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Syllabus I Assignments I Topics Covered
Throughout the semester we will examine texts written from an array of perspectives -- by persons of color, colonial and working-class authors, regional writers, sexual and religious minorities, and critics of the established political and social order. For clarity, our readings will be grouped under three topics: social class; race and transimperialism, and sexuality studies. For example, to explore “class” we will read the works of contemporaries such as Karl Marx and listen to working-class songs and poems; for “race” we will read the autobiographies of two Black women in Britain and discuss English translations of novels by Indian writers; and for “sexuality” we will examine poems and short stories of the period with feminist, lesbian, gay, and transgender overtones, ending with a discussion of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando.
Students will be asked to prepare questions for discussion and to help lead class discussions. They will also be asked to post 4-6 2 page ICON postings on our readings, and to submit a 15 page course essay or other equivalent final project. As time permits, we will also discuss drafts of these essays and offer suggestions.
Course Syllabus
August 23rd T introduction; course information; recordings of working-class songs and verse, including "The Poor Cotton Weaver"
Unit on Working-Class Literature
25th Th selections from Marx, "The Communist Manifesto," Das Kapital, and other writings; Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1844, from Gutenberg
30th T 3 Florence Boos, introductions to Campbell and Johnston (handout);
working-class autobiographies: Elizabeth Campbell, Ellen Johnston, Anonymous Navvy, Lucy Luck
September 1st Th Mike Sanders, "The Chartist Imaginary," from The Poetry of Chartism;
working-class poems by Ellen Johnston, W. J. Linton, Samuel Laycock, Fanny Forrester, Ernest Jones, Joseph Skipsey, and anonymous (handout)
5th T Elizabeth Gaskell, Ruth
7th Th Elizabeth Gaskell, Ruth
First posting due Friday September 9th
13th T ----
Unit on Race and Imperialism
15th Th selections from Paul Gilroy, Black Britain; Peter Freyer, Staying Power, begin on Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince
T 20th Prince, History
Th 22nd Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"
T 27th criticism by Gayatri Spivak, Patrick Brantlinger, Homi Bhabha, Franz Fanon; Toru Dutt, poems
Th 29th William Morris, "Our Country Right or Wrong"
Second posting due Friday October 1st
October 4th T background on the Indian Mutiny, Indian famines of 19th century, Bankim Chandra Chatterji, Anandamath
6th Th Anandamath
11th T Sol Plaatje, Mhudi
13th Th Mhudi
Third posting due Friday October 15th
Unit on Sexualities, Gender Fluidity, The New Woman
18th T \The New Woman; Mona Caird, "The Morality of Marriage"; short stories by Sarah Grand, "A Fantasia" and George Egerton, "Gone Under,"
20th Th Sapphic poetry: Michael Field, "A Portrait," "Your Rose is Dead," "Trinity," "Embalmment"
25th T Alfred Tennyson, "In Memoriam"
27th Th "In Memoriam"
Fourth posting due October 29th
November 1st
3rd Th Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Felix Randal,” “The Windhover,” “Duns Scotus’s Oxford,” “Henry Purcell,” “No Worst, There Is None,” “Carrion Comfort”
8th T Oscar Wilde, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol"; A. E. Housman, "Oh Who Is That Young Sinner"
10th Th E. M. Forster, Maurice
Please submit title, bibliography and abstract for your final seminar paper.
15th T Maurice
17th Th Virginia Woolf, Orlando
Fifth posting due November 19th
Thanksgiving break
20th Century Margins: Class Politics, War
29th T Tressell, Robert, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
December 1st Th Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Sixth posting due December 3rd
6th T war poets, Alice Meynell, Owen
8th Th war poets, Sassoon, Rosenberg, Charlotte Mew
Final exam: presentation of abridged version of your essays, Tuesday December 13th
FINAL 15 PAGE ESSAY DUE DECEMBER 17th
Course Assignments Information
8:4006 British Literature at the Margins, 1830-1930: Assignments
T Th 5:00 p. m.-6:15 p. m. Room 206 EPB
Instructor: Florence Boos florence-boos@uiowa.edu
Syllabus and assignments at https://uiowa.instructure.com/courses/191813
Office: 319 EPB, office phone 335-0434 (answering machine)
Office hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 3:30-4:45 p. m.; Wednesday and Friday afternoons by appointment
Textbooks in Hawkshop/UI Bookstore:
Elizabeth Gaskell, Ruth
Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince
Bankim Chatterji, Anandamath
Sol Plaatje, Mhudi
Virginia Woolf, Orlando
Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Handouts: Ellen Johnston and Elizabeth Campbell, brief autobiographies; working-class poem by Johnston, W. J. Linton, Samuel Laycock, Fanny Forrester, Ernest Jones, Joseph Skipsey, and anonymous (handout); Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point”; selections from Paul Gilroy, Black Britain and Peter Freyer, Staying Power; criticism by Franz Fanon and Homi Bhabha; William Morris, “Our Country Right or Wrong”; Edward Carpenter, selections from The Intermediate Sex; Oscar Wilde, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” poetry by Wilfred Own, Siegfried Sassoon, and Isaac Rosenberg; others listed on syllabus.
