ENGL 360: Modern English
Literature, 1901-1945
http://www.csub.edu/~ccoffman/ENGL360-F04/
CSUB Bakersfield Campus
Classroom: CB 102
T Th 3:30-5:35 PM
CRN: 43432
Fall 2004
Dr. Chris Coffman
Office: Faculty Towers 303A
Phone/Voicemail: 664-3053
E-mail: ccoffman at csub.edu
http://www.csub.edu/~ccoffman
Office Hours: Tuesdays, Thursdays 1:30-3 PM
And by Advance Appointment (T Th only)
Course Description:
This course offers a broad
overview of literature written in England in the first half of the twentieth
century—in what is now known as the Modernist period, from
1901-1945. As the word “modern” suggests, this was a time at
which many writers explicitly challenged prevailing literary and social
norms. Experiments in literary form played a very important role in
questioning previously dominant beliefs about the validity of Britain’s
colonial project, acceptable gender and sexual identities, and the ability of
language and literature to reflect reality. While modern writers often used
language that is closer to our own than that of earlier writers such as
Shakespeare, many of them departed from previously held ideas about the nature
of poetry and fiction, deliberately offering up multiple perspectives and
narratives. From the rapid shifts in speakers in T.S. Eliot’s
difficult long poem entitled The Waste Land to the shifts in consciousness made in Virginia
Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, modern
writers challenge their readers to think carefully about the role that language
and written texts play in constructing what we perceive as
“reality.”
Rather than emphasizing history,
this course will use a combination of textual and theoretical approaches, and
offers you the opportunity to engage in rigorous daily reading. I have kept
the readings in poetry short so that you have time to read each piece several
times, making notes and formulating questions to ask in class. In the
first half of the course, you should plan to spend as much time preparing the
poems as it would take you to read the 70-90 page assignments from the novels
that will be due for each class in the second half of the course. You might
also find it helpful to work with a dictionary as you do the readings,
especially the poetry. A good dictionary for purchase is The Concise
Oxford Dictionary from Oxford University
Press, ISBN 0-19-860636-2. You may also ask a reference librarian to show
you how to access the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary, which is available online for CSUB students.
Prerequisites:
ENGL 101 or the equivalent;
or, one course from ENGL 205, 207, 208, 290, 294, or 295. I will not be waiving prerequisites for
any reason. In order to
succeed in this course, you must be able to write a focused, thesis-driven
essay that draws its support from an assigned text; these are skills that are taught in CSUB’s ENGL 100
and 110, as well as their two-year college equivalents. While feedback on your written work for
this course will include an assessment of the quality of your writing and may
contain suggestions for further development, class sessions will focus on
honing your ability to analyze the assigned texts. If you received a low grade (C range or below) in a
lower-division composition course (ENGL 100 or an equivalent), you may find it
helpful to work further on your composition skills in ENGL 310 (Advanced
Writing) before attempting an upper-division course in literature such as this
one, though you may certainly choose to take this course if you so desire.
Required Materials:
The books listed in this section
are required of all students in the course and may be purchased at the CSUB
Runner Bookstore. You should bring
them with you to class when assigned on the Schedule.
·
Course materials (including
poetry by William Butler Yeats, H.D. [Hilda Doolittle], and Charlotte Mew)
to be printed from WebCT. Please print these out and bring to class as you would a
book. You might find it convenient
to print all of the WebCT materials at the beginning of the course.
·
Conrad, Joseph. Heart
of Darkness. New York:
Penguin, 1995. ISBN 0-14-018652-2.
·
Eliot, T.S. The
Waste Land. New York: Norton,
2001. Norton Critical Edition. ISBN 0-393-97499-5.
(NOTE: this edition contains
important supplemental sources for The Waste Land, and you will need it, rather than other editions, to
complete the requirements of the course.)
·
Joyce, James. A
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
New York: Penguin, 2003. ISBN 0-14-243734-4
·
Rhys, Jean. Voyage
in the Dark. New York: Norton,
1994. ISBN 0393311465
·
Woolf, Virginia. To
the Lighthouse. New York:
Harcourt, 1989. ISBN 0156907399.
