ENGL 221

Literature in English: the 18th Century to the Present
(3 credits)

Instructor: Lorcan Fox
Section: 016
Term: 1

Office: Buchanan Tower 528
Phone: 604 822-6328
Office hrs.: MWF 3-4, or by appointment
E-mail: lfox[at]interchange.ubc.ca

This course focuses on selected writers of British poetry, drama, and prose from the late eighteenth century to the present.  It covers four periods of British literary history: “romantic,” Victorian, modern, and post-modern.  We will study each work with a view to identifying and exploring social, political, and economic issues of each period: for instance, slavery, the Woman Question, the Condition-of-England Question, colonial­ism, and post-colonialism.  All of the assigned reading is included in the anthology ordered for the course (see below).

Though no mark will be assigned for attendance and participation, both may affect the marks received for assignments.  At the end of the course the letter grade received for each assignment will be converted into a number grade.  Each letter grade has a numerical range: for instance, a B ranges from 72% to 75%.  Your attendance and participation may determine whether the number grade is at the high or low end of the range.

Please note that participation includes not only answering questions in class, but also speaking with me during my office hours, e-mailing me. . . .  If, then, you are too shy to speak up in class, you will still be expected to participate.  What I am looking for, above all, is proof of your commitment to, even your interest in, this course.

“In accordance with UBC Policy #65, students who are scheduled to attend classes or write examinations on the holy days of their religion must notify their instructors two weeks in advance of the religious holiday they wish to observe.  Instructors will provide opportunity for students to make up the missed work or examina­tion without penalty.  The full policy may be viewed at: http://www.policy.ubc.ca/policy65.htm.”

Texts:

• Joseph Black et al., eds., The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, Concise Edition, Volume B (The Age of Romanticism, The Victorian Era, The Twentieth Century and Beyond)
• Students should also have a good college-level dictionary (for instance, The Concise Oxford Dictionary) and a grammar handbook (for instance, The Canadian Writer’s Handbook).

Pre-requisite: 6.0 credits (completed) of First Year English, or completion of UBC's Arts One, Foundations, or Arts Studies 100 (ASTU).

Tentative Reading List: English 221/016

“The Age of Romanticism” (1-29)
Blake (39-41): “The Little Black Boy” (43), “The Chimney Sweeper” (44), “The Tyger” (48-49)
Wordsworth (110-12): excerpts from Preface to Lyrical Ballads (121-28), “We Are Seven” (112-14), “I wandered lonely as a cloud” (143-45)
Wollstonecraft (62-64): excerpts from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (64-79)
Barbauld (31-32): “Washing-Day” (32-33)
Hemans (411-12): “Casabianca” (414-15)

“The Victorian Era” (497-537)
Tennyson (632-33): “The Lady of Shalott” (640-42), “Ulysses” (645-46)
Rossetti (809): “In an Artist’s Studio” (826), “Goblin Market” (810-17)
Arnold (771-73): “Dover Beach” (785)

“The Early Twentieth Century: From 1900 to Mid-Century” (1003-32)
Shaw (1034-35): “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” (1035-70)
Conrad (1071-72): “An Outpost of Progress” (1073-84)
Excerpt from Chinua Achebe’s “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1439-43)
Kipling (962-63): “The White Man’s Burden” (966-67)
Orwell (1359-60): “Shooting an Elephant” (1373-76)
Mansfield (1298-99): “The Garden Party” (1306-13)
Eliot (1314-16): “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1316-19)
Auden (1385-86): “Musée des Beaux Arts” (1391)

“The Late Twentieth Century and Beyond: 1945 to the Twenty-First Century” (1400-16)
Larkin (1421-22): “Church Going” (1423), “Annus Mirabilis” (1425)
Heaney (1444-45): “Digging” (1445)
Achebe (1435-36): “The Sacrificial Egg” (1437-38)
Ishiguro (1520-21): “A Village after Dark” (1521-27)