Updated: May 5, 2008
Weekly Assignments
Week 1: Jan. 14-18
Familiarize yourself with the website and all its features. E-mail me with questions.
Assignment
Read Alexander Pope, "Essay on Man." You will find this poem on the Pope site/ Poetry.
(Note: Pope is this poet's last name. He is not the Pope of the Catholic Church!)
Week 2: Jan. 22-26
Assignment
Study Alexander Pope's site: eighteenth century music, painting, cosmos, and revolution.
Response paper # 1 due Mon., Jan. 28 at noon: After viewing and listening to the files on my site on the eighteenth century and reading "Essay on Man" try to characterize what it might feel like to live in this era. In other words, would you feel enlivened (upbeat) by Newton's discoveries and the spirit of revolution and enlightenment or would you feel like Pope, rather afraid? Also, comment on the mood or tone of the music and on the painting of this period. Why are there so many depictions of classical (Greek or Roman) subjects? This may be clearer to you after you read the information on the Revolution. Remember this is primarily a response on Pope, so in your discussion of his attitude/ideas, you must support your assertions with quotations. Please read the syllabus carefully for the requirements on response papers.
Click here to see the errors I will hold you responsible for: Grammar errors
Click here to see an example of a response paper: Sample response paper
During this week, discuss the question I pose on Pope on the Discussion Group.
Week 3: Jan. 28-Feb. 1
Assignment
Romantics: click on the Romantics icon on the website, then on Wordsworth's site. Read about his and Coleridge's revolutionary views on poetry.
Read in the British Literature II textbook. vol. D, William Wordsworth, The Lucy Poems: "Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known" p. 274; "She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways" p. 275; "Three Years She Grew" p. 275 ; "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal" p. 276; "I Travelled among Unknown Men." p. 277
"It is a Beauteous Evening" p. 317; "The World Is Too Much with Us" p. 319
"Ode: Intimations of Immortality" p. 306. Please read the explanation for this poem on Wordsworth's site. Then read "Tintern Abbey" p. 258. These two poems together give you an idea of Wordsworth's vision. In "Tintern Abbey" he describes altering, or changing, his consciousness in lines 37-49.
During this week, discuss the questions I pose on Wordsworth's "Lucy" poems and on Wordsworth's revolution on the Discussion Group. Each week, log on to the Discussion Group for weekly chats on the assignments.
Week 4: Feb. 4-8
Essay # 1 due noon, Wed., Feb. 6. Using the poems assigned in this class and no others, contrast the concerns of Alexander Pope in the eighteenth century to Wordsworth in the nineteenth. What is different about the two poets? You must use two secondary sources that you find from the college databases. Please see the syllabus for a link to the databases and for a sample essay. You will also find there a link to Knight Cite which will write the citations for your Works Cited.
Avoid any articles with word "Review" in them and any biography/reference databases -- do not choose an article from Biography Resource Center, Contemporary Authors, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Gale Literary Databases, Literary Reference Center, Literature Resource Center, Scribner Writers, and Twayne's Author Series.
JSTOR, Academic Search Complete, and ProjectMuse are the most comprehensive databases.
Grading checklist: I use this checklist to grade your essays. If you do not follow the thesis/topic sentence organization you cannot make higher than a C on an essay. Also, if you have too many grammatical errors, you cannot make higher than a C.
Assignment
William Blake, poet and artist: from Songs of Innocence and Experience: Compare "The Lamb," p. 83 in Songs of Innocence to "Tyger," p. 92 in Songs of Experience and compare "The Chimney Sweeper," in Songs of Innocence to "The Chimney Sweeper," p. 90 in Songs of Experience.
Coleridge, "Kubla Khan" p. 446. Please see Coleridge's site for an explanation of the organization and symbols in this poem. Also, read Coleridge's explanation of the poem on p. 446.
Week 5: Feb. 12-16
Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale" p. 903; "Ode to a Grecian Urn" p. 905
Shelley, "Ozymandias" p. 768
[Note on "Ozymandias": this name is a made-up name of an ancient king of Egypt. Great kings built monuments to themselves, temples, and sculptures in the belief that these works, so gigantic and made of solid stone would last forever. And yet the traveler in the poem comes across a broken bit of the sculpture: nothing lasts forever, the poem is implying, nothing but a "Wreck" and "lone and level sands" stretching far away. This is an ironic poem. Look at what the king has written on the pedestal of his statue, and look at what has remained.]
Please read the explanations of some of these poems on their poets' web sites.
Response paper # 2 due Mon., Feb. 18 at noon:
1)The romantic poets were interested in altered states of consciousness, either through meditation on nature (Wordsworth), drugs (Coleridge), or art (Keats). Write about your understanding of the romantic poets' interest in altered states of consciousness achieved through meditation. Use lines from the texts assigned in this class to support your assertions. What do they discover about themselves or life?
2) Or write a response on this topic: Analyze the ways in which the Romantic poets are revolutionary. Consult Wordsworth's Preface to the Lyrical Ballads and choose lines from three poems assigned in this class as evidence of this new style of poetry.
Week 6: Feb. 18-22
Victorian Poetry
Assignment
Review the materials on the Victorian web site; please read some of the information on "Victorian Culture."
Volume E:
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Lady of Shalott," p. 1114; The Lotus Eaters," p. 1119; "Ulysses" p. 1123
My brief explanations to these poems are on Tennyson's page in the Victorian section of my website.
"In Memoriam": poems # 54, 55, 56 p. 1138; "The Charge of the Light Brigade," p. 1188
Response paper # 3 due Mon, Feb. 25 at noon: Explain how "In Memoriam" illustrates the religious doubt that Darwin caused. See the Darwin page on the Victorian website. Also, comment on how the tone of the music in the nineteenth century has changed from the tone of the music of the eighteenth century. What do you think accounts for this change?
