English 320: Eighteenth-Century Scottish Literature and Culture

Dr. Leith Davis

Spring, 2011

AQ 6111; phone: 778 782-4833

Email: leith@sfu.ca

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

Course website: http://www.sfu.ca/personal/leith/320Sp11.htm

Office hours: Mon. 9:30-10:30, Wed. 11:30-12:30 and by appointment

In 1707, the Scottish parliament voted itself out of existence as Scotland prepared to join England to form the nation of Great Britain. The impact of this change on Scottish national identity was profound. On the one hand, many Scottish writers and thinkers sought to eradicate their cultural distinctiveness, preferring to consider themselves “North Britons.” On the other hand, others attempted to articulate and encourage a separate Scottish cultural identity. In the midst of this dialectic, Scotland emerged as a site of unprecedented creativity and intellectual endeavor; Edinburgh aptly deserved its appellation “The Athens of the North.” This course will examine some of the many diverse literary and cultural texts produced by eighteenth-century Scots (and their English counterparts), engaging with, among other tests, the outraged speeches of Lord Belhaven, John Home’s ill-fated play, Douglas, the so-called “forgeries” of James “Ossian” Macpherson, the literary peregrinations of Johnson and Boswell, haunting Scottish ballads, and verse and songs by Robert Burns.

This class will challenge students to rethink the canon of eighteenth-century English literature by examining texts from a peripheral region of Britain and by engaging with material that challenges our ideas about literature (eg. texts from popular culture, printed speeches, ballads, etc.).

Required Texts:

Please make sure you have the editions indicated here.

Please bring the appropriate book to every class.

1. Robert Burns, Selected Poems, ed. Carol McGuirk. Penguin, 1994. ISBN-13: 978-0140423822

2. Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland/the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, ed. Peter Levi. Penguin, reprint 2006. ISBN: 0140432213

3. Custom courseware pack. (Note on orthography: Many of the facsimile texts we will use in the custom courseware pack use eighteenth-century orthography in which a single “s” is represented by what looks like “f.”  This may be difficult to figure out at first, but after reading enough eighteenth-century texts, you will find yourselves making the translation quite easily.) 

4. Seminar articles are available through Google Scholar or supplied as PDFs to presenters.

Recommended Handbook on Writing:

Jane Aaron and Murray McArthur, The Little Brown Compact Handbook, Third Canadian Edition, Longman (ISBN 0-321-23583-5)

See also the following websites:

University College (Toronto) Writing Workshop:

Purdue University’s Online Writing Guide:

Requirements:

First Essay (5 pages; due Feb. 7): 20%

Draft of Final Essay (due March 21): 5%

Final Essay (8 pages; due April 11): 30%

Final exam (Tuesday, April 19, location TBA): 25%

Seminar (click here for details): 15%

Participation and attendance: 5%

Resources:

For Bibliography, click here.

For editorial marks used in essays, click here.

For information on the Student Learning Commons which offers help on study techniques and writing, click here.

Note:

1. Essays are due at the beginning of lecture.

2. No late papers will be accepted except in cases of serious illness or family emergency.

3. You are expected to be familiar with SFU’s standards of academic honesty, including plagiarism. Plagiarism means using someone else’s ideas or words without proper acknowledgment. Please see the library’s plagiarism tutorial for further explanation. Plagiarism on an assignment will result in a grade of “0”and may result in other consequences as well.
4. Lectures are held Mondays. Students are also divided into separate groups for seminars which are held Mondays and Wednesdays. It is your responsibility to attend both lectures and seminars, as material from both will be included on the final exam.
5. Attendance: If you have to miss a seminar, please inform the instructor in writing or by email before the class. If you miss more than two classes for reasons other than serious illness or a family emergency, you may receive a “0” for your participation mark.

