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Welcome to the Brit. Lit. 5
Hopefully, having an overview of what we will do and roughly when will make the class easier. This also allows me to make the suggested but not required readings available in a context that might make them more attractive. The workload is actually a little lighter again this trimester as two of the essays will be done in class, which most students consider easier.
Students can take this class for English or history credit. Because the class is so writing intense, there is a different workload for English and history students with history students writing fewer essays (and usually those that have more history or sociological content). The reading requirements are the same. The syllabi provide the details.
Every student even considering this class must read and sign the source policy and abide by it. Failure to do so will lead to no credit in the class. I am not interested in what anyone at wikipedia, Sparknotes or Harvard thinks about this literature. I am interested in what you think. You must think for yourself in this class. If you don't want to do that and perhaps occasionally struggle, don't take the class. You are always welcome to come discuss your ideas with me before writing if you are worried you are off track. I won't tell you what to write or think, but I am happy to ask you questions that might help you to focus or reorient. This is NOT a research class; it is a thinking class. Please respect that and trust that I respect ideas that may be flawed but original far more than ideas that are on more solid ground but that aren't yours.
Links under the weekly schedule are to note sheets we will use in class as well as to articles that are usually recommended but not required to add to your knowledge about what we are discussing in class.
Essays are due almost every week and just about always on Thursdays at class time except for the Twelfth Night essays, which will be staggered. Revisions should be done soon after being returned but must be completed by the Monday after they are returned unless an earlier date is specified at the end of the trimester. On two occasions this trimester, students will do their essays in class on Thursdays to practice for college testing. They should be sure to have read the materials very carefully and to have given them some thought before taking these exams, but the questions are broad and don't require focus on one particular detail in the text(s). Students who are absent on these days will do the essays at home with the amount of evidence expected in an essay done at home. In-class essays are generally not revised unless the student didn't do the reading. Most at-home essays need revision until I approve a draft as final.
Late work is not tolerated in this class. If a student is late on one essay, s/he will have to do an additional essay as well as the one that is late. If a second assignment is late, the student cannot earn credit. If a student is home sick, the essay must be emailed on time. Exceptions will only be made in a situation that is completely unavoidable by the student and for which there is clear evidence and in which the extension was pre-arranged.
Students should begin reading Wuthering Heights as soon as they sign up for the class (if not sooner). The first essay is due on November 29, and students need to read though chapter 14 of the book to do that essay. It would be a good idea to look at the essay assignments related to the book before reading so that you can look for evidence and ideas as your read. I have plenty of copies, but if you want to write in your book, you should get your own.
Week 1: Review of last trimester's main points and Oscar Wilde. We will begin reading Wilde's wonderfully funny The Importance of Being Earnest in class. Feel free to bring muffins. Grammar: Commas with however and though
This week's essay is crucial for understanding Wuthering Heights. It asks students to assess the characters of Nellie, the main narrator, and Catherine, the main character of at least a significant part of the book. The reader's understanding of these characters and their relationship will determine the reader's overall opinions about what goes on in the book. It is due by 9 a.m. on Thursday, December 1.
exercise 1 Wuthering Heights 22
Peter Ackroyd on the Brontes' lives
Charlotte and other Brontes 17
Week 2: We will conclude The Importance of Being Earnest and begin George Barnard Shaw's Pygmalion. Grammar: Prepositions
The story of Pygmalion from Ovid’s Metamorphoses
More feminist My Fair Lady Review 18
This week's assignment requires having read through chapter 23 of Wuthering Heights. There will be an in-class essay on December 8 for which it is vital to be prepared. It would be smart to read further than this to make it easier to finish the book by December 15 to write the next essay.
Week 3: Continue Pygmalion. Begin to discuss parallels in ideas about relationships, class and gender in the two plays.
Grammar: Adverbs
You have a revision of exercise one due by Monday 9 a.m.
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This week's assignment requires completing Wuthering Heights. It is due by December 15 at class time.
