LITEN 21: INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE OF THE BRITISH ISLES: PRE-1660
Fall 2012; Lecture: MWF 10-10:50 a.m., PCYNH 122 Sections 752191;752192;752193
Professor Lisa Lampert-Weissig; Office: Literature 347; phone: 822-0204; email:
Course website: www.medievallit.org Office hours: M 1-2:30 and W 11-12
Teaching Assistants: Stacey Trujillo s2trujil@ucsd.edu; office hours Wed 11-12, location TBA
Clare Rolens crolens@ucsd.edu; office hours 11-1 Friday, location TBA
Texts: Required: Norton Anthology of English Literature, vols A and B, 9th edition (NA)
Michael Alexander, Beowulf: A Verse Translation.
Murfin and Ray: The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms.
All required reading in the Norton Anthology unless otherwise noted.
Week “Zero”:
Fri., Sept. 28: Introduction Slides
Required reading:
Read through the syllabus and course policies!!
Murfin and Ray: canon; Old English period; periodicity.
Week One: Beowulf slides
Mon., Oct. 1: “The Middle Ages to ca. 1485” in NA. Beowulf (in Alexander not in Norton Anthology). Murfin and Ray: alliteration, caesura, kenning, hero/protagonist.
Wed., Oct. 3: Beowulf (In Alexander, not NA)
Fri., Oct. 5: Headnote pp. 7-20. “Geoffrey Chaucer” and “The Canterbury Tales.”
Chaucer, “General Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales.
Murfin and Ray: satire, frame story
Week Two: Slides: GP Miller's Tale
Mon., Oct. 8: Summary of the Knight’s Tale and “The Miller’s Tale.” Review ll. 547-568. Murfin and Ray: fabliau
Wed., Oct. 10: No class today.
Fri., Oct. 12: “Wife of Bath’s Tale and Prologue.” Review ll. 447-478 of GP Wife of Bath slides
Murfin and Ray: allusion, exegesis, medieval romance, courtly love
Week Three:
Mon., Oct. 15: Chaucer, Pardoner’s Tale.” Review ll. 671-716 of GP. Pardoner slides
Murfin and Ray: exemplum, Seven Deadly Sins.
Wed., Oct. 17: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (with headnote). Gawain slides
Murfin and Ray: alliteration, hero, medieval romance, courtly love.
Fri., Oct. 19: Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe and notes.
Murfin and Ray: autobiography; mysticism.
Week Four:
Mon., Oct. 22: York Play of the Crucifixion. Murfin and Ray: mystery play Kempe/York slides
Wed., Oct. 24: Headnotes: “The Sixteenth Century,” Spenser and FQ. Spenser: “A Letter of the Authors” and Fairie Queene, Book I, cantos 1 and 2.
Murfin and Ray: allegory, epic, epic simile, in medias res, Spenserian stanza.
Fri., Oct. 26: Same as readings for Wed. Oct. 24
Week Five:
Mon., Oct. 29: FQ: Book II, canto 12. PAPER ONE DUE IN LECTURE. Spenser slides
Wed., Oct. 31: Notes on Marlowe and Dr. Faustus. Marlowe: Dr. Faustus.
Murfin and Ray: hero, anti-hero, allusion, blank verse, morality play, parody, Seven Deadly Sins, tragedy.
Fri., Nov. 2: Marlowe: DF
Faustus slides
Week Six:
Mon., Nov. 5: The Sonnet and Sonnet Cycle forms. Please read all of the sonnet selections and head notes in the sections for: Sidney and Shakespeare in order to get as full a sense as possible of the “sonnet cycle.” Specific poems to be emphasized in lecture and section and exams will be announced. Murfin and Ray: sonnet, sonnet cycle, Shakespearian Sonnet, apostrophe, lyric, platonic love.
Wed., Nov. 7: The Sonnet continued. Sidney’s “Defence of Poetry." Specific sections for focus here.
Sonnet/Apology slides
Fri., Nov. 9: The next three lectures will focus on early Seventeenth-century lyric poetry grouped around the themes “love,” “politics” and “religion,” but as we will see it’s pretty hard to untangle these themes. Not all poems will be covered in lecture, but read each selection listed to get a sense of the range of the verse, specific poems for lecture/section/exam focus will be announced. I may add or subtract lyrics depending on our pace.
Love Poetry.’ Headnote: “The Early Seventeenth Century.”
