or her notes with you. Then, if you have further questions that they are unable to answer, contact me. You're responsible for finding out about any assignments, due dates, and announcements and for fulfilling them on time. Extra handouts and worksheets will be available after class on the front of my office door for pickup anytime.

Readings
How to Prepare for Class
All readings listed on the calendar below are required and you will be tested on them as well as on the information and ideas I present in lecture. Though poetry readings may seem short in number of pages, you are unlikely to understand any poem until you have read it at least three times. An apparently short poetry assignment of ten pages may actually take you longer to read fully than a longer prose assignment. Read with your pen in hand; take notes, underline and look up unfamiliar words, and note questions and ideas you want to introduce later in class. If you have trouble understanding something, mark the point at which you first became confused.

Though I will be explicating some of these readings in class, you will ultimately responsible for understanding all of them to a reasonable degree.

Always read the brief biographical summary that precedes each author's works in the Norton.

Introduction to course.
Lecture on key issues and historical context of Victorian period. To increase your knowledge of these ideas, read the essay "The Victorian Age" in the Norton.

The Victorian Web - your scholarly source for all things Victorian!

Robert Browning: shorter poems
Lecture notes on Browning (.pdf file)
Lecture notes on the interior monologue (.pdf file)

About Robert Browning

Alfred, Lord Tennyson: shorter poems
Lecture notes on Tennyson (.pdf file)

Mythweb's condensed version of the story of Odysseus
Introduction to Arthurian legend, from slider.com
A vetted list of scholarly Arthurian websites, from an online syllabus

Listen to Tennyson read the opening of "The Charge of the Light Brigade"

About Alfred Tennyson

Industrialization and culture
Lecture notes on industrialization (pdf file)

About Victorian social history and technology

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Lecture notes on plot in Great Expectations (.pdf file)

About Charles Dickens
Overview of Freudian theory from Victorian Web

Midterm 2. The midterm will require you to (1) identify the source and significance of several brief excerpts from course readings and (2) discuss the significance of a passage from Victorian literature that is representative of the key issues and ideas of the era.

Weeks
10 and 11

William Butler Yeats: shorter poems 
Lecture notes on Yeats and his poetry (.pdf file)

Listen to Yeats read "The Lake Isle of Innisfree."

About William Butler Yeats

Literature of the Wars
Pieter Breughel the Elder, "The Fall of Icarus" (painting)

The myth of Icarus and Daedalus

Lecture notes on 20th-century war poetry (.pdf file)