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Literature 563: Novel Geographies:
Eighteenth-Century
British Fiction
& the Cultural Institutions of the “Rise of the Novel”
winter 2006 Dr. Abby Coykendall acoykenda@emich.edu
Office Location:
Pray-Harrold Hall 603G ~ or email
for an appointment ~
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Literature
563: Studies in Eighteenth-Century British Fiction
Novel Geographies:
18th-Century British Fiction & the Cultural Institutions of the “Rise of
the Novel”
Literature 563
is a course in which you will investigate a wide variety of British prose
fiction from the period that spans the late seventeenth, eighteenth, and early
nineteenth century. This period is
generally referred to as the “long” eighteenth century in order to account for
the revolutions that precede and conclude the eighteenth century proper, both
of which influence the direction of British literary culture profoundly — the
Restoration (of the British monarchy) following the Civil War and, of course,
the French Revolution, the period’s spectacular fin de siècle denouement.
In addition to neoclassicism, which is only one of many literary
movements prevalent at the time (and not necessarily the most interesting nor
even the most important one), we will also consider other genres no less
representative of the period, whether they be gothic, orientalist, libertine,
sentimental, or even those prevailing in the visual arts such as the
picturesque, chinoiserie, or rococo.
Likewise, although our primary focus will be on the novel, a genre
widely thought to be first invented and developed in the period, we will
consider non-fictional, semi-fictional, or at least not-necessarily-so-novelistic
genres almost equally fashionable at the time, such as print journalistic
vehicles like the Spectator, travel
narratives, or epistolary works. These
quasi-canonical narratives and genres are important in and of themselves, as
well as in terms of how they shape the emergence of the novel (arguably, merely
an omnivorous, mass-produced hybrid of them all) as the genre of choice and as
the ultimate guardian of the literary real from this period onwards.
Perhaps more than any other period, the
eighteenth century represents a moment that we must evaluate and reevaluate to
challenge and interrogate the values of our own time. Although often considered the quaint,
tea-and-crumpets blueprint for civil societies across the globe, the British
eighteenth century witnesses both the positives and negatives of modernity in
the extreme. Thus, in midst of a massive
expansion of the slave trade, the birth of the market economy and finance
capitalism, as well as an increasingly rigid sex-gender system (culminating in
“Angle of the House” Victorian domesticity), we find a celebration of art and
culture that students of literature still cannot help but admire. We will test both the apocalyptic and utopian
visions of the British enlightenment through a diverse array of texts that put
issues of modernity at the fore. And
ultimately whether discussing literature or world events, we will attempt to
expand rather than confine our engagement with the material, not only putting
literary works in dialogue with the historical and philosophical texts of the
time, but also examining how they shape the myriad claims to (and contestations
against) modernity that continue to vex our own.
Course
Itinerary
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Section One: The Global Eighteenth Century |
Behn, Oroonoko;
Steele, “Inkle and Yarico”; |
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Section Two: Inventions,
Ideologies: Sexuality and Gender |
Hogarth, Marriage A-la-Mode; |
Texts and Materials
The following books are
available at Ned’s bookstore (http://www.nedsbooks.com/emu/; 483-6400;
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v
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko;
Or, The Royal Slave. Ed. Catherine
Gallagher.
v
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's
Travels. Ed. Christopher B.
Fox.
v Samuel
Richardson, Clarissa. Ed. George Sherburn. Abridged Edition. Houghton Mifflin, 1962. (ISBN #0395051649)
v Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy: An Authoritative Text. Ed. Howard Anderson. Norton Critical Edition, 1980. (ISBN #0393950344)
Many other required readings will be
available online at the Halle Library’s Electronic Reserve website: http://reserves.emich.edu/eres/coursepage.aspx?cid=1627. It is best to print out the Electronic
Reserve materials every few weeks in advance from the multimedia computers on
the first floor of the
Grading
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30% |
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Weekly Homework Assignments |
due dates: |
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15% |
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Research Proposal (4 pages) |
April 12
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5% |
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Research Presentation |
April 26
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50% |
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Seminar Paper (16-20 pages) |
April
29 |
Weekly
Homework Assignments (30%)
Aside from the required reading, there will one of three kinds of homework
assignments due almost every week. You
will cycle though these different assignments, depending on which of the three
base groups you are in. See the List
of Group Assignments for details about your group assignment, including a link to the email addresses
of your fellow group members, and see the Schedule that follows for
details about which kind of homework assignment you
will be doing for each particular week.
