ENG 3230-A90: British Texts, Mid-19th to 21st Century
Course Description: Gender, Nation, and Empire in Victorian, Modern, and Postcolonial British Literature
This course provides an introductory survey to British literature from the mid-1800s through the beginning of the 21st century, with particular focus on literary representations of gender, nation, and empire. Assigned readings will cover a broad range of literary genres: essays, poetry, short fiction, one play, and two novellas. Students will learn about predominant issues, concerns, and historical shifts that played a significant role in shaping British politics, society, and culture from the Victorian period to the present day. In the first half of the semester, we will explore gendered themes and tropes in nineteenth-century literature, including the angel in the home, the fallen woman, and fin-de-siècle masculinities. The domestic ideology of “separate spheres” deeply influenced representations of gender, race, class, and ethnicity in Victorian literature, and in readings of modernist texts, we will examine how early twentieth-century writers continued to reinforce or challenge Victorian ideologies. We will also read canonical modernist texts that respond to the impact of the First World War by questioning the politics of gender and sexuality in the contexts of wartime tensions and post-war anxieties about a nation in decline. In the second half of the semester, we will continue to explore the intersections of gender and nation, but our focus will shift to reading twentieth-century texts by writers from Commonwealth nations and/or former British colonies who explore the legacies of British imperialism. Lastly, we’ll extend this focus on the inheritance of Empire by reading contemporary British writers whose emphases on hybrid identities attempt a re-imagining of gender, class, race, and nation in a postmodern, postcolonial, and multicultural Britain. This is a reading-intensive online course and basic computer literacy is recommended. Throughout the semester, students will create their own websites and write blogs in response to the readings. See the Website Project Guidelines below, which provides detailed directions for setting up your website, writing the weekly blogs, and creating the research pages. Also review the Syllabus (below) for information on course assessment, online participation, general conduct expectations, and tips for reading/reviewing the topic overviews and "lectures." Additional handouts available in Pilot; you will also need to access Pilot for submitting copies of your blogs, tracking your grades, and checking the newsfeed for course updates. Course Prerequisite: ENG 1100.
Required Text: Greenblatt, Stephen, et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 10th Ed., Vol. F. ISBN: 9780393603071
This course provides an introductory survey to British literature from the mid-1800s through the beginning of the 21st century, with particular focus on literary representations of gender, nation, and empire. Assigned readings will cover a broad range of literary genres: essays, poetry, short fiction, one play, and two novellas. Students will learn about predominant issues, concerns, and historical shifts that played a significant role in shaping British politics, society, and culture from the Victorian period to the present day. In the first half of the semester, we will explore gendered themes and tropes in nineteenth-century literature, including the angel in the home, the fallen woman, and fin-de-siècle masculinities. The domestic ideology of “separate spheres” deeply influenced representations of gender, race, class, and ethnicity in Victorian literature, and in readings of modernist texts, we will examine how early twentieth-century writers continued to reinforce or challenge Victorian ideologies. We will also read canonical modernist texts that respond to the impact of the First World War by questioning the politics of gender and sexuality in the contexts of wartime tensions and post-war anxieties about a nation in decline. In the second half of the semester, we will continue to explore the intersections of gender and nation, but our focus will shift to reading twentieth-century texts by writers from Commonwealth nations and/or former British colonies who explore the legacies of British imperialism. Lastly, we’ll extend this focus on the inheritance of Empire by reading contemporary British writers whose emphases on hybrid identities attempt a re-imagining of gender, class, race, and nation in a postmodern, postcolonial, and multicultural Britain. This is a reading-intensive online course and basic computer literacy is recommended. Throughout the semester, students will create their own websites and write blogs in response to the readings. See the Website Project Guidelines below, which provides detailed directions for setting up your website, writing the weekly blogs, and creating the research pages. Also review the Syllabus (below) for information on course assessment, online participation, general conduct expectations, and tips for reading/reviewing the topic overviews and "lectures." Additional handouts available in Pilot; you will also need to access Pilot for submitting copies of your blogs, tracking your grades, and checking the newsfeed for course updates. Course Prerequisite: ENG 1100.
Required Text: Greenblatt, Stephen, et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 10th Ed., Vol. F. ISBN: 9780393603071
READING ASSIGNMENTS & DUE DATES
NB: You can directly link to the period introductions and weekly unit overviews by clicking on the titles below; unit numbers correspond with blog numbers. Each blog response should focus on 1-2 readings from its corresponding unit. If page numbers for readings do not match the pages in your textbook, you are using a different edition of NAEL; so just refer to the table of contents or index in your book. Readings for Weeks 1-2 are available online by clicking the links below for each highlighted text.
