Welcome to the Course!

Welcome to our class blog for British Literature from 1800, "Monsters and Madmen." This course charts the evolution of ‘British’ literature from the explosion of the Romantic/Gothic movement, through the haunted decades of Victorianism, and to the shell-shocked ruins of the twentieth century. Just as technology was rapidly changing the face of modern life, so, too, literature was undergoing a severe metamorphosis that would forever change what we read—and how we read it. This exciting period of literature gave birth not only to Horror and Fantasy literature, but also Science Fiction, as writers struggled to find stories and metaphors to mirror the rapidly changing (and decaying) state of the British empire. Our class will chart these changes through three novels and numerous works of poetry, as well as the artworks of the period, which help us ‘see’ the inner landscapes of the books themselves. Not everything we read will be horrific…but I promise you, most of it will!

Be sure to buy the books for this course as soon as possible; we'll be starting with English Romantic Poetry this week! E-mail me with any questions or concerns at jgrasso@ecok.edu. See you in class!

NOTE: The posts below this one are from my summer course and many earlier British lit courses, so you don't have to worry about them. This is not your work nor will it reflect the work I assign in our class this semester.

Comments

For Monday: Short Lecture on Colonialism and Mansfield

As a way to introduce you to some of the themes we'll be exploring with our last two books, I've recorded a short lecture (about 18 min.) that I would have discussed with you in class if we were still meeting. I know 18 minutes is a lot to watch in a single stretch, so feel free to start and stop, or simply leave it playing in the background. However, I think it will help you see and understand some of the larger ideas going on behind the scenes in Mansfield's stories. AFTER you watch the video, answer the following question as a COMMENT below: "Since many women in the early 19th century tried to hide their identity as a woman by adopting a male name, or writing more 'male' stories, how do you think colonial writers did the same? That is, how did they hide their colonial identity in writing to sound more 'English'? What might they have had to hide, or ignore, or not reveal as a writer? (This will count toward your participation grade, since I can...

Short Lecture on Being "Weak" in Mansfield's Stories

Before we race to the end of Mansfield's stories, I wanted to discuss some of the major themes we've encountered in several of them, particularly "Daughters of the Late Colonel," "The Life of Ma Parker," "Mr. and Mrs. Dove," and "Marriage a la Mode." Watch the video to hear some of my thoughts on these stories, most of which are drawn from your responses to the reading questions. It's a little longer than the last one, but still only about 25 minutes (sorry)! After you finish, answer the following question as a COMMENT on the blog. Q: Talking about emotions, love, death, or otherwise being "weak" was very taboo in British society at this time. What subjects or relationships do you feel are taboo in our own society? And I don't just mean awkward subjects (abortion, politics, etc.), but what emotions or experiences would you have trouble discussing with your parents, your siblings, your friends, and even your sig...

For Friday: Wordsworth, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality"

“Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections in Early Childhood” (pp.51-57): read the entire poem, but the questions will only focus on Stanzas 1-7 NOTE: This is a longer poem, though it’s broken up into short stanza chapters. Read it slowly, and focus on each stanza as an individual poem. Then consider how each one develops a general ‘story’ or narrative about Wordsworth’s life. Consider this, too, as a kind of mid-life crisis poem: Wordsworth feels himself pulling away from the innocent joys he used to experience in life, and the poem is an attempt to find himself—and to convince other readers to find themselves in the thickets of adulthood. Answer TWO of the following... Q1: According to Stanzas 1-4, what causes the poet to feel distanced from the natural world? What has come between him and his imagination/emotions? In Stanza 2 he writes that “But yet I know, where’er I go,/That there hath past away a glory from the earth...

British Literature from 1800, "The Mythmakers"

Search This Blog