430B F19 Savarese

430B

University of Waterloo

English Language & Literature

430B, Section 001

Literature of the Romantic Period 2

Fall 2019

DWE 3519, Mon/Wed 2:30-3:50

Instructor Information

Instructor: John Savarese

Office: HH 143

Office Phone: 519-888-4567 ext. 33019

Office Hours: Tues 1-2, Wed 10-11, and by appointment

Email: john.savarese@uwaterloo.ca

Course Description

This course will offer an introduction to the literature of the later Romantic period in Britain. The “second generation” of Romantic writers had a vexed relationship with their earlier idols, who had come of age in the heyday of the French Revolution. While poets like Percy Shelley, Byron, and Keats took the older generation to task for turning away from their earlier revolutionary politics— whether to the inward life of the imagination, or to the natural world—these younger romantics nevertheless remained committed to the aesthetic—to the assertion that “beauty is truth, truth beauty.” The course will examine how this younger generation of Romantic writers deal with that tension between their dedication to the aesthetic, and the fear that “the aesthetic” was just another name for escapism, political disengagement, or complicity. We will begin with Percy Shelley’s attempt to blend philosophical speculation, nature poetry, and political protest. We’ll then look at two different ways later Romantics problematized the imagination: in the literature of opium and altered states, and in retellings of the Faust myth by Byron and Mary Shelley. We will conclude the course with two master works of the period: Jane Austen’s Persuasion and Keats’s ode series of 1819.

Required Texts

• Thomas DeQuincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater (Oxford)

• George Gordon, Lord Byron, Manfred (Broadview)

• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (any edition)

• Jane Austen, Persuasion (Broadview)

• Coursepack (available on LEARN; please be sure to have access during class)

Participation

These marks recognize your attendance, active listening, and participation in the day’s verbal and written activities, including reading quizzes, collaborative work, warm-up discussions, etc. Each week, you should log the ways you participated on the Participation Log (template available on LEARN), to turn in at two points during the term: along with your midterm and your final project. 1 point per class. (Since we have 22 in-person meetings, this means you can miss 2 classes for emergencies without having to worry.)

Weekly Response Papers (10 @ 2.5 points each)

Content: These do not need to be fully developed essays, but should a) identify an interesting feature or moment in one of the texts, b) work with a particular passage from it with some degree of specificity, and c) propose some directions that a conversation of this issue might take, and that the class might take up when we meet. Common topics are: answers to the given prompts and questions; connections between texts; a passage that seems particularly rich, provocative, or confusing (maybe clarifications you need, or maybe contradictions or tensions in the text itself); or research questions that it might be interesting to pursue were someone to write about this text.

Format: For each regular week of class (i.e., all but weeks 1, 7, and 13) I have created a discussion board. Each of these 10 weeks, you should write 300 words in a post of your own (posted by class time Wedesday), and at least one comment on one of your classmates’ posts (any time in the week following). While these posts always wind up informing class discussion, we will leave dedicate time at the end of each Wednesday meeting to address them specifically.

Presentation Series

On Mondays, one or two students will each run 10 minutes of the class (5 minutes presenting, and 5 for follow-up discussion as a class). The conceit of this Monday series is “Romantic Presentism”: what is a current text (in any medium, from political commentary to film to video games) that bears comparison with one of our texts for the day? Sign up via poll.

Presentations should take about five minutes (to be followed by 5 minutes of class discussion), and should just do three basic things:

1. identify and describe the text you have chosen;

2. explain its relevance to thematic or formal issues we have identified in the course, and/or intertextual relationship with Romantic works

3. suggest some avenues for discussion. What does it show us about Romanticism’s continued influence? Or, what does a focus on the present enable us to see (or see differently) about the Romantic past? What questions does it raise for you, even if you don’t have answers?

Midterm Exam

Take-home format (two essay style answers in response to given prompts). The exam will be available one week in advance, and is due to the LEARN dropbox.

Final Project Proposal

400-500 words outlining a question you wish to pursue in a final project. You may wish to discuss possible projects with me informally before writing up the formal proposal. The proposal itself should: identify your object of study (what text or texts, and what aspect of them, will you be looking at); your main research objectives (what question do you want to answer?); your methods (what type of analysis will you use?); what has been said about this topic already (who has written on similar subjects? What will you be doing to build on their work, or to supply something that is missing from existing conversations?). You don’t yet need to anticipate your conclusions, but if you can, or if you can suggest why this work might matter, you can certainly include that too.

Note: Research proposals, in whatever context you encounter them, are an exercise in imagining what something will look like before you’ve actually done it. The goal is just to show that you have a viable project, not to have done all the work already; and the final product often looks different than what was proposed.

Final Project

10-page research paper on any topic relevant to the semester’s readings (to be determined in consultation with the instructor, at a minimum via feedback on the written proposal). You may choose to develop ideas that began in one of your weekly response papers. While specific organization and methods of analysis may vary, all papers should contain: 1) an original, argumentative claim; 2) substantial engagement with quoted material--“unpacking” your quotations, not just citing them in passing--and with at least one place where you offer a sustained “close reading” of a particular passage; and 3) an engagement with at least two prior, credible scholarly sources (books, book chapters, or articles) on your subject. Due to LEARN during the first week of final exams (i.e., by Friday 12/13 at 11:59 pm).

Schedule of Readings and Assignments

Important Policy Information:

Late Work

As a general policy, I will accept late work if you request an extension in advance and I grant it. I also make a priority of working with students who experience unforeseen problems and will often offer make-up opportunities. Please come talk to me if you find you are struggling.

Attendance Policy

See “Participation” under assessments for how attending class (or not) can impact your grade.