Preliminary Syllabus for ENGL4809 (Winter 2015)

ENGL4809 (2014-15)

Communicable Romanticism: Medicine, Literature, Politics

Image: Charles Williams, "Vaccination" (c. 1802), from the Wellcome Library (http://wellcomelibrary.org/player/b11598803#?asi=0&ai=0)

Instructor: Dr. Julia M. Wright
E-mail: Julia.Wright@dal.ca (e-mail is the best way of reaching me)
Usual Office: McCain 2193
Office hours: Tuesdays, 2:30-3:30pm (McCain 2193); Fridays, 2:00-3:00pm (McCain 3042); or by appointment.
(Note: I will adjust office hours if needed to accommodate students in the class; any changes will be posted on BbLearn.)

Required Texts:

Blake, William. Blake’s Poetry and Designs. Ed. John E. Grant and Mary Lynn Johnson. 2^nd ed. New York: Norton, 2007.
De Quincey, Thomas. Confessions of an English Opium Eater and Other Writings. Ed. Joel Faflak. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2009.
Shelley, Mary. The Last Man. Ed. Morton D. Paley. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Shelley’s Poetry and Prose. Ed. Neil Fraistat and Donald H. Reiman. New York: Norton, 2002.

Assignments:

20% Seminar (reading time: 9-10 minutes) + written version (about 1300-1500 words) (various dates)
5% Attendance and participation
30% Two Quizzes (15% each; February 10th and April 7th)
10% Proposal and Preliminary Research, 250 words + Works Cited (due Feb. 26th)
35% Research Essay, 1800-2000 words (due March 24th)

Tentative Schedule

This reading schedule is provisional. If class interest so inclines, I’m happy to spend more time on some texts and a bit less on others. Asterisked items are on BbLearn. Read all material before the class for which it is scheduled, or you’ll be lost during the discussion.

The Body and the Mind

January 6^th: Review of syllabus; introduction to key concepts for the class
January 8^th: *Brown, pp. 1-30 from Elements of Medicine (ignore the Latin footnotes!); *Trotter, Chapter 1 of View of the Nervous Temperament
January 13^th-15^th: *Godwin, “Of Choice in Reading”; Blake, Book of Urizen
January 20^th-22^nd: *Trotter, from “Contagion” in Medicina Nautica; *Coleridge, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1817 version; an out-of-copyright edition is posted on BbLearn, but feel free to use another edition of the 1817 version); Wordsworth, 1802 Preface to the Lyrical Ballads (http://archive.rc.umd.edu/editions/LB/html/Lb02-1.html or, if you have one, a print edition, as long as it’s the 1802 version)

The Body and Society

January 27^th-February 3^rd: *Trotter, “Intoxication” in Medicina Nautica and Chapter 2 of View; De Quincey, Confessions
February 5^th: Review of Confessions from The British Review (Appendix B.4 in De Quincey); P. B. Shelley, “The Mask of Anarchy”
February 10^th: Quiz #1
February 12^th: P.B. Shelley, “Defense of Poetry”

February 17^th-19^th: READING WEEK

The Body and Politics

February 24^th-March 3^rd: P. B. Shelley, “The Sensitive Plant” and Prometheus Unbound
March 5^th: from Lamb, “Confessions of a Drunkard” (Appendix A.1 in De Quincey); Coleridge, “Kubla Khan” (Appendix A.2 in De Quincey)
March 10^th-12^th: Blake, America and Europe
March 17^th: *Jeffrey, Rev. of Moore’s Epistles; Blake, Preface to Milton and “When Klopstock England Defied”
March 19^th-26^th: from Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population (Appendix C.4 in De Quincey); M. W. Shelley, The Last Man
March 31^st-April 2^nd: Shelley, The Last Man (any final discussion); *Keats, “Hyperion”

April 7^th: Quiz #2