English 205: Literature of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century

Fall, 2007

Dr. Leith Davis

Website: http://www.sfu.ca/personal/leith/

Course Website: www.sfu.ca/personal/leith/205Fall07.htm

Office: AQ 6111 Phone: 778 732-4833

Office Hours: Tuesday 12:30-1:20; Thursday: 2:30-3:45

Email: leith@sfu.ca

TAs: Erin Keating and Ryan Stephenson

This course will provide students with a survey of the literature and culture of the Restoration and eighteenth century. We will focus in particular on how writers responded to and represented the following aspects of a rapidly-changing Britain: the restoration of the monarchy and the Glorious Revolution; globalization and the slave trade; the growth of the reading public and the development of a market for print culture; gender relations; changes in perceptions of time and space; print culture and orality.

Required texts:

The Broadview Anthology of British Literature Vol. 3: The Restoration and Eighteenth Century. 2006 edition.

ISBN 1551116111

Recommended Handbook on Writing:

Jane Aaron and Murray McArthur, THE LITTLE BROWN COMPACT HANDBOOK, Third Canadian Edition, Longman (ISBN 0-321-23583-5)

Requirements:

First essay (1000 words): 20%

Second Essay (2000 words): 30%

Final exam: 25%

Reading Journal: 20%

Seminar attendance: 5%

Note:

1. Papers are due at the beginning of lecture. No late papers will be accepted unless due to medical or family emergencies.

2. Students are responsible for understanding and avoiding plagiarism of oral, print and digital resources. See SFU Library’s Plagiarism Tutorial, SFU’s Code of Academic Honesty and SFU’s Academic Dishonesty and Misconduct Procedures for more information.

**If you are ever unsure about whether you need to provide a citation, it is better to err on the side of caution and give the reference.**

3. Lectures are available to you online at: http://cgi.sfu.ca/~lectures/pub_html/cgi-bin/index.php

4. See English Department grading criteria for information on the grading of your paper.

SYLLABUS

Note: all pages references are to the Broadview Anthology of British Literature Vol. 3 (The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century)

WEEK 1:

Sept. 4: Introduction

Unit 1: Literature of the Restoration Court (1660-1688)

Objectives:

• to introduce students to some of the drastic political, religious and social changes that took place in seventeenth century England;
• to consider especially the differences between the Puritan Commonwealth (1649-1660) and the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy (1660 – 1689) and to consider the cultural implications involved in the changes back to a monarchy;
• to understand the difference between the role of poetry in the Restoration and in our own time;
• to become familiar with certain long eighteenth-century poetic forms
• to consider the politics and poetics of libertinism and its implications for women writers
• to understand the importance of global trade and the struggle for global dominance in the long eighteenth century;
• to briefly discuss the development of the early novel;
• to note the connection between the early novel and British global expansion

Sept. 6: John Dryden: “Absalom and Achitophel” (72-86), ll. 1-52; 150-58; 933-end.

WEEK 2:

Sept. 11: John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, “A Satire On Charles II” (232-33) and “Love and Life: A Song” (235-36); Aphra Behn, “The Disappointment” (140-42)

Sept. 13: Aphra Behn, Oroonoko (144-178)

WEEK 3:

Sept. 18: Oroonoko, cont’d.

Unit 2: Print Culture after the Glorious Revolution (1688): Late Stuart (1688-1714) and Georgian (1714-1820) Britain

Objectives:

• to consider how major changes in ideas of science and knowledge in the late seventeenth century were encouraged by the accessibility of print
• to understand the development of the public sphere in the long eighteenth century, encouraged by such institutions as newspapers and coffee houses

• to outline the political and cultural changes brought about by the Glorious Revolution (1688)
• to consider how the expiration of the Licensing Act (1695) and the imposition of copyright (1710) impacted ideas of authorship and literary property;
• to consider the imperial and nationalizing impulse in Georgian Britain;
• to understand how the work of Defoe and Swift explores issues of global expansion and individual agency

Sept. 20: from Anonymous, The Character of a Coffee-House, with the Symptoms of a Town-Wit (716); from Anonymous, Coffee-Houses Vindicated (717); from The Spectator No. 7 (March 8, 1711) (132-33); James Thomson, “Rule Britannia” (557)

WEEK 4

Sept. 25: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (248-270)

Sept. 27: Robinson Crusoe, cont’d.

