British Literature Survey
Class Discussion & Exam Calendar ("Path 1")



for pre-class "points of reflection," click on the color bar above each day's readings

Date
Readings: Path I
Topics
Thurs, Jan 12

W. B. Yeats' "The Second Coming" (1919; 1920), pp. 2106-7
W. Wordsworth's "London, 1802" (1802; 1807), p. 297
  • course guidelines
  • inter-authorial intersections
  • recognizing tone
Tues, Jan 17

Historical overview of Romantic Period, pp.1-21
A. L. Barbauld's "The Rights of Woman" (ca.1792-95), pp.27-28
S. T. Coleridge's "Kubla Kahn" (ca.1797-98; 1816), pp.439-41
P. B. Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" (1819; 1820), pp.730-32
T. Carlyle’s “Signs of the Times” (1829)
  • quiz
  • the Romantics
Thurs, Jan 19

Historical overview of Victorian Age, pp.1043-63
A. Tennyson's "The Passing of Arthur" (1833-69; 1869), pp.1293-1303
E. B. Browning's "Mother and Poet (1861-62), pp.1195-98
C. Rossetti's "In an Artist's Studio" (1856; 1896), p.1586
J. Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice (1851-53), pp.1432-42
  • quiz
  • the Victorians
Tues, Jan 24

Historical overview of 20th c. Modernism, pp.1897-1913
V. Woolf's A Sketch of the Past (1939-40; 1978), pp.2218-26
D. H. Lawrence's "Why the Novel Matters" (1936), pp.2341-45
W. B. Yeats's "Sailing to Byzantium" (1926; 1927), pp.2109-10
W. H. Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts" (1938; 1940), p.2505
  •  quiz
  • the High Modernists
  • an overview of the three periods with assistance from the visual arts
Thurs, Jan 26
 "The Reverie of Poor Susan" (1797; 1800)
"Simon Lee" (1798; 1798), pp.222-24
"Tintern Abbey" (1798; 1798), pp.235-38
Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800, 1802), pp.238-51
  • William Wordsworth
  • class; Nature; community; language; memory
Tues, Jan 31 "Lines Written in Kensington Gardens" (1852), pp.1484-85
Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" (ca.1851; 1867) pp.1492-93
"Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse" (1852; 1855) pp.1493-98
  • Matthew Arnold
  • WW & MA connection
  • education; religion; emotion; decadence
  • urban vs. rural
Wed, Feb 1 student encylopedia-style reference entries
(send to instructor via email, as an attachment)
entries DUE at midnight
Thurs, Feb 2 "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" (1797; 1800), pp.420-22
"Frost at Midnight" (Feb. 1798; 1798), pp.457-58
"Dejection: An Ode" (April 4, 1802; 1802), pp.459-62
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  • STC & WW connection
  • conversation poems

Tues, Feb 7 "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister" (ca. 1839; 1842), pp.1350-52
"My Last Duchess" (1842; 1842), pp.1352-53
"The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church" (1844; 1845), pp.1359-62
  • Robert Browning
  • PBS & RB connection
  • STC & RB connection
  • the "monodram"
Thurs, Feb 9 "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1797; 1798) pp.422-38)
"Christabel" (1798-1800; 1816) pp.441-56
"Human Life" (ca.1815; 1817)
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  • symbol, faith, and the supernatural
Tues, Feb 14

"Fra Lippo Lippi" (ca. 1853; 1855) pp.1373-82
"Pictor Ignotus" (ca. 1840s; 1855)
"Abt Vogler" (1864) pp.1410-13
"Mihrab Shah" (1884)

  •  Robert Browning
  • AT & RB connection
  • STC & RB connection
  • faith and art
Thurs, Feb 16

"When I Have Fears . . ." (Jan. 1818; 1848) pp.833-34
"Bright Star, Would I Were Stedfast . . ." (1819; 1838) p.845
"Ode on a Grecian Urn" (1819; 1820) pp.851-53
"To Autumn" (Sept 1819; 1820) pp.872-73
letter to Benjamin Bailey (Nov 22, 1817) pp.887-88
  •  John Keats
  • Beauty & Truth
Tues, Feb 21

"La Belle Dame Sans Merci" (April 1819; 1820) pp.845-46
"Ode on Melancholy" (1819; 1820), pp.853-54
"The Eve of St. Agnes" (Jan.--Feb.1819; 1820) pp.834-44
letter to George and Thomas Keats (Dec 21, 1817) pp.889-90
letter to Richard Woodhouse (Oct 27, 1818) pp. 894-95
  • John Keats
  • Negative Capability
Thurs, Feb 23

