Fall 2009
English 303 #7046
Karnoutsos 432
Tuesday 1pm-3:50
Instructor: Dr. Hilary Englert
Office: Karnoutsos 319
Office Hours: Tuesday 4pm-6pm and By Appointment
Phone: X3099
e-mail: henglert@njcu.edu
hilaryenglert@comcast.net
Course Description:
In this course, we will read a number of long prose
narratives significant for their roles in the formation of the most
commercially successful, widely-read, and culturally influential genre of the
modern period: the novel. Our critical
emphasis will be on the representational strategies and narrative modes
specific to the novel in several stages of its historical development in England and America
(and later, the United
States).
We will pay special attention to the kinds of cognitive and affective
relationships that novels construct between and among their narrators,
characters, and readers, both real and imagined, and how they do that work. In focusing on the generic conventions of novels
of sentimental and psychological realism, we will also conduct an inquiry into
the novel’s interest in representing the hearts and minds of its characters and
narrators and thereby offering models of subjective experience and
consciousness for its readers to imitate and internalize. Finally, we will consider the persistence of
tropes of captivity and confinement in the novel and we will seek to understand
the significance and implications of this persistence for the definition of the
genre.
Course Objectives:
By the end of the semester, students in this course will
be expected to have demonstrated a familiarity with the texts on the syllabus,
a working knowledge of the critical and historical frameworks in which the
class has engaged these texts, and a level of competence in both formal and
historicist verbal and written analysis of literary works.
Required Texts:
--Mary Rowlandson,
The
Sovereignty and Goodness of God (xerox)
--John Bunyan,
The
Pilgrim’s Progress (Volume One) Oxford University Press (0-19-953813-1)
--Samuel Richardson,
Pamela;
or Virtue Rewarded Penguin (0-14-043140-3)
--Jane Austen,
Sense
and Sensibility Oxford University Press (978-0-19-953557-6)
--Charlotte Bronte,
Jane Eyre
Oxford University
Press 978-(0-19-953559-0)
--Philip K. Dick,
Martian Time Slip Vintage
(0-679-76167-5)
--Cynthia Ozick,
The
Heir to the Glimmering World Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Co.
(0-618-61880-5)
Requirements:
1. READING
You are required to complete all
of the reading assigned, to read closely and to keep up with the pace set by
the syllabus. Before you firmly commit
to taking this course, look closely at what that will entail – the reading load
is manageable, but will require careful planning and organization; this is a
class for people who enjoy reading novels, and who enjoy subjecting what they
read to critical scrutiny and analysis. Should
you decide to remain in the course, you will need to be particularly vigilant
in your efforts not to fall behind the reading schedule.
2. READING RESPONSES and
PARTICIPATION
You are required to attend class
and to engage with the concerns generated in and by the class. In an effort to encourage this engagement, I
ask that you generate
a two-page written
response to some aspect of each week’s reading, to be handed in each class
session. You must carefully organize,
type, and proofread these pieces, which will constitute the most preliminary
critical work that you do with the reading material each week, and which we may
use to frame discussion on any given day.
Note: this type of participation is a
requirement. This task is
designed to remind you that your reading process is always an active one – that
you think things as you read and that those thoughts are a meaningful part of
your basic understanding not to mention your interpretation of the materials we
cover. If you are not already in the
habit of annotating your text as you read, please start. The notes that you take during your first
encounter with a text will frequently provide the richest source for the more
formal analytical work that you do with it later (including that of the reading
response). Note: the reading response is
formal writing. You must avoid self-referential statements
(e.g. “it seems to me,” “in my opinion,” “this character reminds me of my pet
frog” etc.), statements of aesthetic or moral judgment (e.g. “this book is
brilliant,” “this book is trash,” “this author does a marvelous job,” “this
author is a moron”), and to provide ample textual evidence in support of your
claims.
If you are unsure of whether or
not you are approaching this assignment properly, the most important thing to
keep in mind is that you want to learn something (figure something out) about
the text through the process of generating the reading response.
Suggested Approaches to the Reading Response:
--examine the way a work treats a
particular concept, term, or phenomenon
--explore
a question or point of confusion about a text that occurs to you as you are reading;
try to articulate the critical
problem that’s nagging at you
and formulate
some provisional solutions
--discuss or analyze a
particularly striking feature, passage, pattern, or idea in a text
--examine
the connections between two or more texts’ formal modes, themes,
representational strategies, historical
contexts, ideological implications or arguments, or relationship to
tradition
--advance an interpretive claim
or suggestion about the meaning or significance of a chapter, passage,
element, or other aspect of a text
To review:
The objective of the reading
response is not
merely to demonstrate
that you have done the reading, but also to begin thinking analytically and in
writing about the material on the syllabus that week. By definition, then, it must be completed and
submitted by its deadline. Be sure to
type your reading responses, and to bring them to class, ready to draw on them
during discussion.