Informal
Responses
Responses are casual written reactions to the materials that we
have read for the week, of roughly 300 to 350 words handwritten or typed. Each response must significantly engage with
at least one of the primary readings, as well as with at least one of the
contextual or critical readings (preferably the latter). If you miss this assignment, you must make it
up by the following week.
Discussion
Questions
The discussion questions should be challenging yet open ended, encouraging
your fellow students to interpret texts in a more nuanced and complex fashion
than they might have otherwise. For
example, you might ask your peers to
1.
Debate an ethical issue raised by the events in the
literature or ideas in the criticism;
2.
Compare and contrast the texts with other well-known texts
or films;
3.
Analyze unusual symbols or images that recur throughout the
narrative (“motifs”);
4.
Pinpoint the conscious or unconscious motivations of the
author, culture, or readers;
5.
Connect some of the situations in the literature to
circumstances currently in unfolding in our own era;
6.
Do character sketches of main or marginal characters (or
both), considering their motivations, conflicts, reliability, development, or
lack thereof;
7.
Consider how the events in the narrative would be perceived
differently by different characters, by different readers, or by different
cultures (women/men; rich/poor; slave/free);
8.
Re-evaluate the text with a suggestive quote in mind, a
quote from a contemporary author, from a critical theorist, or from any other
interesting and pertinent source;
9.
Examine the text from a feminist, deconstructionist,
Marxist, formalist, or new historicist point of view, or from the point of view
of any other theoretical school, giving helpful pointers on how to do so for
those unacquainted with that particular paradigm.
Each
member of the group will be responsible for designing one question, preferably
in consultation with the other group members so as to prevent the repetition of
the same topics. You can either meet in advance of the class
or consult with each other over email to make sure that the questions do not
overlap. (See
the List of Group Assignments
for a quick link to all emails.) You
will have to finish the assigned reading somewhat earlier than the other
students, in time to consult about the reading and polish the questions. Just make sure that
each question is distinct from the others, as well as substantive enough to
warrant extensive discussion by your peers.
There is no way to make up this
assignment, so make sure to do it in a timely fashion.
Bring six copies of
the final version of the discussion questions to class: one copy for me and one
copy for each of the five groups that will ultimately consider the
questions. You can either bring in your
questions individually (perhaps pasted six times on the same page to save
paper) or consolidate the assorted questions on one page as a group.
If at all possible, email
the questions to me in advance so that I can avoid repeating the same material
in the preceding lecture. These
discussion questions, as well as those of the other groups, will be available
in the Electronic Reserves
following the class period.
Mini-Presentations
on Optional or Outside
This
assignment essentially entails reading some additional material for the week —
either a longer version of a text that the other students are also reading, an
optional critical article or book chapter listed on the schedule, or an article
of secondary criticism that you have discovered on your own by searching the MLA Bibliography.
For
recommendations for outside reading, see the texts with asterisks (**) listed
on the Schedule
each week, see the materials in the “Supplementary Reading” folders of the Electronic Reserves,
or find different articles or chapters by one of the
authors assigned as required reading. Most
of the texts with asterisks will be available in the “Complete Article” folders
of the Electronic Reserves, as
well as at the circulation desk of the
As you
read the supplementary material, do the following: 1) make a brief inventory of
the three or four most important arguments of the author (in bulleted lists
rather than in complete sentences); 2) transcribe your favorite quote (or at
least the most suggestive one) from the text; and 3) jot down the page number
and the basic bibliographic information, especially if you find the article or
book chapter on your own. You will share
this information with the class as a whole in a mini-presentation of 3 to 5
minutes. If possible, make a few copies
of the quote (pasted a couple of times on the same page) for the other students
to share.
Make-Up Work for
Absent Students
If you are absent from class, consult the discussion
questions in the Electronic Reserves
for that week and then write a 300- to 350-word response on one of the
questions to make up for the groupwork that you missed.
Research Project (70%)
I strongly recommend consulting with me during my office hours as
early as possible in the semester to identify the topics that you want to
pursue in the seminar paper. You can
recycle any of the work that you generate through the homework assignments listed
above in the seminar paper itself; e.g. by expanding one of your responses into
a more formal (and more organized) research essay or by using one of the
discussion questions as a basis for further analysis and research.
Research
Proposal (15%)
In the four-page
research proposal, you will identify the novel (or narrative) that you will
discuss in the final seminar paper, indicating the approach that you plan to
take to it and specifying the sources that you will use to support your claims
(see below for
the minimum source requirements). All in
all, the proposal must include the following: 1) an introductory paragraph,
thesis, and outline for your research paper; 2) a brief survey of the main
critical materials that will inform it; and 3) a brief annotated
bibliography. **If you are not writing on the final novel (Tristram Shandy), it
would be a good idea to turn in the research proposal earlier in the semester
so that you can get feedback on your essay before the often hectic closing
weeks of the term.