"The Lady of Shalott" (1831-32; 1832, 1842) pp.1204-8
"Ulysses" (1833; 1842) pp.1213-14
"Oenone" (1832)

  •  Alfred Tennyson
  • Parabolic Drift
Fri, Feb 24 poetry recordings due to instructor on CD (MP3 format)
readings DUE
Tues, Feb 28 Midterm: sample questions
  • midterm
Thurs, Mar 2 A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) dedication, introduction, and chps 1-4
  • Mary Wollstonecraft
  • organization exercise
Tues, Mar 7 A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) chps 6-13 (skip chp 5)
long essay assigned (due April 25)
  • Mary Wollstonecraft
  • student-led roundtable
Thurs, Mar 9 Adam Bede (1859): chps 1-8
  •  George Eliot
  • narrative voice
  • realism & sympathy
  • Methodism & Anglicanism
Tues, Mar 21 Adam Bede (1859): chps 9-20
  •  George Eliot
  • realism & tone
  • social inclusion
  • physiognomy
Thurs, Mar 23 Adam Bede (1859): chps 21-35
  •  George Eliot
  • propriety & authorial indirection
  • narrative voice & the reader
Tues, Mar 28 Adam Bede (1859): chps 36-55 & epilogue
  • George Eliot
  • protagonists & "heroes"
  • sympathy
Thurs, Mar 30 Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Jenny" (1848, 1858-69; 1870)
Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "Eveline's Visitant" (1862)
VSS: pp.205-14 
  • prostitution & faithfulness
  • sex & morality
  • the gaze
Tues, Apr 4

John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women (1869), excerpt on pp.1155-65
O. Wilde’s “The Harlot’s House” (unknown; 1885 & 1908) pp.1750-51
Mary de Morgan's "A Toy Princess" (1877) VSS: pp. 265-75
  • audience
  • tone
  • authorial intersections
Thurs, Apr 6

Frances Browne's "The Story of Fairyfoot" (1857)
VSS: pp. 153-62
Algernon Swinburne's "Dead Love" (1862)VSS: pp. 215-19
Sheridan le Fanu's "Green Tea" (1869) VSS: pp. 235-64
Amelia B. Edward's "Was it an Illusion? A Parson's Story" (1881) VSS: pp. 285-302
  • fable and the Gothic
  • Victorian short stories
  • audience & purpose
  • disability
  • the supernatural
  • the function of Art
Tues, Apr 11

"After Death" (1849; 1862) p.1585
"Dead Before Death" (1854; 1862) p.1585
"A Triad" (1856; 1862) p.1586
"Winter, My Secret" (1857; 1862) p.1588
"Goblin Market" (1859; 1862) pp.1589-1601
  •  Christina Rossetti
  • tone & symbolism
  • romance
  • the supernatural
Thurs, Apr 13

"The Dead City" (1847)
"They desire a better country" (c.1867/1868)
"Monna Innominata: A Sonnet of Sonnets" (1881)
  •  Christina Rossetti
  • the spiritual vs. the material
  • biography
Tues, Apr 18 "The Defence of Guinevere" (1859) pp.1606-14
"King Arthur's Tomb" (1858)
  • William Morris
  • mini-lecture: Pre-Raphaelites
  • voice & tone
  • sexual power
Thurs, Apr 20 "The Haystack in the Floods" (1858) pp.1614-18
"In Prison" (1858)
"Spell-Bound" (1858)
  •  William Morris
  • thought vs. action
  • Romance vs. Realism
Tues, Apr 25 "The Stolen Child" (1886, 1889) pp.2090-91
"No Second Troy" (Dec. 1908; 1910) p.2098
"Adam’s Curse" (Nov. 1902; 1902, 1903) pp.2097-98
"Sailing to Byzantium" (Sept. 1926; 1927) pp.2109-10
  • W. B. Yeats
  • Mad Libs
  • Yeats' poetics
  • biographical details
Thurs, Apr 27
 "The Hollow Men" (1924-25; 1925) pp.2383-86
  • T. S. Eliot
  • faith & form
  • tone & message

Sat,
Apr 29

LONG ESSAY due at midnight
  
 Wed, May 3

Group Study Sessions: 9:30-11:30 a.m.
and 2:30-4:30 p.m.

  
Thurs, May 4
FINAL EXAM using "secure exam"
4-7 p.m., Greenlaw #304
  


Paul Marchbanks
marchban@email.unc.edu