Your reading responses will be evaluated on the basis of:
--the evidence they demonstrate
of your thoughtful, if preliminary, engagement with the texts;
--the evidence they demonstrate
of your efforts to address limitations to your writing (especially grammatical and/or mechanical
problems) that have been identified on previous reading responses over the course of the semester;
--their timely submission.
3. WRITING ASSIGNMENTS
In addition to completing the
reading responses described above, you
are required to compose
two formal
essays on topics that I will provide during the course of the semester, to
complete occasional
informal in-class
writing assignments, to produce one
Relational
Analysis Project, consisting of both an in-class presentation and a critical
essay based on that presentation (see below).
Your formal essays will be evaluated on the basis of:
--the clarity of
your prose;
--the persuasiveness
of your argument (that is, the effectiveness of your use of evidence and of the organizational framework of your
discussion);
--the thoughtfulness
of your engagement with the materials concerned;
--the closeness of
your engagement with the question posed.
Relational Analysis Project:
Each class session, one or two
students (working separately) will deliver a brief presentation, consisting of
a 10-15 minute-length, thoughtful,
analytical
discussion of at least one of that week’s readings
in relation to any text or group of texts that the class has
already read and discussed.
Presentations should be given from notes (while memorization is not
necessary, do try to resist reading aloud to the class). By carefully juxtaposing new and familiar
materials, each presentation will not only broaden, complicate, and refine our
understanding of both texts but will, as well, elucidate historical, thematic,
methodological, and/or formal connections between them, thereby advancing our
semester-long study of the novel as a genre.
This is your opportunity to
elaborate analytical connections that your classmates will not have made on
their own, as well as to set the agenda for the day’s discussion. In order to keep your discussion precise and
compelling, you will want to maximize the impact of the textual references –
especially the quotations – that you use.
Once you have chosen the texts you want to discuss, you will need to
provide an
analysis of their relationship. In other words, you will need to provide an
account of the precise nature of the connections you are drawing between
them. Be sure to identify the words,
passages, ideas, or representational patterns in the texts that link them for
you – this will constitute the basis of your analysis. Keep in mind, your task is a highly focused
one: you are not being asked to
comprehensively explicate either or both texts, but rather to characterize and
explore one relationship between them.
You might connect two or more texts on the basis of any of the
following:
--shared or otherwise related
representational strategies or formal features
--shared or related historical
frames of reference
--the explicit or implicit
influence of one text on another
--shared or otherwise related
places within a literary tradition, genre, or movement
--shared, opposed, or otherwise
related ideological and/or political claims or commitments
--shared or otherwise related
themes or concerns
I will be available to provide
suggestions for particularly rich or interesting sites of intertextuality
(clear and direct reference to one text by another), dialogue, or
comparison. Remember: this project is
analytical in nature; a mere summary of your texts will not do and
please omit extraneous “background information.”
You are required to e-mail me (henglert@njcu.edu) by no later than two
days before your presentation with a rough outline of the analysis you plan to
present in class that week. I will
provide comments designed to strengthen your presentation no later than one day
following your e-mail, but frequently far earlier. Please feel free to reply to my reply and to
extend the exchange for as long as you deem it helpful before the date of your
presentation.
The 2-3-page, typed, double-spaced, written essay based on the Relational Analysis
Presentation will be due in final form one week following the day on which the
oral presentation is delivered. Before
submitting your written essay, you may choose to revise your analysis in light
of comments or questions raised during discussion of the in-class
presentation. This is strongly advised.
Your relational analysis presentation will be evaluated on the basis
of:
--your preparation (that is,
whether your e-mail outline is on time and detailed and feedback is taken into consideration)
--your adherence to the task
(that is, whether your discussion is genuinely
relational and genuinel
y analytical)
--the clarity of your discussion
--the persuasiveness of your
analysis (that is, the effectiveness of your use of evidence and of the organizational
framework of your discussion)
--the thoughtfulness of your
engagement with the materials concerned
Your formal essays (including the essay based on the relational
analysis presentation) will be evaluated on the basis of:
--the clarity of your prose
--the persuasiveness of your
argument (that is, the effectiveness of your use of evidence and of the organizational
framework of your discussion)
--the thoughtfulness of your
engagement with the materials concerned
--the closeness of your engagement
with the question posed
Policies:
1. EXTENSIONS: If you are unable to finish
an assignment in the allotted time, you must request an extension
before the deadline, rather than simply
granting one to yourself or failing to show up with the work completed. Absence is no excuse for missing a
deadline. When deadlines have not been
extended, late papers will not be read.