·
Baldick, Chris. The
Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN 019280118X. You
may substitute a similar glossary.
·
Hacker, Dianna. A
Writer’s Reference. New
York: Bedford, 2003. ISBN 0-312-41523-0.
·
Hacker, Dianna. Writing about Literature. Supplement
to Accompany A Writer's Reference. Fifth Edition.
ISBN 0–312–40246–5.
Recommended
Books:
·
Pearsall, Judy. The
Concise Oxford Dictionary. Oxford
University Press. 2002. ISBN 0-19-860636-2.
Waiting List Policy:
This course is capped at 45
students. If you wish to add and the course is closed, you should appear
on the first day of classes to be put on the waiting list. (No students
will be put on the waiting list before the first day of classes.) To
remain on the waiting list, you must continue to attend class and turn in all
work on schedule. Please keep
in mind that being on the waiting list does not guarantee admission to the
course, which is contingent on your satisfaction of prerequisites, your
position on the waiting list, and the number of enrolled students that
drop. (If nobody drops, no students from the waiting list can
enroll.) Thus, if you are on the waiting list, it is in your best
interest to arrange for a backup course.
Course Policies:
Requirements and Criteria for Evaluation:
Midterm and Final Examinations:
You must be available to take the midterm and the final on the dates indicated. They will be closed book and comprised of two parts of roughly equal weight.
The midterm will cover material assigned in the first half of the course: 9/14-10/12.
The final will cover material assigned in the second half of the course: 10/19-11/23.
Part I will ask you:
1) to define important terms as precisely as possible;
2) to identify the author and source of specific quotations from the text, and
briefly
to discuss their significance within the text as a whole.
Part II will involve one essay
question. The question will be
open-ended, asking you to make connections between several of the texts that we
will have read in the course.
The test and exam will not involve
“trick” questions that ask for obscure information. They will
only cover terminology and quotations that we have discussed, and should not be
difficult for those who read the texts and attend class regularly. I
recommend that you mark the passages we discuss and be sure that you understand
their significance. I will go over sample exam questions in class before
the midterm.
Essay Assignments:
I will distribute essay topics,
instructions, and criteria for evaluation in advance and discuss them with you
in class. You are welcome to stop by my office hours to receive
commentary on an early draft of your essay or to discuss preliminary plans for
it. You may also e-mail me a thesis statement and outline for feedback,
but not an entire draft of the paper.
In this class, you will not be
expected to do outside research, and will be expressly forbidden from using any
material about your topic that you have found on the Internet. Essays
will ask you to engage in close analysis of assigned texts, formulating and
defending a thesis about them. Keep in mind that I am not looking for a
“report” that repeats the ideas of others or summarizes the
assigned texts; instead, I would like to see you interact critically with
the texts by citing and interpreting details from them as support for an
argument (a thesis).
Your essays should be typed in a
font no larger than Times 12 and double-spaced, with pages numbered, margins no
larger than one inch, and your name, ENGL 360, the assignment number, the topic
number, and the date listed at the top on the first page. They must be
stapled (before class—I do not carry a stapler). Unstapled papers
are one of my pet peeves! Also, please check your assignments carefully
before submission. You alone are responsible for their
completeness; papers with missing pages or other errors will not be
returned for correction and will be graded in the state in which I receive
them. To prevent the stress of last-minute computer or printer problems, I suggest
that you not wait until the last minute to print your essays. You are also
responsible for keeping a second paper copy (not just an electronic file) of
each paper.
Unexcused late papers will be
penalized by one-half grade level per day late, including weekends. Extensions will only be granted for compelling and
documented reasons, and are more likely to be given if requested well in
advance of the date due.
Plagiarism:
While most people know that
submitting papers written entirely by others constitutes plagiarism, many often
do not understand that it also includes using others’ ideas and turns of
phrase without appropriate documentation. This includes the cutting
and pasting of materials from the Internet!