SYLLABUS:

WEEK 1 (January 10) Lecture: Introduction to course

Seminar: Introduction to seminars

WEEK 2 (January 17) Lecture: The Darien Venture and the Union of 1707

Reading: “Caledonia Triumphans: A Panegyrick to the King” (Edinburgh, 1699);

Lord Beilhaven, The Lord Beilhaven’s Speech in Parliament (Edinburgh, 1706); for translation and notes on Beilhaven click here

Daniel Defoe, The Vision, A Poem (Edinburgh, 1706); for translation and notes on Defoe click here

Seminar: David Daiches, The Paradox of Scottish Culture: The Eighteenth-Century Experience (London: Oxford University Press, 1964) [PDF]

WEEK 3 (January 24) Lecture: Literary Responses to the Union: Allan Ramsay and Elizabeth Wardlaw

Reading:

Allan Ramsay, Title-page and “Dedication: To Ilka British Lass” from The Tea-Table Miscellany (Edinburgh, Thomas Ruddiman, 1724), i-iv; for translation click here

Allan Ramsay, Title page and Preface from The ever green, being a collection of Scots poems, wrote by the ingenious before 1600 (Edinburgh: Thomas Ruddiman, 1724), 1:vii-xii.

Allan Ramsay, Title page and “Elegy on Maggy Johnston” from Poems by Allan Ramsay (London, 1731) 1:10-14; for translation click here

Elizabeth Wardlaw, Hardiknute: A Fragment of an old Heroick Ballad (Edinburgh, 1724?); for a translation click here

Allan Ramsay, “Hardyknute A Fragment” from The ever green, being a collection of Scots poems, wrote by the ingenious before 1600 (Edinburgh: Thomas Ruddiman, 1724), 2:147-264.

[all in reader]

Seminar:

Mel Kersey, “Ballads, Britishness and Hardyknute, 1719-1859,” Scottish Studies Review 5 (2005); 40-56. [PDF]

WEEK 4 (January 31) Lecture: The Gentle Shepherd

Reading: Allan Ramsay, The Gentle Shepherd (London: George Cawthorn, 1796) (originally published 1725) [in reader]; for a translation click here; for a summary, click here

Seminar: Steve Newman, “The Scots Songs of Allan Ramsay: 'Lyrick' Transformation, Popular Culture, and the Boundaries of the Scottish Enlightenment,” Modern Language Quarterly: A Journal of Literary History, 2002 Sept; 63 (3): 277-314 (available through Google Scholar)

WEEK 5 (February 7) Lecture: James Thomson: London Scot and the 1745 rebellion

Reading: James Thomson, excerpt from Winter (London, 1726), 6-9; James Thomson, “Rule Britannia” from Alfred: A Masque (London, 1740), 42-3; Tobias Smollett, “The Tears of Scotland” (Edinburgh, 1746)

[all in reader]

Essay #1 due at the beginning of class

WEEK 6 (February 14) Reading week; no lectures or seminars.

WEEK 7 (February 21) Lecture: “Whaur’s yer Wullie Shakespeare Noo?”: John Home’s Douglas

Reading: John Home, Douglas, A Tragedy (Manchester, 1800) (reprint of original 1756 edition) [in reader]

Click here for summary and reading notes.

Seminar:

Sandro Jung, “Lady Randolph, the ‘Monument of Woe’: Love and Loss in John Home’s Douglas,” Restoration and 18th Century Theatre Research, 20 (1-2): 16-27 [PDF]

WEEK 8 (February 28) Lecture: The “Forgeries” of James Macpherson

Reading: James Macpherson, “Fingal” from Fingal: An ancient epic poem, in six books: together with several other poems, composed by Ossian the son of Fingal. Translated from the Galic, ed. David Oakleaf, unpublished edition [in reader]

Click here for synopsis.

Click here for detailed version.