WEEK 5

October 2: Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, “Part One – A Voyage to Lilliput” (317-346)

Oct. 4: “A Voyage to Lilliput,” cont’d.

WEEK 6:

Oct. 9:

First essay due. Reading journals due.

Unit 3: Negotiating Gender Roles in Georgian Britain

Objectives:

• to consider the ways that gender roles were changing in the eighteenth century;

• to understand the complicated ways in which representations of gender are intertwined with notions of national identity, luxury and trade;
• to consider the perspective of women writers in the long eighteenth century

Oct. 11: Jonathan Swift, “The Lady's Dressing Room” (307-09); Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, “The Reasons That Induced Dr. S. to write a Poem called The Lady's Dressing Room” (488-89)

WEEK 7:

Oct. 16: Eliza Haywood, Fantomina (514-529)

Oct. 18: Lecture cancelled due to Canadian Society for Eighteenth-century Studies conference

Tutorials will take place. Ryan’s 3:30 group will go to AQ5035.

WEEK 8:

Oct. 23: Fantomina, cont’d. AND Alexander Pope, “The Rape of the Lock,” Cantos 1-3 (443-450); click here for notes on “The Rape of the Lock”

Oct. 25: “The Rape of the Lock,” to the end.

WEEK 9

Unit 4: Changing Views of Space and Time in Georgian Britain

Objectives:

• to understand how concepts of space (nature) and time (history) change in the long eighteenth century;
• to consider how representations of space indicate perceptions of class order
• to consider the increasing representations of the spaces of the labouring classes
• to understand the aesthetics and politics involved in the appeal of Celticism and Gothicism

Oct. 30: Alexander Pope, “Windsor Forest” (436-443), ll. 1-42; James Thomson, “Winter” (551-57), ll. 112-201.

Nov. 1: Stephen Duck, “The Thresher’s Labour” (695-99); Mary Collier, “The Woman’s Labour” (699-702).

WEEK 10:

Nov. 6: Thomas Gray, “The Bard” (Broadview website); or see “The Bard”. See notes on “The Bard.”

Nov. 8: Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (622-661)

WEEK 11:

Nov. 13: Castle of Otranto, cont’d.

Unit 5: Print Culture and Orality in Georgian Britain

Objectives:

• to examine the relationship between print and orality at the end of the eighteenth century
• to understand the growing impulse to order language in the context of eighteenth-century thought
• to investigate the growing interest in oral culture and the “discovery of the people”
• to consider the impact of print self-representations by colonized peoples
• to consider some of the important political changes taking place at the end of the eighteenth century

Nov. 15: Samuel Johnson, from Dictionary of the English Language (582-586); James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, LLD (use the code from your textbook)

WEEK 12:

November 20: Ballads: “Edward, Edward” (613); “A Lyke-Wake Dirge” (619); “Lamkin” (there are a lot of variations on this page; you just need to read the first one to get the story, but feel free to investigate the others). See notes on Ballads.

**Special presentation by Rika Ruebsaat and Jon Bartlett. See their website at: http://www3.telus.net/jonbartlett-rikaruebsaat/**

Nov. 22: Robert Burns, poems available on website:

poem: “Epistle to J. Lapraik, An Old Scottish Bard,” see also translation of “Epistle to J. Lapraik” if you are having trouble with the language;

songs: “Green Grow the Rashes”;

“A Man’s A Man”

WEEK 13:

Nov. 27: Olaudah Equiano, Interesting Narrative (743-50)

Nov. 29: English 205 Review notes. English 205 Review chart.

Final essay due. Journals due.