English 4630: Major British Author: Frances Burney
"The Age of Burney"

Dr. Emily Friedman (Professor of Record, Office hours MWF 11.30-12.30 and by appointment, Haley 9002)

In her 1918 "Room of One's Own," Virgina Woolf famously dubbed Frances Burney D'Arblay "Mother of the Novel" and argued that "Jane Austen should have laid a wreath upon the grave of Fanny Burney" -- forgetting that Burney outlived Austen by decades. In fact, her writing life takes us from the late eighteenth-century, through the Romantic period, all the way to the dawning of the Victorian age. A successful novelist, devoted daughter, thwarted playwright, Court attendant, prolific keeper of diaries, happy wife and mother, writer of letters, mastectomy survivor, and finally a strange sort of biographer, Burney's life and work helps us better understand the world in which she lived -- a world, for better and worse, not unlike our own. This course will use the work of Frances Burney as a lens into the period during which she lived: a time of great artistic and social change: revolutions, "mad kings" and upstart tyrants, an expanding British Empire, and great debate at home and abroad.

Schedule of Readings & Assignments

Texts

There are seven required books for this class, six of which are available at the University Bookstore:

‣ Broadview - A Known Scribbler: Frances Burney on the Writing Life
‣ Broadview - The Witlings & The Woman Hater
‣ Broadview - Evelina
‣ Oxford World's Classics - Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress
‣ Oxford World's Classics - Camilla, or A Picture of Youth
‣ The Wanderer, or Female Difficulties (working on coursepack version, also will be made available in PDF)
‣ Cambridge Companion to Frances Burney

I insist that you have the stated edition of these texts, because they contain valuable supplemental readings we will be using. These books are also available on Amazon, but if you go that route, make sure you will receive your books in time for class. When I provide electronic readings, I expect that you bring some (paper or elextronic) form to class to annotate and make reference to. Some editions are also available in Kindle/ebook edition -- please consult with me before buying or downloading such editions (when they are bad they are worse than nothing).

General Class Policies

Course-specific Guidelines

Grade Breakdown

40%

Final Paper
10% - Close Reading Paper (tied to keywords library day, Due September 23)
5% - Annotated Bibliography (Due October 24)
5% - Mid-Semester Progress Report/Worksheet (Due October 28)
5% - Poster Presentation on Novel (Due Last Day of Class)
15% - Final Paper (Due Friday of Last Week of Classes)
20% In-Class Discussion Leading & Presentations

10% - Group Library Research Presentation (Due September 2)
10% - Group Discussion-Leading

20%

Weekly Responses
20% Class Attendance, Discussion, and Participation



"Keyword" Assignment & In-Class Group Presentation

While we read Evelina, I will ask you to identify challenging or significant words or concepts that seem important to understanding Burney's work. We will be taking those assembled "keywords" into the library when we meet with Jaena Alibi, who will be showing us some of the specialized databases useful for accessing eighteenth-century texts and records. Your task for that session is to better define one of our puzzling "keywords" using primary resources found on these databases. The next time our class meets, your group will be responsible for a 5-8 minute presentation of your findings.

In addition, you will be required to submit a 750-1000-word (3-4 double-spaced pages) paper that performs a "close reading" (definition here) examining the keyword's significance in Evelina. (NOTE: each group member must submit YOUR OWN paper). This paper will be submitted in class on September 23.

In-Class Discussion Leading
At the beginning of the second week, I will pass around a signup sheet listing days for in-class discussion-leading, which will occur at the beginning of class starting in late September. You and a partner will be responsible for leading our class discussion for 10-15 minutes.  You can bring in specific passages, bite-sized amount of illuminating information (word definitions, information about cultural quirks, etc.) if you choose.  You are, at minimum, responsible for creating:

As our classroom is "smart," you may choose to take advantage of our ability to show DVD clips, pages of text, and the like. Where appropriate, I will be showing you presentations done in the free online presentation program Prezi (http://www.prezi.com/) to show you some possible ways of organizing your information. Powerpoint is strongly discouraged.

After your presentation, every member of the class (including me) will fill out a Presentation and Discussion Form (sample) to evaluate your presentation. While I have the final decision as to your grade, I take peer response very seriously. You will receive all evaluation sheets back as soon as possible after your presentation.

Formal Research Paper

By the third week of class, you will select a topic related to Burney and her circle from a list provided. You will be required to tie this research to one of Burney's works for a final formal paper.

You will be responsible for the following components:

Formal writing in this discipline must conform to a consistent citation format (MLA, Chicago, etc.), in 12 point clear font, double-spaced, with 1 inch margins. Work is due in class on the specified due date, unless otherwise specified. Extensions on formal paper assignments (including drafts and proposals) will only be granted with more than 48 hours' notice. Late work without a prior extension will not be accepted.

A complete grading rubric is included on this website. Remember: I grade you on the work I see, not on your good intentions. I expect that you will have personally proofread (and ideally, had someone else read over) your formal writing prior to handing it in. Egregious grammar errors, typos, improper citation, formatting errors, etc. are unacceptable on formal writing assignments, as they imply sloppy thought and hasty writing. Papers with such errors will be marked down a letter grade.

Informal Weekly Writing
On weeks where we meet as a group, you will write once a week in response to each other and to our assigned readings, using Blackboard. Your responses should be at least 250 words in length and should demonstrate that you have read and carefully thought about the assigned reading.

You will be assigned one of three due dates - either Sunday, Tuesday, or Thursday by midnight (in other words, the night before one of our class periods.) You should use this forum to:

‣ask substantive questions about the text assigned for the next class
‣to make connections among texts
‣to identify the central arguments of a given piece
‣to identify what you see as important themes and issues

I am less interested in what you liked or disliked about the reading (although that may be relevant to your response) than in what issues you found central and why. You might also think of these pieces as useful practice for your formal writing.

As we proceed, I will point out questions and responses that I think are particularly strong (and you can check some out from a prior class here), so that you may consider them as models for your future work. I will also provide additional feedback about your individual progress in this area when you request it. Each week, I will grade your online contributions as excellent (A/90-100), good (B/80-90), satisfactory (C/70-79), poor (D/60-69), and not adequate (F/below 60). You will be able to keep track of your grades via Blackboard.

Late work in this category will be accepted up to one week afterward but will not be graded higher than a C. Missed work is automatically recorded as an F. Multiple weeks of missing questions and responses will jeopardize your ability to pass the course.