Pages 331-39 of Hacker’s A
Writer’s Reference, which explain
how to integrate other authors’ words into your essay while giving them
proper credit, should help you avoid accidental plagiarizing of the assigned
texts. Keep in mind that when you use a short (two or fewer lines)
passage from another author’s text, you should place it in quotation
marks and integrate it with your own prose; when you use a longer passage from another author, you
should break the paragraph, indent the quotation, and not use quotation
marks. Because papers that do not
properly use quotation marks and indention to give credit to their sources
violate academic integrity, you should be sure that you understand how to
integrate quotations effectively.
Whether deliberate or unintended,
plagiarism in any form diminishes the quality of your education and is a
violation of academic integrity that will
result in a disciplinary hearing.
If you are found guilty of plagiarism in such a hearing, you will likely
receive an F for the course and be put on academic probation. A second academic integrity violation
will likely result in suspension, which will be noted on your university
transcript, and a third will likely result in your expulsion from the CSU. Neither suspension nor expulsion are
looked on favorably by those evaluating you for employment or for admission to
academic programs. Please consult p. 57 of the CSUB Course Catalog
2003-2005 for full information about
CSUB’s policies concerning the serious consequences of plagiarism,
cheating, and other violations of academic integrity.
It is your responsibility as a
student to understand and avoid plagiarism, and my role as university faculty
to help you understand. To that end, in addition to making Hacker’s
book a required text, I have provided links on the course’s website to
several excellent discussions of different forms of plagiarism. If you
continue to have questions about plagiarism after reading A Writer’s
Reference and the online materials, feel
free to schedule an appointment with me or to drop by during office hours.
Attendance:
Because you may well become lost
in the complexity of the readings if you do not participate in classroom
discussion, prompt attendance at each class is required. You are allowed two (2) unexcused absences,
after which point one half grade level per excess absence will be deducted from
your final grade. If your absence falls on the date of a test or an
essay deadline, or if the quantity of your absences becomes excessive, I will ask for documentation. Make-up exams are only
permitted for those students that can document an “excusable”
absence. Illness, personal or family emergencies, and religious holidays are
examples of excusable reasons for absence; “I overslept,”
“I had to study for my psychology midterm,” “I’m
leaving early for the weekend,” and “I’m going on
vacation” are examples of unacceptable reasons.
If you must miss class, please
inform me by e-mail as soon as possible and contact a classmate to find out
what you missed. You are responsible for all material covered in class,
even if you are absent or late when it is discussed.
Finally, as the arrival of late
students is extremely disruptive to the progress of the class, I ask that you
arrive in class on time. If an emergency dictates that you absolutely
must arrive late to a given class, try to enter through the back door and make
as little noise as possible. Students who arrive late in class
without a compelling explanation will have 1/2 of an unexcused absence noted in
my grade book; be aware that these can quickly add up to significant
deductions from your final grade!
Office Hours:
I am teaching at both CSUB’s
Bakersfield and Antelope Valley campuses this quarter. At the Bakersfield campus I keep 3
office hours per week, listed at the top of this syllabus. This is time
that I make myself available to discuss any questions or concerns that you
might have about the course: to comment on drafts of your paper, to
clarify writing assignments and examinations, to answer questions about my
feedback on your work, to discuss reasons for absence or other concerns about
the course, or simply to chat about the assigned texts or courses that I plan
to offer in the future. Generally you may drop in without an appointment
during office hours, but if my office hours are very popular on a given day
(the day before an exam is scheduled or a paper is due, for example), I may
post a sign-up sheet for your convenience. Also, if other obligations
dictate that you can only appear in office hours at a specific time, feel free
to contact me to see if you can schedule in advance.
Because university faculty have
multiple responsibilities on campus, I am only able to take unscheduled
drop-in appointments during my posted office hours. If you have a school- or work-related conflict with my
scheduled office hours, I would be happy to consult with you briefly by e-mail
(I can offer feedback on thesis statements but not entire papers that way) or
to schedule an appointment at another time that I am on campus. I am in
Bakersfield on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I thus ask that—rather than stopping me unexpectedly on campus
when I’m not holding office hours—you e-mail me in advance to
identify a meeting time that fits both of our schedules.