Seminar:

Seminar: James Mulholland, “James Macpherson’s Ossian Poems, Oral Traditions and the Invention of Voice,” Oral Tradition 24:2 (2009), 393-414 [available through Google Scholar]

WEEK 9 (March 7) Lecture: The Pronouncements of Samuel Johnson

Reading: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland [course textbook]

Seminar: Alison Hickey, “Extensive Views in Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland,” SEL: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 32/3 (1992 Summer), pp. 537-53 (available through Google Scholar)

WEEK 10 (March 14) Lecture: The Speculations of James Boswell

Reading: The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides [course textbook]

Seminar:

Orrin Wang, “The Politics of Aphasia in Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides,” Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts 36:1 (1994 Winter), pp. 73-100. [available through Google Scholar]

WEEK 11 (March 21) Lecture: Scottish Ballads featuring singers Jon Bartlett and Rika Ruebsaat

Reading:

David Herd, ed., Preface and “Gil Morrice,” “Lizie Wan” and “Lammikin” from Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, Etc. (Edinburgh, 1776), i-ix; 1-8; 91-92; 145-48.

David Herd, ed. “Binnorie” from Ancient and Modern Scotish [sic] Songs (Edinburgh, 1791); 82-84;

[all in reader]

Seminar:

Essay #2 draft due in seminars for writing workshop. Bring TWO copies.

WEEK 12 (March 28) Lecture: Poems of Robert Burns

Robert Burns, Preface from Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (Kilmarnock, 1786) [in reader].

Also read the following in Selected Poems [course textbook]:

“Epistle to J. Lapraik, An Old Scotch Bard” (29-33)

“The Vision” (41-48)

“To a Mouse” (67)

“The Cottar’s Saturday Night” (100-05)

“Tam O’Shanter” (160-166)

Seminar: Murray Pittock, “Robert Burns” from Scottish and Irish Romanticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) [PDF]

WEEK 13 (April 4) Lecture: Songs of Robert Burns

Robert Burns, “It Was Upon a Lammas Night”(4)

“John Barleycorn. A Ballad” (6)

“Song Composed in August” (5)

“Green Grow the Rashes”(14)

“Auld Lang Syne” (146)

“Scots Wha Hae” (177)

“A Red, Red Rose” (178)

“Is There For Honest Poverty” (181)

Seminar: Kirsteen McCue, “Burns’s Songs and Poetic Craft” from The Edinburgh Companion to Robert Burns, ed. Gerard Carruthers (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2010), 74-85. [PDF]

WEEK 14 (April 11) Lecture: Review of Course

Final Essay due at beginning of class

SEMINARS:

Seminar Explanation:

Seminars are intended to encourage students to develop critical and oral presentation skills. Students will work together in small groups of approximately three. Each group will present a critical article to the class as well as a creative project based on the reading for the week. Then they will facilitate a discussion based on the reading for the week and incorporating the ideas of the critical article. The formal part of the presentation should take no more than twenty minutes, allowing plenty of time for discussion. The entire seminar should occupy approximately 1 hour of the class.

Directions:

Before class:

1. Read the assigned article (or find an article or book chapter dealing with the texts we are reading that week which interests you--please check articles out with me before you use them and provide me with a copy one week before the presentation).

2. Write a 1-page précis of the article in which you a. describe the thesis in your own words and b. briefly summarize the argument. Think of two questions that relate in some way the ideas raised in the article to the reading for the week. For your questions, please try to focus closely on the primary text for at least one question. It can be effective to provide your classmates with specific quotations to examine. Remember that most of your classmate will not have read the article, so don’t create questions that are dependent on any knowledge of the article beyond that which you have presented.

3. Work together on a creative response to the reading for the week. This can take any form you like: a dialogue with one of the characters, a dramatized version of an aspect of the reading, a modern-day adaptation, a dance, a song, a poem, a graphic novel, a multi-media or visual art piece. If you have an idea you aren’t sure about, just ask.

During class:

4. Present your summary of critical article (try to not just read what your handout says) and the creative response to the class during your seminar. Include a copy of the precis (with bibliographical information and your two questions) as a hand-out.

5. Facilitate discussion of your two questions.

You will receive a mark from me based on the following criteria:

· understanding of the article: comprehension of the ideas, engagement with the ideas

· presentation: organization, engagement with audience (don't just read out your material), use of audio-visual aids

· creative response: originality, effort and imagination involved

· choice of questions: engagement with the material, level of challenge and interest.

· facilitation of discussion: effectiveness, time management.

· cohesiveness of group and participation of all members. Please indicate who has done what in the group.