WEEK 1: Period Introduction Overview--The Victorian Age, 1830-1901
Unit 1.1: Domestic Ideology and the Theory of Separate Spheres, Part I & Part II (Mon/Tues)
WEEK 2
Unit 2: Late Victorians: “Failed” Marriages and “Other” Sexualities (Mon/Tues)
WEEK 3: Period Introduction Overview--The Twentieth Century and After (Readings available In NAEL, Vol F)
(Also review PowerPoint: 20th C. Britain)
Unit 4: Gender, Modernism, and War (Mon/Tues)
WEEK 4
Unit 6: Constructing the Colonial Subject: “Savage” Men and Silenced Women
WEEK 5
Unit 7: Paternal Legacies: Twentieth-Century Perspectives on the Inheritance of Empire (Mon/Tues)
WEEK 6 (This week is dedicated to working on your two research pages)
DUE: Finalized Website with Research Pages (Fri 6/19)
NB: You can directly link to the period introductions and weekly unit overviews by clicking on the titles below; unit numbers correspond with blog numbers. Each blog response should focus on 1-2 readings from its corresponding unit. If page numbers for readings do not match the pages in your textbook, you are using a different edition of NAEL; so just refer to the table of contents or index in your book. Readings for Weeks 1-2 are available online by clicking the links below for each highlighted text.
WEEK 1: Period Introduction Overview--The Victorian Age, 1830-1901
Unit 1.1: Domestic Ideology and the Theory of Separate Spheres, Part I & Part II (Mon/Tues)
- Sarah Stickney Ellis, The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits, Chap. 1
- John Stuart Mill: The Subjection of Women, Chap. 1
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Mariana” and The Princess: “Tears, Idle Tears”, “Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal”, and "The woman’s cause is man’s”
- Elizabeth Gaskell, “The Old Nurse’s Story”
- Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess”
- John Ruskin, “Letter to The Times”
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “The Blessed Damozel” and “Jenny”
- Christina Rossetti, “In an Artist’s Studio” and “Goblin Market”
- Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, “The Other Side of a Mirror” and “The Witch”
WEEK 2
Unit 2: Late Victorians: “Failed” Marriages and “Other” Sexualities (Mon/Tues)
- William Morris, “The Defence of Guenevere”
- George Meredith, Modern Love, Sonnets 1, 16, 17, 49
- Algernon Charles Swinburne, “Hymn to Proserpine” and “Hermaphroditus”
- Michael Field (K. Bradley & E. Cooper), “Maids, not to you my mind doth change”
- Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
WEEK 3: Period Introduction Overview--The Twentieth Century and After (Readings available In NAEL, Vol F)
(Also review PowerPoint: 20th C. Britain)
Unit 4: Gender, Modernism, and War (Mon/Tues)
- Voices from World War I: Siegfried Sassoon, “Glory of Women” (p. 2025); Isaac Rosenberg, “Break of Day in the Trenches” (p. 2030); Wilfred Owen, “Strange Meeting” (p. 2038)
- W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming” (p. 2099)
- T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (pp. 2529-2543)
- Mina Loy, Songs to Joannes (pp. 2078-82; full poem available here)
- Virginia Woolf, from Mrs. Dalloway [Chap. 1 & 2] (pp. 2155-82)
- James Joyce, from Ulysses [Penelope] (pp. 2474-80)
- E.M. Forster, “The Other Boat” (pp. 2122-42)
WEEK 4
Unit 6: Constructing the Colonial Subject: “Savage” Men and Silenced Women
- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (pp. 1953-2011)
WEEK 5
Unit 7: Paternal Legacies: Twentieth-Century Perspectives on the Inheritance of Empire (Mon/Tues)
- Jean Rhys, “The Day They Burned the Books” (pp. 2592-96)
- Seamus Heaney, “Punishment” (pp. 2955)
- Eavan Boland, “The Dolls Museum in Dublin” (pp. 2997-3000)
- Nadine Gordimer, “The Moment before the Gun Went Off” (pp. 2790-93)
- Margaret Atwood, “Death by Landscape” (pp. 2969-81)
- Salman Rushdie, “The Prophet’s Hair” (pp. 3002-11)
- Hanif Kureishi, “My Son the Fanatic” (pp. 3034-41)
- Kiran Desai, “The Sermon in the Guava Tree” (pp. 3047-56)
- Zadie Smith, from White Teeth [The Waiter’s Wife] (pp. 3058-68)
WEEK 6 (This week is dedicated to working on your two research pages)
DUE: Finalized Website with Research Pages (Fri 6/19)
