British Literature from 1800, "The Mythmakers"

* NOTE: If you have a different edition from the Oxford World's Classics, be sure to read to the chapter that begins "It may seem odd to you" (stop when you see this chapter). It should be the first 40 or 50 pages, depending on your version. Answer TWO of the following: Q1: Though this is a science fiction story about time travel, how does The Time Machine function like a traditional Gothic story like Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ? What familiar tropes and characters do you recognize, and how does Wells employ them? (hint: consider the narration) Q2: When considering what man might be like in the distant future, The Time Traveler reflects, "What might not have happened to men? What if cruelty had grown into a common passion? What if in this interval the race has lost its manliness, and had developed into something inhuman, unsympathetic, and overwhelmingly powerful?" Why might these be important questions to ask in the late 19th century? What...

“In the friction and interaction among artist and designer and book, a new thing is born. The book is remade, its delights are refreshed, it becomes inviting again” (Audrey Niffenegger) For the first part of your Paper #3 assignment, I want you to design the cover for a new edition of ONE of the books in class using a classic painting or work of art. Remember that the cover is the first thing someone sees before reading a book, and it continues to stare at and challenge (delight?) the reader as he/she spends time with the book. So your task is to find an image that can live in the mind of the reader, and subtly (or explicitly) mirror the themes of the book and/or the characters inside it. Ideally, you want to choose a painting (or other work) from around the same time period, so we can see visually what the writer was attempting to capture in his or her work. Paintings with Gothic/Romantic leanings such as those by Francisco Goya, Caspar David Freidrich, J.M. Turner, Jo...

Answer TWO of the following: Q1: Many of Lord Henry’s witticisms echo—or even reproduce—Wilde’s Preface from the beginning of the book. Consider ones such as “Scepticism is the beginning of faith,” or “we can have in life but one great experience, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.” With this in mind, how are we supposed to read his character? Is he the voice of ‘reason’ of wisdom in the novel? Or is he another unreliable narrator, just as flawed and corrupt as Dorian? Q2: When Dorian Gray ventures into the opium dens of the East End of London, he meets with various racial stereotypes: Malays with “white teeth,” “squat misshapen figures” (also Malay, or Chinese), and low-class women with “crooked smile[s] like a Malay crease.” Are these a sign of Wilde’s upper class racial prejudices (like the narrator in “Olalla”)? Or is he seeing the world through Dorian’s eyes, who sees things in terms of “race” and degeneracy? Q3: At t...

John Singer Sargent, Repose (1911) REMEMBER: No class on Wednesday (I'll be out of town) Read the next few chapters, through Chapter 11, and consider some of the following questions--and this time, we will have an in-class response! * Note how "eyes" are discussed or mentioned in the book; why are eyes so significant in a book about art and appearances? * How is Basil contrasted with Lord Henry? What makes Basil more "good" and why does Dorian respect him more--even as he admits, he has learned much more from Lord Henry? * What does Lord Henry meant when he says "don't waste your tears over Sybil Vane. She was less real than they are?" (meaning Juliet, Rosalind, etc.) * Why did Sybil disappoint Dorian and destroy his love? What ideal did she fail to live up to? And how, in her death, did she restore that ideal? * Why does Sybil perform so badly in the play? What is her ideal? * How does Wilde indulge in many of the ideas of race a...

John Singer Sargent, Young Man in Reverie (1876) NO QUESTIONS this week--so work on your Paper #2 assignment! Also, read Chapters 1-5 of The Picture of Dorian Gray for Monday's class. You'll have an in-class response waiting for you, and you might want to consider some of the following ideas: * Wilde's paradoxical witticisms in the Preface and scattered throughout the text; are we supposed to take them seriously? Are they his voice, or the voice of society? * The idea of art vs. life, or the ideal vs. the transitory pleasure: how does Wilde develop this idea (which we've seen throughout our readings) in the opening chapters? * The Pre-Raphaelites liked to update or put a modern spin on age-old myths and legends: how might Dorian Gray be doing the same thing, though in a less obvious way? * Why does Hallward think his portrait represents his best work? On the same hand, why does he refuse to show it? * How was the nature of his meeting Dorian Gray similar t...

Note: if you missed Wednesday’s class, you can either grab the handout from my box, or find the poem on-line. Answer TWO of the following: Q1: The poem is full of repetition and echoing devices, such as the stanzas that string simile after simile together: “Like a rush-imbedded swan,/Like a lily from the beck,/Like a moonlit poplar branch,/Like a vessel at the launch/When its last restraint is gone” (1620). Why are these repetitions significant—and where do they specifically occur in the poem? Q2: The Goblin Market itself is full of sensual imagery, from the taste of the fruit to its shapes and textures. Since this is not only a poem but a kind of fairy tale, what might the Market represent? And why is it significant that Laura paid for the fruit with a lock of her hair? Q3: In one of the most famous passages of the poem, Lizzie returns from the Market with the juice of the fruits on her body, and bids her sister “Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices/Squeezed from...