Cellular Phones and Other Noisy
Devices:
Noise from cellular phones and
other electronic devices is extremely disruptive to the class, demonstrating a
lack of respect for everyone in the room. I turn mine off before class,
and ask that you do so as well. I reserve the right to ask you to leave for
the rest of the day if your phone rings in class.
Computers:
You will need to have Internet access and your CSUB e-mail
account for this course, and should check e-mail daily: I will be providing course materials,
including readings, writing assignments, and quizzes, online through
WebCT. You may check your CSUB
e-mail from off-campus computers by going to http://runner.csub.edu
Students with Disabilities:
If you have a disability and will be requesting accommodations, please let me know as soon as possible and contact the appropriate office on campus to document your request.
The Fine Print:
I reserve the right to modify this syllabus.
Schedule:
Unit 1. Early Twentieth-Century Poetry—from Romanticism
to Modernism
9/14 (T): First day of classes – Yeats, “The Second Coming”
*9/16 (Th): Yeats’ Early Poetry: Gender and the Modernist Break from Decadence and Romanticism
Homework due:
1) Read: Swinburne, “Itylus.” (WebCT)
2) Read: Yeats: “The Madness of King Goll,” pp. 16-18; “The Stolen Child,” pp. 18-19; “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” p. 39; “Adam’s Curse,” p. 80-1; “No Second Troy,” p. 91; “The Fascination of What’s Difficult,” p. 93. (As relevant, consult documents entitled “Appendix A: Yeats’ Own Notes in The Collected Poems, pp. 453-463,” and “Notes, pp. 464-470.”) (WebCT)
2) WebCT Quiz: Plagiarism.
Please complete by 11 PM.
9/21 (T): Yeats as Symbolist and Metaphysical Poet
Homework due:
1) Read: Yeats, “The Wild Swans at Coole,” p. 131-2; “The Second
Coming,” p. 187; “Among School Children,” pp. 215-17;
“Sailing to Byzantium,” p. 193-4; “Byzantium,” pp. 248-9;
“Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop,” pp. 259-60. (As relevant,
consult documents entitled “Appendix A: Yeats’ Own Notes in The
Collected Poems, pp. 453-463,” and “Notes, pp. 464-470.”) (WebCT)
2) Read: Diana Hacker, A Writer’s Reference, pp. 331-39
3) Skim, reading carefully anything that is new to you:
Diana Hacker, Writing about Literature, pp. 3-26
Diana Hacker, A Writer’s Reference, pp. 329-377
*9/23 (Th): Yeats’ Late Poems: “the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart”
Homework due:
1) Read: Yeats, “Lapis Lazuli,” pp. 294-5; “Under Ben Bulben,” pp.
325-28; “Long-legged Fly,” p. 339; “The Circus Animals’
Desertion,” pp. 346-8. (As relevant, consult documents entitled
“Appendix A: Yeats’ Own Notes in The Collected Poems, pp. 453-
463,” and
“Notes, pp. 464-470.”)
(WebCT)
2) Write: Informal Essay due at the beginning of class, 2 pp. See
assignment sheet.
9/28 (T): Two Women Poets: Contesting Masculine Modernism
Homework due:
1) Read: H.D., selected poems (WebCT)
2) Read: Charlotte Mew, selected poems (WebCT)
9/30 (Th): “Like a patient etherized on a table”: Eliot and Modernist Alienation
Homework due:
1) Read: Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (WebCT)
2) Read: from the Norton Critical Edition of The Waste Land, Eliot, from
“Hamlet,” pp. 120-1; Eliot, from “The Metaphysical Poets,” pp.
121-127.
3) Read: Eliot, The Waste Land, pp. 1-20 of the Norton Critical Edition.
(Consult Eliot’s Notes, pp. 21-26, as relevant.) NOTE: this is a
long and very difficult poem. You shouldn’t feel that you should
understand every line before class—we will work on making sense
of it as a group. For this class, just read through the poem once or
twice—we’ll go into greater detail on Tuesday.