Week 4: Complete Pygmalion if necessary. Discuss Wuthering Heights in all of its crazy glory. Grammar: Parallel Structure
Wuthering Heights discussion notes
To read contemporary reviews of Wuthering Heights, and they weren't too positive, go to https://wuthering-heights.co.uk/reviews.php
To listen to a great half an hour of close analysis of Wuthering Heights by David Trotter and Patricia Lockwood on the London Review of Books Podcast, to to https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/the-lrb-podcast/close-readings-wuthering-heights-by-emily-bronte?utm_campaign=1015949_20250326Newissue&utm_medium=email&utm_source=LRB%20email&dm_i=7NIQ,LRWT,2MIQHO,1X2FC,1
You have a revision of essay one due Monday, January 9.
12-15-22 Important change: Due to our 2 absence days, we're a bit behind, and we'll need to finish Pygmalion and discuss Wuthering Heights before beginning Twelfth Night, so I'm reversing the next two writing assignments. The in-class essay on the first 10 chapters of Silas Marner will occur on Thursday, Jan. 5, and the Twelfth Night essay will be due the next week on a staggered basis. I can give you more information about your actual due date that first week back when I see how we progress.
This week's assignment is the staggered one based on Twelfth Night. Like last trimester, you will each get your own soliloquy to analyze, and they will be staggered so that you're doing them the day before we get to your soliloquy in class. That means you should be doing preparation ahead of time. I will update this with your names once I know who is in the class.
Twelfth Night soliloquy explication 23
Week 5 (after vacation): We begin Twelfth Night, the perfect play to examine love in its many forms, in class while finishing Silas Marner at home. You could easily get ahead on your work during vacation as nothing extra is assigned. For a great site with actual documents relating to Shakespeare from his time, go to http://www.shakespearedocumented.org/ Grammar: Me/I
Twelfth Night pre-reading notes
Emma Smith on place in Twelfth Night 23
Mark Rylance on playing Olivia in Twelfth Night
Review of musical Twelfth Night in Central Park 18
This week's essay is another in-class essay on January 12. To be prepared, you must read through chapter 10 of Silas Marner. It would be smart to read as much of the book as possible by this time to make the rest of the trimester easier.
Week 6: We will continue Twelfth Night in class this week. Some students' Twelfth Night essays will be due this week, so they should finish the Silas Marner essay during the previous week so that they don't conflict. In fact, anyone could do this easily during vacation and be well ahead at this point. We will take one class to read the Prologue to Parallel Lives, which we will then discuss. Grammar: Additional Usage
Parallel Lives Prologue Reading Notes
Considering the Impact of Phyllis Rose's Parallel Lives 20
George III's Family Experiment
Peter Ackroyd's bio of the naughty writer Wilke Collins
For a wonderful article about an artist who
Twelfth Night essays should be revised within a week of the draft's return to you.
This week's essay is the poetry essay. Depending on where we are, I may ask the Tennyson and Barrett Browning people to be ready a day or two early, so be prepared. If you have missed an essay or revision since early in the trimester, you will have two of these to do. Poetry essays are due by January 19 at 9 a.m.
You should read at least the Carlyle and Ruskin sections in Parallel Lives to be prepared for later essays. You should really enjoy the Ruskin section. A really enjoyable and fairly accurate television series about the pre-Raphaelites that includes the John and Effie Ruskin story is called Desperate Romantics. It at times streams on amazon and netflix, and I have the DVD set if you're trustworthy about returning things.
Political Analysis of Thomas Carlyle
Week 7: Complete Twelfth Night . Introduction to the Pre-Raphaelites and Victorian painting. Begin reading Victorian poetry about relationships with Tennyson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. A recommended recent novel that ties together many of the real people about whom we're reading and the Victorian ideas about art and sexuality that we are addressing is The Turner Erotica by Robert Begiebing. Grammar: Initial usage review
19th Century English painting notes
J.M.W. Turner's Rain, Steam and Speed
What the great Romantic painter JMW Turner Saw, and what's still there 25
Turner's Visionary Maritime Paintings
Pre-Raphaelite art show Review 13
The sensuality of Edward Burne-Jones 12
Ruskin's Culinary Socialism 17
Appreciation of John Ruskin on his 200th birthday 19
Tennyson - The Woman's Cause Is The Man's notes
Tennyson - Lady of Shalott notes
You should be completing Silas Marner (not a difficult task) for this week's large Silas essay, which is due January 26 by 9 a.m.