Research
Presentation (5%)
On the last day
of class, the day otherwise scheduled for the final exam, you will give an
informal in-class presentation of the research that you have done for your
final essay. Whether or not you have
actually finished the paper, the research proposal can serve as a guide to
share your argument with your classmates and to receive feedback from them in
return.
Seminar Paper
(50%)
The most
important writing assignment will, of course, be the seminar paper itself. Aside from the novel or narrative on which
you are primarily focusing your argument, this 16- to 20-page essay must
reference a minimum of six outside sources, including at
least one of each of the following: a theorist, a literary critic, a historian,
and another primary source (either another work by the same author or another
work by a related author from the same period).
Of these six
sources, three can derive from the materials already assigned as required
reading for the class. See the Researching
Literature handout for basic guidelines on research, as
well as the handout on MLA documentation in the Electronic Reserves.
You also must make at least a decent
attempt to format the paper according to MLA conventions by providing
parenthetical citations and a Works Cited page.
Also, please remember to include
page numbers and your last name inside the top margin.
Academic Integrity
Plagiarism is a
very serious offense against the Code of Student Conduct. According to Funk and Wagnalls’ New
Standard Dictionary, plagiarism is the act of “appropriating the ideas, writings,
or inventions of another without due acknowledgment; specifically, the stealing
of passages either for word or in substance, from the writings of another and
publishing them as one’s own.” The
general rule is that if you use three or more words of another writer in
a row without enclosing those words in quotation marks and acknowledging your
source, you are guilty of plagiarism.
Turning a paper in that you wrote for
another class for this class, i.e. recycling the same words for double credit, also
constitutes academic dishonesty at EMU. Any academic
dishonesty will result in a failing, zero-percent grade for the
assignment. With the internet,
plagiarism is quite easy and tempting to do; however, the internet also makes
plagiarism that much more easy to catch and document, so do not even think
about doing it in this class or elsewhere.
Schedule
Section One: Contact Zones — The Global Eighteenth Century
Week One (January 11):
Introduction to
Course; Student Introductions; Conjectural Reponses
Week Two (January 18):
Primary Text: Begin Aphra Behn, Oroonoko (OR
34-69)
Context: Catherine Gallagher Introduction (OR 3-25)
“Restoration
and Eighteenth Century,” Longman
Anthology, Parts I & II [ER]
Theorists: Ella Shohat and
Robert Stam, “Tropes of Empire,” Unthinking
Eurocentrism** [ER]
Optional Criticism: Laura Brown,
“Romance of Empire”** [ER]
HOMEWORK: Group 1 Response;
Group 2 Discussion Question; Group 3 Mini-Presentation
Week Three (January 25):
Primary Texts: Finish Aphra Behn, Oroonoko (OR 70-100)
Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu, Turkish Embassy Letters [ER, Biography Optional]
Artwork:
Theorist: Mary Louis Pratt, “Arts
of the Contact Zone”** [ER]
Optional Criticism: Srinivas
Aravamudan, “Petting Oroonoko,” Tropicopolitans**
[ER~]
HOMEWORK: Group 2
Response; Group 3 Discussion Question; Group 1 Mini-Presentation
Week Four (February 1):
Film: Imagined
Communities (39 min)
Primary Texts: Joseph Addison, “Royal Exchange” [ER]
Richard
Steele, “Inkle and Yarico” [OR
190-98]
Olaudah Equiano, Interesting Narrative [OR 310-25, 391-92, 458-63]
Artwork: Exotic Tourism Ad [ER]
Context: Historical Context
on Slavery [OR
208-17, 326-34, 393-401]
Theorist: Benedict Anderson, Imagined
Communities** [ER]
Optional Criticism: Nell Boyce, “Out of
Peter
Hulme, “Inkle and Yarico”** [ER]
HOMEWORK: Group 3
Response; Group 1 Discussion Question; & Group 2 Mini-Presentation
Week Five (February 8):
Film: Edward Said on Orientalism
(40
min)
Primary Text: Jonathan Swift,
Gulliver’s Travels, Part I [GT 27-89]
Context: Christopher B.