Week 7: Feb. 25-29
Assignment
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: "Sonnets from the Portuguese," pp. 1077-1185. (Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning eloped and spent their married life in Italy.)
Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess," p. 1255; "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church," p. 1259; "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" p. 1266
Emily Bronte, "Remembrance," p. 1313
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, (published 1859) p. 1539
Mathew Arnold, "Dover Beach" ( 1867) p. 1368
Week 8: Mar. 3-7
Assignment
The poems of Michael Field, p. 1637-1641
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Ernest, p. 1698 (a play)
Response paper # 4 due on Mon., Mar. 10 at noon: Oscar Wilde was writing at the end of the Victorian Age when everyone had had enough of Victorian seriousness (or rather as the play puts it "earnest") and hypocrisy. Wilde is "sending up" or making fun of the age. What in the play does he target; what is he making fun of and how?
Week 9: Mar. 10-14
Mid-Term Exam: Due by Thursday at midnight
Mid-Term Exam, Spring Semester 2008
1) Choose one poem by Keats or Wordsworth (choose only the poems assigned in this class) and discuss what is romantic about the poem based on your understanding of the Romantic Movement in Britain.
2&3) Choose two poems by Browning, Tennyson, or Arnold (choose only the poems assigned in this class) to demonstrate what is Victorian about the poems based on your understanding of Victorian society.
4) Choose either the eighteenth century or The Victorian Age sites found on the Pope or Victorian site and discuss your understanding of this century based on your study of the arts, science, religion, literature, music, etc.
Week 10: Mar. 17-21 Spring Break
Week 11: Mar. 24-28
The Twentieth Century
Assignment
Vol. F:
Thomas Hardy: "The Darkling Thrush," p. 1871; "Channel Firing," p. 1877
A. E. Houseman: "To an Athlete Dying Young," p. 1949
World War I Poets
Study the World War I Poets' site: twentieth century music, painting, war, and cosmos.
Rupert Brooke, "The Soldier" p. 1955
Wilfred Owen: "Anthem for Doomed Youth," p. 1971; "Dulce Et Decorum Est," p. 1974; "Disabled," p. 1977; from Owen's Letters to His Mother, p. 1979
Siegfried Sassoon: "They," p. 1960; "The General," p. 1961; "Glory of Women," p. 1962; from Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, p. 1963
Response paper # 5 due on Mon., Mar. 31 at noon: Discuss the darkness of the WWI poets' vision.
Week 12: Mar. 31-Apr. 4
Assignment
Please notice which poems are in the different stages of his development:
William Butler Yeats pp. 2019-2051:
Poetry of Phase 1 and 2: "The Stolen Child," "The Rose of the World," "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," "When You Are Old," "Who Goes with Fergus?" "The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland," "Adam's Curse," "No Second Troy," "A Coat," "The Wild Swans at Coole"
My notes: interpretations
Week 13: Apr. 7-11
Assignment
Poems online:
"The Circum Animal's Desertion"
Yeats: Poetry of Phase 3 and 4: "The Second Coming," "A Prayer for My Daughter," "Sailing to Byzantium," "Lead and the Swan," "Among School Children," "Byzantium," "Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop," "Lapis Lazuli," "The Circus Animals' Desertion"; please read the commentary on the Yeats site: Yeats/Poetry
Response # 6 due Mon., Apr. 14 at noon: Compare one of the poems in stage 3 or 4 to an early poem from stage 1 or 2.
Week 14: Apr. 14-18
Assignment
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, p. 2295. Please study my site on Eliot. The icon, "Poetry," will bring up a flash presentation with pictures and poetry from the battle fields with the footnotes to the poem in an easier (I hope) format to read than the all-too-many footnotes in the textbook. I also have commentary on "Notes" and there is a "Recording" to listen to from an expert discussing the themes.
Essay # 2 due Apr. 21: Write an essay in which you explain "modernism" using the music from the twentieth century, contemporary art (See the World War I site), and the poetry of Eliot and Yeats. You may focus on the experimental nature of these arts, how artists are deliberately breaking from the past. Be sure you use lines and/or stanzas from the assigned poetry of Eliot and Yeats. In other words, explain how artists of the twentieth century are modern, how they are different from the poets of the previous century.
I would suggest that you use two sources from the following list of possibilities: one source on modernism as a phenomenon in art; one source on an assigned poem by Yeats that comes from his mature period; one source on the The Waste Land.
You must use two secondary sources that you find from the college databases. Please see the syllabus for a link to the databases and for a sample essay. You will also find there a link to Knight Cite which will write the citations for your Works Cited.
Avoid any articles with word "Review" in them and any biography/reference databases -- do not choose an article from Biography Resource Center, Contemporary Authors, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Gale Literary Databases, Literary Reference Center, Literature Resource Center, Scribner Writers, and Twayne's Author Series.
JSTOR, Academic Search Complete, and ProjectMuse are the most comprehensive databases.
Week 15: Apr. 21-25
Assignment
Samuel Beckett: Endgame, p. 2304. Please read Notes on the Beckett site for an explanation of the play.
No writing assignment, but the final is on this assignment and the assignment on Hughes
Week 16: Apr. 28-May 2
Read the poems by Ted Hughes found on the Hughes web site under "Poems"; the Sylvia Plath material is optional.
No writing assignment
Week 17: May 5-9
Final exam essay on Beckett and Hughes due Tues., May 6 midnight by e-mail.
Topic: Based on what you learned in writing Essay 2, continue your discussion of modernism as it relates to Beckett's play and Hughes's Crow. Be sure that you use quotations form these texts in your essay. No research is required, though if you do rely on research please include a proper Works Cited page.
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