What George Eliot Teaches Us 11
New book about George Eliot and Marriage 23
George Eliot's Subversive View of Marriage 23
Henry James on George Eliot's Life 1885
The Atlantic's review of George Eliot's Middlemarch 1873
George Eliot's latest biography 23
Week 8: We will forge ahead with the poetry of the Rossetti siblings this week including the incomparable Goblin Market if we get that far. We will also talk a bit about the Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and Utilitarianism as well as Victorian feminism. Grammar: Apostrophe review
The Pankhursts early British feminists
The Enigma of William Morris: socialist artist
Christina Rossetti's Goblins by Phyllis Rose
BL V D Rossetti Blessed Damozelnotes.rtf
BL V D Rossetti Lovesightnotes.doc
BL V D Rossetti Sea Limits notes.htm
BL V D Rossetti Smithereens notes.doc
BL V D Rossetti The Choice I.rtf
BL V D Rossetti The Choice II.rtf
BL V D Rossetti The ChoiceIII.rtf
BL V D Rossetti The One Hope.rtf
BL V D Rossetti Willowwood.rtf
BL V D Rossetti The Orchard Pit.rtf
BL V C.Rossetti - By The Sea wd.doc
BL V C.Rossetti - Better Resur.doc
Essay 2 (Silas)'s revision is due by Monday's class.
At home, you should be reading the John Stuart Mill section of Parallel Lives and the brilliant philosopher's essay The Subjection of Women to prepare for this week's essay, which is due on Thursday, February 2 by 9 a.m.
BL V Mill - Subjection of Women text.doc
Exercise 6 The Subjection of Women and Parallel Lives 23
five more terrible and slightly later literary "Parallel Lives" 23
Week 9: We will continue with the Rossettis and perhaps Louisa Guggenberger as well. Grammar: Agreement review
BL V C.Rossetti - From The Antique w.doc
BL V C.Rossetti - Remember w.doc
BL V C.Rossetti - Goblin Market wd (.txt
BL V C.Rossetti - Goblin Market wd (.doc
BL V C.Rossetti - Promises Like P w.doc
BL V L Guggenberger - Love and Langu.doc
BL V L Guggenberger - Love's Depth.doc
Your poetry essay's revision is due by Monday's class.
It's final essay week! I am providing two poems by a relatively unknown Victorian poet, Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, who was a great grandniece of Samuel Taylor Coleridge of Ancient Mariner fame. She is a late Victorian, living into the 20th century by a few years, and I don't want you to research her beyond that. I just want you to analyze these two short poems in light of what you have learned over the last two trimesters and particularly about Victorian women writers' attitudes this trimester. These are due by 9 a.m. on Thursday, February 16.
M E Coleridge - The Witch guiding questions
M E Coleridge - Other Side of the Mirror text
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge poems texts for final essay
Week 10: We will spend the week finishing up any spare poetry (as we will certainly have gotten behind) and then discussing Mill's views about women in Victorian society and how it relates to the women's poetry and the craziness of the Victorian relationships featured in Parallel Lives. Grammar: Commas and adverbial clauses review
Your Mill essay's revision is due on Monday, February 13 by 9 a.m.
YOUR FINAL ESSAY'S REVISION IS DUE BY THURSDAY, February 23 by 9 a.m. I mean business about this. There should be no outstanding work at this point. That will lead to a pleasant last week of the trimester.
Week 11: I imagine we will be finishing up what is listed under week 10, but if we have somehow done everything on time, a Victorian cinematic treat could be arranged.
Grammar: Commas and Subordinate Conjunctions review
Week 12: Brit. Lit Jeopardy
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