Fox Introduction [GT
3-22]
Theorist: Edward Said, “Imaginative
Geography and Its Representations,” Orientalism** [ER]
Criticism: Deidre Lynch and William Warner, Introduction Cultural
Institutions of the Novel [ER]
HOMEWORK: Group 1 Response;
Group 2 Discussion Question; Group 3 Mini-Presentation
Week Six (February 15):
Primary Text: Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s
Travels, Part II [GT
91-147]
Context: Anne McClintock,
Imperial Leather** [ER]
Theorist: Frantz Fanon, “The Fact of Blackness”** [ER]
HOMEWORK: Group 2
Response; Group 3 Discussion Question; Group 1 Mini-Presentation
Week Seven (February 22):
Primary Text: Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s
Travels, Part III [GT
205-66]
Context: Laura Brown,
“Reading Race” [ER]
Theorist: J. M. Coetzee, Lives
of the Animals [ER]
Optional Critics: See the back of the Bedford Critical Edition**
Julia
Kristeva, Powers of Horror [ER]
HOMEWORK: Group 3 Response; Group 1 Discussion Question; Group 2
Mini-Presentation
Section Two: Inventions,
Ideologies: Sexuality and Gender
Week Eight (March 1):
Winter
Recess: Along
with the homework below, reading part, if not all, of Clarissa or of Tristram
Shandy over the break, and/or getting a start on your Research Proposal, is
recommended to make the end of the term go more smoothly.
Week Nine (March 8):
Film: William Hogarth’s Marriage A-la-Mode (40 min)
Primary Texts: William Hogarth, Marriage A-la-Mode [ER]
Oliver
Goldsmith, Vicar of
Eliza Haywood, Fantomina [ER; Biography Optional]
Context:
“Restoration
and Eighteenth Century,” Longman Anthology, Part III [ER]
Theorist: Ruth Perry,
“Colonizing the Breast” [ER]
Optional
Theorists: Mary Russo, “Female
Grotesques: Carnival and Theory”** [ER]
Terry
Castle, “Masquerade and Civilization”** [ER]
HOMEWORK: Group 1 Response;
Group 2 Discussion Question; Group 3 Mini-Presentation
Week Ten (March 15):
Primary Text: Samuel
Richardson, Clarissa [CL xix-172]
Context: George Sherburn Introduction
(v-xiv)
Criticism: Ian Watt, Rise of the Novel [ER~]**
HOMEWORK: Group 2 Response;
Group 3 Discussion Question; & Group 1 Mini-Presentation
Week Eleven (March 22):
Primary Text: Samuel
Richardson, Clarissa [CL 173-347]
Criticism: William Warner,
“Elevation of the Novel” [ER]
Optional Criticism: Homer Brown,
“Why the Story of the Origin of the (English) Novel Is an American Romance (If
Not the Great American Novel)”** [ER]
HOMEWORK: Group 3 Response;
Group 1 Discussion Question; Group 2 Mini-Presentation
Week Twelve (March 29):
Primary Text: Samuel
Richardson, Clarissa [CL 348-516]
Criticism: Madeleine Kahn,
Narrative Transvestism** [ER~]
Optional Criticism: Terry Eagleton, Rape of Clarissa** [ER~]
HOMEWORK: Group 1 Response;
Group 2 Discussion Question; Group 3 Mini-Presentation
Week Thirteen (April 5):
Primary Text: Begin Laurence
Sterne, Tristram Shandy [TS xii-153]
Context: Howard Anderson Introduction
Criticism: Ann Bermingham,
“Picturesque and Ready-to-Wear Femininity”** [ER~]
HOMEWORK: Group 2 Response; Group
3 Discussion Question; Group 1 Mini-Presentation
Week Fourteen (April 12):
Primary Text: Continue
Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy [TS 154-306]
*Note: Of Book IV, read only Chpts.
10-14 & 31
Of Book V, read only Chpts. 2-14 & 31
Criticism: Select Norton
Critics [TS 584-609; 623-39]
HOMEWORK: Research Proposal Due (also work on the
Research Presentation and Paper)
Week Fifteen (April 19):
Primary Text: Finish Laurence
Sterne, Tristram Shandy
*Note: Of Book IX, read only Chpts.
18-33
Criticism: Bonnie
Blackwell, “Theater of the Mechanical Mother”** [ER]
HOMEWORK: Group 3 Response; Group 1 Discussion
Question; Group 2 Mini-Presentation
Week Sixteen (April 26):
Research Presentations (Papers due Saturday, April 29, by 2PM,
either under my office door, 603G Pray Harrold, or in by English Department
mailbox, 612 Pray Harrold)
[Syllabus last modified January 11, 2006]