Donne: headnote ; “The Canonization,” “Break of Day,” “The Flea,”
“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” “The Ectasy,” “The Relic,” Elegy 19. Herrick (headnote); “To the Virgins.”
Marvell : headnote; “To His Coy Mistress.”
Jonson: headnote ; “Still to Be Neat.”
For Seventeenth-century lyric: Murfin and Ray, conceit, metaphysical conceit, metaphysical poetry, carpe diem, Cavalier poets.
Week Seven:
Mon., Nov. 12: UCSD closed to observe Veteran’s Day. No lecture today.
Wed., Nov. 14: ‘Social poetry.’ Donne: “The Sun Rising.” Jonson: “To Penshurst.” Marvell: “Bermudas,” “An Horatian Ode.” Lanyer: “Cooke-ham” and “Eve’s Apology.”
Fri., Nov. 16: ‘Religious poetry.’ Donne: Holy Sonnets 1, 9, 10, 13, 14.
Herrick: “Corrina’s Going A-Maying.”
Herbert: headnote; “The Collar” and “The Altar.”
SLIDES FOR ALL17th C Verse
Week Eight: No section meetings this week. No thinksheets
Mon., Nov. 19: Milton: Headnote: Paradise Lost, Headnote; Books 1-2 and ll. 1-134 of Book 3.
Further specific assignments for PL will be announced later in the quarter after I’ve determined our pacing.
Murfin and Ray: blank verse, epic, epic simile, in medias res, epithet
Wed., Nov. 21: No lecture today
Fri., Nov. 23: No lecture today
Week Nine:
Mon., Nov. 26: PL .
Wed., Nov. 28: PL PAPER TWO DUE IN LECTURE
Fri., Nov. 30: PL
Week Ten: No thinksheets but sections still meet.
Mon., Dec. 3: PL wrap-up
Wed., Dec. 5: Review/Make-up Paradise lost SLIDES
Fri., Dec. 7: Review for final exam—time for spill-over/make-up
Review/Make-up
Final exam: 12/14/2011 from 8-10:50 am This will be a three-hour exam, no notes or books allowed. A detailed handout on format will be distributed well in advance. Be sure to bring blue books.
About LITEN 21
The main goals of this course: To help students gain an overview of the major literary periods and genres and important authors and works of English literature from Beowulf through 1660. Sections and written assignments are designed to help students strengthen their ability to analyze and discuss early English literature and to encourage students to focus on selected literary works in‑depth.
Grading:: Section participation: 20% (10% Weekly Writings; 10% Participation); Paper One: 15%; Paper Two: 35%; Final: 30%. Under my supervision, TAs will grade written assignments for all students in their sections. You should discuss any grading problem with your TA.
Attendance: Attendance in section is mandatory. Missing section will lower your grade. Anyone who misses four of these meetings without a medical excuse will fail the course automatically. (Really, this has actually happened). Tardiness to section can count as an absence at the discretion of TA. I do not take attendance in lecture, but we design/grade the final exam in a way that makes coming to lecture a very good idea!
Weekly “Think sheets”:To promote discussion, brief responses will be assigned. The questions will be posted on the course website; please consult the question assigned by your section leader. The responses will not receive a letter grade, except that students who write nothing or write frivolously will not receive credit for the exercise, and such failures will be averaged into the percentage of the completion grade for these exercises and therefore into the final grade coming from the discussion section (see Grade Breakdown above).
Folders: Please retain all materials for this course in a course folder. This folder is intended to help you organize materials for study and also to make sure that you receive credit for all work (if, for example, a thinksheet was mistakenly not recorded you’ll have it to show us). It will also help us to see your progress during the quarter and to guard against plagiarism (in other words, we want to be able to see your writing process). Section leaders will specify what materials should be turned in for specific assignments.
Papers and Exams: There will be two five‑page papers. A list of topics will be distributed in advance. Papers shorter than five pages will be graded down accordingly. You are responsible for making an additional hard copy of your paper.
Completing an assignment on time is a very important part of fulfilling the assignment. We will collect papers when Professor Lampert-Weissig completes her lecture for the day (so, don’t wait until the very last minute to get to class—make sure everyone will still be there). We will then immediately go through the papers and mark down which ones have been turned in at the lecture. If your paper has not been turned in it will lose a full grade. That means a paper that would have earned an “A” will get a “B”; a paper that would have earned an “A-“ will earn a “B-” etc. The paper will then lose an additional full grade (a “B” paper becomes a “C”) every 24 hours after that (weekend days are included).
