University of Iowa The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of English

8:121 Victorian Women Poets:

Professor Florence S. Boos

MW 5:00-6:15 p. m., Room 12 EPB
Instructor: Florence Boos florence-boos@uiowa.edu
http://english.uiowa.edu/courses/boos/wpoe11
Office: 319 EPB, office phone 335-0434 (answering machine)

Office hours: most evenings after class;
Tuesday 5:30-6:30 p. m., Wednesday 4-5 p. m
and afternoons by appointment

Course Information and Assignments


Textbooks at UI Bookstore:

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh, Norton Critical Edition
Angela Leighton and Margaret Reynolds, Victorian Women Poets, Blackwell (can be purchased on Amazon, 15 copies available for under $30)
I will also hand out three or four critical essays for use during the course.


Course Requirements:

1. contributions to class discussion: please read the assignment before class and come prepared to ask questions and comment on unusual features of the text. You should work out the metrical and stanza pattern of each poem.

Also I will ask students to provide brief biographies of the poets we read together. For these, please consult a biography or the Dictionary of Literary Biography—not simply Wikipedia.

2. journal/reading responses: please prepare 6 reading responses, the equivalent of two double-spaced typed pages each, to be posted on Icon so that your fellow students may read them. Four of your responses should be on course readings, and two on literary criticism about Victorian women poets. For this latter, I will give you a short bibliography of suggested readings.

3. In addition to posting these responses to the class web site, you will be asked to write a six page critical/research paper, and a six page final take-home examination.

Your critical/research paper must be based on research in the biographies, book-length critical studies, and critical articles on the author you have chosen (that is, you cannot merely use web-page citations). It is due November 11th.

4. The final essay/take-home exam will be a comparative critical discussion of the works of two or more poets you have read during the course.

The final will be held during examination week, most likely on Monday, December 12th, 2011 unless students vote for another day that week.

5. You will be asked to provide for the class a brief biography of a poet of your choice, and to lead an approximately half-hour class discussion of one of her poems.

6. There may be a couple tests, and in addition a surprise quiz or two.