8:104
Victorian Literature and Culture: Assignments
T Th 12:30-1:45 p. m. Room 8 EPB
Instructor: Florence Boos florence-boos@uiowa.edu
http://www.uiowa.edu/~boosf/2014LitCultVict104/index.html
Office: 319 EPB, office phone 335-0434 (answering machine)
Office hours: Th and Th 2-3:30 p. m.; usually T Th 2:15-4:45 p. m.; Wednesday and Friday afternoons by appointment
Materials and Textbooks:
Handouts for poetry: "Goblin Market," "The Cry of the Children," "Ulysses," "Medea," "Our Casuarina Tree," "A Sea of Foliage Girds Our Garden Round"
Handouts for stories: "Mussumat Kirpo's Doll," "The Open Door"
Handouts for prose (or urls): Arnold, Mill, Ruskin, Pater
Texts in UI Bookstore:
Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's School Days
Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton
George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
Frances Trollope, Michael Armstrong, Factory Boy
Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince
William Morris, The Wood Beyond the World
Olive Schreiner, The Story of An African Farm
Richard Jeffries, After London
Course Requirements:
1. Reading responses: By 10 p. m. the evening before each class period, please send me by e-mail/ICON a reading response. This should answer the questions:
Was there any section of the reading which wasn't clear to you or which seemed difficult?
Comment on a character/passage/element of the reading which you think especially interesting or notable. (2 or 3 sentences are sufficient.)
Why may the writer have created this poem/set of passages/argument/segment of the novel? In other words, if this is not a complete work, what purpose is served by including the part we have read? If it is a complete work, how are we expected to respond? (1 or more sentences)
2, attendance and class discussion: Please read the assignment carefully and come prepared to ask questions and comment on unusual features of the text.
3. short biographies: From time to time, I will ask students to prepare background information on an author's life.
4. shared project: With two others, please prepare a joint presentation on some aspect of a text or topic studied for the course. These might take the form of a dramatic reading; a powerpoint presentation; a skit or poem; a website; a series of songs placed in context; a dance demonstration; an informative lecture, or any other mode of presentation you prefer.
At the time of the presentation or by the following class period, each member of the group should also submit a 2 page essay placing the project in context and explaining their contribution to the result. Please let me know sometime in February what you have decided to do.
For example, a presentation on Tom Brown's School Days might consider Victorian education at the time: conditions in boys' schools; levels and access to education; education for girls; debates over the extension of literacy; literacy and crime; or other children's books of the period. One on The History of Mary Prince might consider the debates over the abolition of slavery in Britain and its colonies; conditions in the Caribbean; ways in which the Anti-Slavery Society publicized its cause; or other oral or written life stories of the time. For Tennyson's "Ulysses," a group might present background information on the circumstances under which Tennyson wrote the poem, how his version differs from earlier portrayals of the figure of Odysseus by Homer and Dante and from those of later writers, the importance of classical myth in Victorian culture, features of scansion and language, etc.
4. essays: You will be asked to write a six-page research paper utilizing several library sources, as well as a final six-page comparative essay/final exam. I will hand out some guidelines and suggested topics for the research paper, which is due Friday 14 March 2014. If you give me a draft of your paper a week before it's due, I return it to you with suggestions for revision.
5. Final essay: You will be asked to present a precis of the substance of your final essay in class 13 May 2014 or at another agreed-upon time during exam week. By this date you should have prepared a first draft; the final draft will be due Friday 16 May 2014.
Rough Guide to Grading Criteria:
10 points Reading Responses
10 points Attendance and discussion
10 points group presentation
20 points tests
24 points first essay
26 points second essay
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8:104 Victorian Literature and Culture
Please submit a 6+ page research paper based on five or more outside sources (biographies, background histories, critical essays). You should give me a title and bibliography by Tuesday 4 March, an outline by Friday 7 March, and the final essay by Friday 14 March.
By 4 March we will have read works by Thomas Hughes, Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Alfred Tennyson, Augusta Webster, Matthew Arnold and John Ruskin.
Some suggested topics:
Gender and Education in Victorian England: Tom Brown’s School Days and The Mill on the Floss
The Development of a “Gentleman”: Tom Brown’s School Days
The Ethos of Tom Brown’s School Days
Class, Religion and Combat in Tom Brown’s School Days
What Are Those Goblin Fruits?: Sensuous Experience and Repression in Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market"
Redemption in "Goblin Market": The Devotional Life of Christina Rossetti
Fairytale as Allegory in "Goblin Market"/Social Criticism in "Goblin Market"/ "Goblin Market" as a Tale of Sisterhood
Rhythm and Meaning in Christina Rossetti's Lyrics
The “Fallen Woman” in the Poetry of Christina Rossetti
The Mill on the Floss as a Tragedy of Middle-Class Life
Foreshadowing and Determinism in The Mill on the Floss
The Role of the Narrator in The Mill on the Floss
Satiric and Comic Elements in The Mill on the Floss; Irony in The Mill on the Floss
Character as Fate in The Mill on the Floss; Contrasting Characters in The Mill on the Floss
The Socialization of Women in The Mill on the Floss
Imagery and Narrative Design in The Mill on the Floss
Eliot’s Portrayal of Religion in The Mill on the Floss
Family Relations in Mary Barton and The Mill on the Floss (e. g., father-daughter, father-son, mother-daughter, brother-sister)
The Development of Female Identity in Mary Barton and The Mill on the Floss (the female bildungroman)
Visual Elements in Tennyson’s Poetry
Tennyson's Reshaping of Classical Myth in "The Lotus-Eaters"
Action and Rest in "The Lotus-Eaters"
New Uses for Classical Sources: “The Lotus-Eaters” and “Medea in Athens”
Feminist Mythmaking: Augusta Webster’s “Medea in Athens”
Matthew Arnold as a Cultural Critic: “Sweetness and Light” (Culture and Anarchy)
The Rhetoric of Social Criticism: John Ruskin’s “Ad Valorem” (Unto This Last)