Course Description
A special topic not otherwise offered in the English curriculum. Topics and instructors vary from semester to semester.
Athena Title
Topics 18-Century Literature
Prerequisite
Two 2000-level ENGL courses or (one 2000-level ENGL course and one 3000-level ENGL course) or (one 2000-level ENGL course and one 2000-level CMLT course)
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
At the end of the course, students, having read a substantial body of literature, will be able to discuss the assigned works (orally and in writing) with a considerable degree of critical sophistication, to read and enjoy other works from the period, and to converse with fellow students about texts and issues related to the subject matter of the course. In particular, 1. This course will focus on selected topics in Restoration and eighteenth-century literature--the works of a major writer or a topic of more concentrated and specialized interest than allowed for in the other courses in the curriculum. Instructors often teach the subject of their current research under this rubric, and students have the added benefit of working with scholars actively engaged in the subject and therefore participate in significant remapping of the contours of the field. 2. The course will discuss the historical, social, political, and literary background of this period. Students will be expected to incorporate this body of contextual knowledge both in class discussion and in the papers they write both inside and outside of class. 3. Writing assignments will be various, depending on the instructor and will total 20-25 pages of typed prose by the end of the semester. Some assignments may be critical in focus (close readings, comparative essays); some may involve research (biographical notes, contextual explanations, history of the critical tradition on a matter of concern); some may be creative and/or collaborative (an eighteenth-century newspaper facsimile; essays supporting group presentations; speeches delivered in class and later printed out for distribution).
Topical Outline
The selection of works will vary from instructor to instructor and topic to topic. Some topics offered in recent years are: Eighteenth-century women writers; the works of Henry Fielding; the works of William Blake; Sentimentalism; Pepys and Boswell; British Responses to the French Revolution (which incorporated Reacting to the Past curriculum); Sterne and Swift. Topics courses are subject to the approval of the undergraduate committee and generally entail more demanding and more extensive writing assignments, as well as a reading syllabus comparable in scope to regular classes in the 4000-level of the English curriculum.