Victorian Poetry syllabus
Here's the reading list for this year's upper-division Victorian poetry seminar. The course emphasizes narrative verse and dramatic monologues, although some sonnets sneak in (and, of course, a sonnet sequence). Before you say, "wait, why isn't X there," bear in mind that in the second half of the course, small groups of students will be contributing their own assignments to the syllabus; moreover, the course assignments encourage and/or require students to work with poems off the syllabus, so that they apply skills learned in class to works "uncontaminated" by yours truly. (I often use that last option on exams--asking them to read Assigned Text X against Related but Not Assigned Text Y.) I'm experimenting with a new assignment this semester: asking students to annotate a poem as if for classroom use (e.g., headnote, footnotes, glosses, links to useful stuff on the 'net...).
As you can see, the class starts with some basic scansion, beginning with "hey, you're an English major, this is iambic pentameter" before moving on. (Luckily, the students who have taken Shakespeare are ahead of the game.) We did one session of just reading aloud, which I encourage students to do as a matter of course.
I'm trying out Francis O'Gorman's anthology this semester. Normally, I use the big Broadview, but I haven't always been happy with the footnotes.
1/27: Introduction and administrivia
1/29: Reading aloud: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Dying Swan”; Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “A Musical Instrument”; Christina Rossetti, “Winter: My Secret”
1/31: Introduction to scansion: iambic pentameter (handout)
2/3: Introduction to scansion: got trochaics? (handout)
2/5: Yet more scansion: dactyls and anapests (handout; Tennyson, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”)
2/7: Emily Jane Brontë: “High waving heather,” “The Night-Wind,” “To Imagination,” “Remembrance,” “No Coward Soul is Mine”
2/10: Charlotte Brontë: “The Missionary” [http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bronte/poems/pbc-missionary.html]; Anne Brontë: “The Doubter’s Prayer” [http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bronte/poems/pba-doubter.html], “A Reminiscence” [http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bronte/poems/pba-reminiscence.html]
2/12: Tennyson: “Mariana,” “The Lady of Shalott”
2/14: Tennyson: “Ulysses,” “The Lotos-Eaters”
2/17: Tennyson: “St. Simeon Stylites” [http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/multimedia/tennyson/simeon.htm]
2/19: Robert Browning: “Porphyria’s Lover,” “My Last Duchess”
2/21: Robert Browning: “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church,” “A Toccata of Galuppi’s”
Article review #1 posted to Wiki
2/24: Robert Browning: “Fra Lippo Lippi,” “Andrea del Sarto”
2/26: Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point,” “Hiram Powers’ Greek Slave”
2/28: Barrett Browning: “A Musical Instrument,” “The Dead Pan” [http://ebbarchive.org/poems/the_dead_pan.php]
Paper #1 due
3/3: Matthew Arnold: “Dover Beach,” “To Marguerite—Continued”
3/5: Arnold: “The Buried Life,” “Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse”
3/7: Christina Rossetti: “Goblin Market”
3/10: Christina Rossetti: “‘The Iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children’” [handout]
3/12: Midterm review/examination question session
3/14: Midterm exam
3/17-21: Midterm break
3/24: Dante Gabriel Rossetti: “Song 8: The Woodspurge” (+handout), “The Blessed Damozel”
3/26: Dante Gabriel Rossetti: “Jenny”
3/28: William Morris: “The Defence of Guenevere,” “The Haystack in the Floods”
3/31: Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Idylls of the King
4/2: Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Idylls of the King
4/4: Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Idylls of the King
Annotated text description posted to Wiki
4/7: Annotation project: in-class discussion
4/9: Scholar’s Day: no class
4/11: George Meredith: Modern Love
Article review #2 posted to Wiki
4/14: A. C. Swinburne: “The Leper”
Paper #2 due
4/16: Gerard Manley Hopkins: “As kingfishers catch fire,” “The Windhover,” “No worst, there is none”
4/18: GROUP PRESENTATION #1: READINGS TBA
4/21: GROUP PRESENTATION #2: READINGS TBA
4/23: GROUP PRESENTATION #3: READINGS TBA
4/25: GROUP PRESENTATION #4: READINGS TBA
4/28: GROUP PRESENTATION #5: READINGS TBA
4/30: Augusta Webster: “Circe,” “A Castaway”
5/2: Exercise: developing a final examination question
5/5: Amy Levy: “Xantippe: A Fragment,” “A Minor Poet”
5/7: Charlotte Mew, “Madeleine in Church”
5/9: Final examination review
Annotation projects due
Final examination