Course Requirements:
- Attendance and class discussion: please read the assignments carefully and come prepared to ask questions and comment on themes of the text. In addition, please bring to class a short written answer to each of the following three questions:
Is there anything in the text which you found unclear or problematic?
What did you like best/find most important in today’s reading?
What question would you like to ask your fellow students?
- 6 ICON postings: 2 page responses to one of our texts, 4 with attention to historical or critical context (you may use any of our essays or a critical article of your choice [Google Scholar]). If you choose, one posting may compare a course text with a modern film adaptation; and/or one may be a creative response to one of our texts (a story, monologue, poem, fantasy, interview, sequel, time-travel scene or other creative response to a work of fiction or autobiography).
- Short biographies: I will ask students to prepare background information on the life of one of our authors.
- Honors critical/research essay: You will be asked to write a twelve-fifteen page critical/research essay, due on Tuesday of exam week. I will hand out some suggested topics for this, and you will present a draft of your essay either during the last week of the regular semester or at the final exam session December 13th, 2022.
The final draft is due at the end of exam week, December 17th, 2022. Please submit this final essay and a printout of your postings in a packet, preferably in print form. If you wish your essay returned with comments, please include your address.
Grading:
60% honors essay
30% participation (attendance, discussion, presentation)
10% postings
However, completion of all assignments is a necessary prerequisite for receiving a grade.
Topics Covered
Orality in working-class poetry, women’s poetry of the factory and loom, oral narratives, working-class literary humor, working-class fiction in the context of Chartism, the working-class press, sensation fiction, ideals of nineteenth-century socialism, contemporary religion, oral narratives, the periodical press (https://dvpp.uvic.ca/ and https://www.pistonpenandpress.org/database/.)
Structure and intention in Ruth, Gaskell and the social problem novels of the 1850s, publication contexts for fiction of the 1850s, Ruth in the context of Gaskell’s short stories; abolition and slave narratives, regional speech and memoir, Mary Prince’s History in the context of the Anti-Slavery Reporter (or other slave narratives); Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s family history and “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point”; the dramatic monologue and social critique; anger and violence in “The Runaway Slave”; EBB, Abolition, and Italian independence; gender in abolitionist literature.
Political tensions in colonial literature; Anandamath and the Indian Mutiny; gender, sexuality and resistance in colonial fiction; celibacy, same-sex relationships and a military culture; ethnicity and war in south African society; communal decision-making in Mhudi; gendered relationships in Mhudi; speeches as an art form (with Old Testament parallels) in Mhudi; Sultana’s Dream and Herland (or another feminist utopia or utopias); satire and futurism in Sultana’s Dream.
Eroticism/religion/art in fin de siècle poetry; aestheticism in the poetry of Michael Field; imagery, symbolism, and poetic structure in the poetry of Mary Coleridge/Michael Field/Lionel Johnson; psychological themes in decadent poetry; G. M. Hopkins and the use of the sonnet; social outcasts and community in “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” the implications of the ballad form in “Reading Gaol,” ambivalent sexuality and guilt in “The Sphinx” and “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” religion as social critique in Ruth/EBB/Wilde; musical settings for Housman’s A Shropshire Lad.
Style and gender transformations in Orlando, Maurice and fin de siècle views of homosexuality, self-recognition and love in Maurice; turn of the century social reform and The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists; from The Wrongs of Woman to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.
Broader topics: scene ordering and structure in the creation of meaning; oral narration; lyric; dramatic monologue; utopias/dystopias; patterning in fiction; autobiographical themes; periodical publication and audience contexts.