410 F21 Easton

English 410 (001); GSJ 410 (001)

Fall 2021

T Th 2:30 - 3:50 pm

HH 1102

Instructor: Dr. F. Easton

TA: Ms. S. Lodoen

English Department

University of Waterloo

Eighteenth-Century Women Writers

Syllabus

Notes: (1) all course readings (apart from the novels by Radcliffe and Austen, handouts, and links to webpages) are from Robert DeMaria, Jr., ed., British Literature 1640-1789, 4th ed. (Wiley, 2016); (2) some of the works we are reading this term deal with mature themes, sexual content, sexual violence, and racial, religious, gender, and class stereotypes and epithets; if you wish to request an accommodation with respect to any such material, please email the instructor before the end of the first full week of classes (September 17th); and (3) please be aware that by taking this course you are agreeing to read, and participate in discussions about, the material below, including four long texts: the novels by Radcliffe, Austen, and Behn, and Behn’s play The Rover.

September 9 & 14: Introduction: New Contexts, New Energies

  • Behn, “To the Fair Clarinda, Who Made Love to me, Imagined More than Woman” (also in DeMaria)
  • Finch, “The Introduction”
  • Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America”

I. Utopias and Dystopias

September 16: Till Death

  • “The Form of Solemnization of Matrimony” (the marriage service) (H = handout)

September 21 & 23: The Status of Women

  • Cavendish, from The Description of a New World, called the Blazing World
  • Astell, from A Serious Proposal to the Ladies
  • Chudleigh, “To the Ladies”

September 28 & 30: Women’s Powers

  • Philips, “To Mrs. Wogan, My Honoured Friend, on the Death of Her Husband,” “Orinda to Lucasia,” “Parting with Lucasia: A Song”
  • Collier, “The Woman’s Labour”

II. Romance and the Rise of Women’s Fiction

October 5 & 7: Gothic Lives

  • Radcliffe, A Sicilian Romance

October 12 & 14: Reading Week--no classes

October 19 & 21: Gothic Emblems

  • Austen, Northanger Abbey

III. Confronting Others

October 26 & 28: Noble, African, Anti-Christian

  • Behn, Oroonoko

November 2 & 4: Subaltern Voices

  • Wheatley, “To S.M., A Young African Painter, On Seeing his Works,”
  • “To Maecenas”; Smith, “Letter to Thomas Clarkson” (H)

November 9: Eastern Visions

  • Montagu, from Letters (“To the Lady X---,” “To the Lady ---,” and “To Lady Mar”)

IV. The Rights of Woman

November 11, 16 & 18: The Bechdel Test

  • Behn, The Rover; or, The Banished Cavaliers

November 23, 25 & 30: (Re)Placing Men

  • Finch, “To the Nightingale,” “The Unequal Fetters,” “The Answer,” “The Spleen”
  • Montagu, “The Reasons that Induced Dr. S[wift] to Write a Poem Called the Lady’s Dressing Room”

December 2: The Rights of Men and Women:

  • Wollstonecraft, from A Vindication of the Rights of Men

December 7: Make up class (if necessary)