10/5 (T): “A Vast Panorama of Anarchy and Futility”: Approaching The Waste Land
Homework due:
1) Read: Eliot, The Waste Land, pp. 1-20 of the Norton Critical Edition.
Keeping in mind the introduction to the poem from the previous
class, go over the poem again several times, keeping the following
questions in mind: 1) the poem is not spoken by one speaker
(persona), but by several. What kind of person do you think is
speaking at the beginning of the poem? When does the speaker
seem to shift, and what kind of person do you think the new speaker
is? With what is each speaker preoccupied? And what does Eliot
accomplish by shifting speakers? 2) To what “events” does the
poem refer? Try to imagine it as having episodes, and think about
what impression you are given by each. What does Eliot accomplish
by focusing on this material? 3) The poem has five sections: what
does each accomplish? Is there any kind of overarching narrative, or
arc, that the poem seems to develop as it moves from section to
section? How does it begin and end, what is accomplished in
between, and how is this trajectory significant?
2) Read: from the Norton Critical Edition, “Eliot on The Waste Land,” pp.
112-13; Eliot, from “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” pp. 114-
19; Eliot, “Ulysses, Order, and Myth,” pp. 128-130.
*10/7 (Th): Eliot and the Politics of Citation: Sources for The Waste Land
Homework due:
1) Read: One text from the “Contexts” section of the Norton Critical Edition of The Waste Land; consult the course web page for your personal assignment.
2) Read: Reread The Waste Land, circling passages that refer to the text or ideas of your assignment from the “Contexts” section.
3) Write: Short Paper #1 due in class, 2 pp., to be evaluated with a letter grade. See assignment sheet.
4) Exam Preparation: bring any questions you might have about next Thursday’s midterm.
10/12 (T): The Hollowness of Language, the Hollowness of Subjectivity: Eliot’s Late Poems
Homework due:
1) Read: Eliot, “The Hollow Men;” “Journey of the Magi;” from Four Quartets: “Burnt Norton” (WebCT)
*10/14 (Th):
MIDTERM EXAMINATION GIVEN IN CLASS
Unit 2. The Modern Novel: Symbolism and the Unconscious in the Shift from Realism to Modernism
10/19 (T): Conrad: The Ruins of Representation and of Colonialism
Homework due:
1) Read: Conrad, Heart of Darkness, all.
10/21 (Th): Class does not meet. Work ahead on next Tuesday’s substantial assignment!
*10/26 (T): Joyce: Aesthetic Distance and “Masculine Modernism”
Homework due:
1) Read: Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ch. 1 & 2, pp. 1-108
2)
Write:
Short Paper #2, 2 pp., to be evaluated with a letter grade. See assignment sheet.
10/28 (Th): Joyce: Aesthetic Distance and “Masculine Modernism”
Homework due:
1) Read: Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ch. 3 & 4, pp. 109-187
11/2 (T): Joyce: Aesthetic Distance and “Masculine Modernism”
Homework due:
1) Read: Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ch. 5, pp. 188-276
11/4 (Th): “Feminine Sentences”: Gender and Narrative Possibilities in Woolf
Homework due:
1) Read: Woolf, To the Lighthouse, pp. 3-124
11/9 (T): “Feminine Sentences”: Gender and Narrative Possibilities in Woolf
Homework due:
1) Read: Woolf, To the Lighthouse, pp. 125-209
11/11 (Th): Veterans Day Holiday: Campus Closed
11/16 (T): Rhys: Gender and the Postcolonial Subject
Homework due:
1) Read: Rhys, Voyage in the Dark, Part I, pp. 5-100;
finish the entire book if you can.
*11/18 (Th): Rhys: Gender and the Postcolonial Subject
Homework due:
1) Read: Rhys, Voyage in the Dark, Part II, pp. 101-135
2) Write: Long Paper due, 5-6 pp., to be evaluated with a letter
grade.
See assignment sheet.
11/23 (T): Rhys: Gender and the Postcolonial Subject
Homework due:
1) Read: Rhys, Voyage in the Dark, Part III, pp. 137-188
*11/30 (T), 5-7:30 PM: FINAL EXAMINATION.