ENGLISH 4370: Restoration and Early 18th-Century Literature

Spring, 2005

2-3:15 TR   Haley Center 3046

Dr. Paula R. Backscheider
9082 Haley Center
pkrb@auburn.edu
(334) 844-9091

Office Hours: Monday 2:00-4:00 and by appointment

Description:  

Wits, coquettes, poets, prisoners, people willing to die for their religion and others willing to write on both sides of every political issue for a pocketful of change– a time and a literature that gave us the modern novel, our tax system, literary criticism, the modern prison, mass culture, hymns we still sing, glittering comedies, touching romantic plays and novels, and some of the most scathing satires ever written.

 

This discussion course studies the greatest literature written in the century often described as most like our own.  Their problems were our problems (crime, gender relationships, defining the rights of individuals); they believed that literature mattes and helps create the world in which we live.  We will sample all of the kinds of literature being written, including a novel, a few plays, satires of courtship, poetry, and a short, controversial biography.  Class participation, two short papers (7-12 pages), midterm exam or equivalent, and a final exam are required.  Evaluations are on my website: www.auburn.edu/~pkrb

 

 

Required Texts:  

Restoration Plays, ed. Robert G. Lawrence (Everyman)

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe (Norton, ed. Albert Rivero)

The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay (Dover)

Eighteenth-Century Poetry, ed. David Fairer and Christine Gerrard

Engravings by Hogarth, ed. Sean Shesgreen (Dover)

 

 

Syllabus:  

Jan.      11: Introduction and Hogarth:  "The Rake's Progress," "The Harlot's Progress," "The Four Times of Day,"  "Gin Lane" and "Beer Street"

           

13:  "The City Jilt" from Selected Fiction

 

            18: Venice Preserved

 

20:  Swift, "A Description of the Morning," "A Description of a City Shower," and "Stella's Birthday 1721" (pp. 71-76), and Robinson, "London's Summer Morning" (p. 529) in Eighteenth-Century Poetry

 

            25: Venice Preserved debate

 

27: Debate continued

 

Feb.        1: Moll Flanders, to p. 126.

 

               3:   "      "            to p. 167

 

               8:   “      ”           read selections beginning p. 273 and 460 and finish the novel.

 

              10: Continued discussion. 

 

              15:  Life of Savage* to paragraph 86   

 

              17: Life of Savage (finish the life)

 

              22:  Hogarth, prints 4, 25 and 46 on the stage, 25, 37-41, and "Marriage a la Mode."

 

              24: Savage debates

 

Mar.         1: Mid-term exam

 

                 3: The Provok’d Wife

 

                 8:   “        ”            “

 

                10: READING DAY

 

15:   Beggar's Opera. and Toni-Lynn O'Shaughnessy, "A Single Capacity in The Beggar's Opera," Eighteenth-Century Studies 21 (1987-88): 212-27

 

                17:   Continued discussion

 

                22:   Reports on the influence of actors and actresses in Venice Preserved, Beggar’s     

                        Opera, and The Provoked Wife

 

     24: Continuation of reports.  PAPERS DUE.

 

SPRING BREAK

 

April         5:  Pope, The Rape of the Lock (pp. 113-32)                    

 

                 7:   Pope, Epistle to Arbuthnot (pp. 155-66) and "Epistle to a Lady" (pp. 147-55)         

 

               12:  Jones, "An Epistle to Lady Bowyer" (pp. 275-78) and Barber, "To a Lady, who commanded me to send her an Account in Verse, how I succeeded in my Subscription" (hand-out), and Elizabeth Hands, "On the Supposition of an Advertisement appearing in a Morning Paper, of the Publication of a Volume of Poems by a Servant Maid" (hand-out)

 

   14:  Gray, "Sonnet on the Death of Richard West," "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College," "Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat" (pp. 324-29) and "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" (to line 29, pp. 329- 330)

 

   19:  Gray, "The Bard" (pp. 338-43) and complete "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" (complete, pp. 329-333)

 

               21:  Great hymns of the eighteenth-century (hand-out)

 

               26:    “          ”      “   ”        “               ”

 

               28:   Goldsmith, The Deserted Village debate

 

This is a discussion course; attendance and participation are expected.  Those absent from two classes before mid-term will be required to take a longer mid-term exam, and those absent from four before the final will be required to take a longer final exam.

 

No late work will be accepted without prior agreement.  The final exam is required. Papers done for other courses cannot be re-used in this course; to do so is an Academic Honesty Violation. 

 

Students with documented disabilities and special needs will be accommodated.  Please see me as soon as possible.

 

*  You must print this text for yourself.  It is available on the Internet; using your Internet browser, enter this address, access the text and print:  http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlunch/texts/savage.html  You may also check out a diskette and print the text from it; see my assistant in Haley 9077.

 

Exam: 5-7:30 on Monday, May 9