2. ATTENDANCE: More than three absences
and/or chronic lateness may result in a lowered final grade.
3. OFFICE HOURS: Please feel free to drop by
my office hours, to call me, to see me after class or to set up an appointment
outside of regular office hours to discuss academic questions, assignments,
plans etc. You need not have a specific
problem or clearly formulated agenda to greatly benefit from a visit.
4. EVALUATION: Your grade will be based
primarily on improvement of written work, though attendance and participation
will be reflected. Because I want you to
regard the thinking and the writing you do in the course as a developmental
process and not as a collection of finite assignments or exercises, your grade will
be calculated with emphasis on persistent effort, progress and sustained
achievement. Nonetheless, the
mathematical formula I will use to calculate your final grade looks like this:
30% --
Participation/Effort/Engagement (including reading responses, in-class writing, workshops, class discussion,
evidence of thoughtful reading)
40% -- Two Formal Essays
30% -- Relational
Analysis Project (both the Presentation and Essay)
5. PLAGIARISM:
The NJCU student handbook defines plagiarism as the attempt: “to pass
off ideas or words of another as one’s own,” “to use material without crediting
the source” and/or “to present as new and original an idea, phrase or statement
derived from an existing source.” In
other words, if you submit an essay that you did not write, or an essay containing
a passage – even one sentence – or a substantial idea that you have copied from
an internet or print source without using quotation marks, footnotes,
parenthetical citations, a bibliography and/or a works cited page to document
that source,
you have plagiarized. Because the English department considers
plagiarism a flagrant violation of academic integrity, plagiarism in this or
any English course will result in an automatic dismissal from the course, a
grade of F for the course, and a report of the incident to the Dean of
Students. Note: For all assignments in
this course, you will be best off limiting the texts you engage to the primary
and secondary material assigned. In
other words, a typical google search on any of the works on the syllabus will
be more likely to confuse the issue and lead you astray from the concerns of
the course than to provide clarification or insight.
Semester Schedule:
Week One (September 1) – Introductions and
Definitions: Realism and the Novel
Week Two (September 8) – The Uses of
Texts: from Allegory to Realism
John Bunyan,
A
Pilgrim’s Progress, “The Author’s Apology for his Book” and
Part One
**“Realism and the Novel Form” from Ian Watt,
The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe,
Richardson and Fielding (xerox)
Week Three (September 15) – Reading in Captivity: Typology, Puritans, and
Print
Increase Mather, “Preface to the Reader” (xerox)
Mary Rowlandson,
The
Sovereignty and Goodness of God (xerox)
Week Four (September 22) – Writing in
Captivity: the Emergence of the Novel in Britain
Samuel Richardson,
Pamela;
or Virtue Rewarded
**Adam Smith, from
A
Theory of Moral Sentiments (xerox)
**“The Reading Public and the Rise of the Novel” from Ian
Watt,
The Rise of the Novel: Studies in
Defoe, Richardson and Fielding
(xerox)
Week Five (September 29) – The Scene of Reading and the
Pamela Craze
Samuel Richardson,
Pamela;
or Virtue Rewarded
**James Grantham Turner, “Novel Panic: Picture and
Performance in the Reception of Richardson’s
Pamela” (xerox)
Week Six (October 6) – Relocating the
Origins of the English Novel
Samuel Richardson,
Pamela;
or Virtue Rewarded
**Michelle Burnham, “Between England
and America:
Captivity, Sympathy, and the Sentimental Novel” (xerox)
Week Seven (October 13) – Passion, Agency,
and Constraint in the Novel of Manners
Jane Austen,
Sense
and Sensibility
Week Eight (October 20) – Ideologies of Status,
Class, and the Exemplary Individual: What’s Changed Since Richardson?
Jane Austen,
Sense
and Sensibility
**Mary Poovey, “Ideological Contradictions and the
Consolations of Form: the Case of Jane Austen” from
The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer (xerox)
Weeks Nine and Ten (October 27 and November 3rd) – Reading in Captivity Again: The Victorian Gothic
Charlotte Bronte,
Jane
Eyre
Week Eleven (November 10th) – Complicating Notions of the Novel as an Ideological Tool
Charlotte Bronte,
Jane
Eyre
**Chris R. Vanden Bossche, “What Did Jane Eyre Do? Ideology, Agency, Class and the Novel”
(xerox)
Weeks Twelve and Thirteen (November 17 and 24)–
The Captive Mind: Representations of Singular Consciousness
Philip K. Dick,
Martian
Time Slip
Weeks Fourteen and Fifteen (
December 1 and 8) – Reading and Writing in
Captivity and Exile
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