If you are late in turning in your paper you should turn it in to the Literature Dept. Office and have it time-stamped. You can find the location/hours on the UCSD Literature Dept. website. Prof. Lampert-Weissig and the TAs are not responsible for meeting you to get a late paper. Late papers may or may not receive comments. Any work left in TA or professor’s box instead of turning it in through the Literature Dept. office is left there at the student’s own risk. E-mailed papers are not acceptable.
We’ve all lost work to computer glitches, theft or the plain old stupid error. It is your responsibility to make frequent back-ups of your work. I would suggest automatic back-up, saving to a server and/or making the occasional hard copy as you compose.
Only documented, legitimate medical or personal emergencies will excuse late work. What constitutes an emergency? Emergencies are exceptional circumstances such as a death or hospitalization of a family member, a serious automobile accident or an illness/injury that requires medical attention. Coming down with a cold or having a printer problem is not an emergency: you should be prepared for such normal eventualities. If you are sick it is fine to have someone else turn in your work and indeed it makes no sense to spread your illness--just make sure that person is reliable and knows where to turn in the paper. Students who are late with work due to emergencies will be asked to provide adequate documentation demonstrating that they were unable to complete their assignment on time. If an emergency arises, you must let your TA or Prof. Lampert-Weissig know as soon as possible and we will do our best to help you. It is your responsibility to keep us informed, and, indeed, we can’t help you if we don’t know what’s going on.
A Word about Plagiarism: Plagiarism is grounds for failing the course and further University disciplinary action will be pursued. All assignments are due in hard copy, but you may be asked to turn in an electronic version of your work. You may also be asked to provide notes to show your work process. Keep all materials related to the course until your receive your final grade. You will not have the need to use outside sources for this course, but, if you do, the best way to guard against plagiarism is to learn how to document. Web sources, which I recommend against using without consultation from a teacher or librarian in any case (some stuff is great/some stuff is garbage) must also be documented. If you ever have a question about plagiarism, what it is, or how to avoid it, contact your TA or me and we will be happy to help you learn how to document properly. A fuller handout on plagiarism will be distributed with the first paper assignment.
Think “active”: Fight the urge to think of lecture courses as passive activities where the Professor professes and you watch. Think about listening and note‑taking as active and come prepared. This course is designed to give you a good familiarity with key texts in the early English tradition and as with all serious survey courses the reading load is challenging. The lectures will be much more understandable and interesting if you have already read the material carefully beforehand. Think about study questions assigned before coming to lecture and mark key passages in your text. Bring the text we’re reading along with you to mark for the exam. Passages read in class will be featured on the final exam and marking them for review/study will help you to do well.
Lecture “etiquette”: It is important to observe the rules of common courtesy in the lecture hall. Please arrive on time, and, if you must be late, come in quietly. Please turn off your cell phone and refrain from texting, emailing and web-surfing during lecture. (Yes, I can see you and if you’re smiling into your lap I know you’re texting…) Talking or other distracting activities keep me from attending to my lecture and prevent fellow students from listening. Please wait to pack up until I’m finished lecturing so that everyone can hear. I reserve the right to ask you to leave the lecture if I feel that your behavior is interfering with our class.
Reading supplemental to the Norton Anthology: Like Spenser’s Red Crosse Knight, you’ll want to be well‑armed for the quest ahead. The additional reference readings are intended to help you understand the material. For exams you are responsible for the required readings, the terms in Murfin and Ray and for the contents of the lectures. You should be able to place authors, texts and major personages/events covered within a rough set of dates and learn some key ones, like the Norman Conquest of 1066; Elizabeth I reigned in the sixteenth century (‘til 1603, actually); Chaucer lived and wrote his Middle English Canterbury Tales in the fourteenth century. Key dates, facts and figures will be emphasized in lecture and section. Occasionally I repeat literary terms when they are especially relevant to the material. You will also want access to a good dictionary and to a Bible that contains both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. References to Ancient Greek and Roman culture are also important. If, for example, you primarily associate “Midas” with automotive care, I suggest a look at Crowell’s Handbook of Classical Literature, ed. Lillian Feder, SSH Ref. Stacks PA 31. F4. I have requested that all texts required for this course be put on reserve at Geisel circulation desk.