|
GEORGE ELIOT |
& VIRGINIA WOOLF |
|
Fall 2001 | |
|
English 391 (4133) |
Rice 10 (440) 775-8578 |
|
MWF, 2:30-3:20, King
235 |
Office hours: MW,
3:30-4:20 |
|
GEORGE ELIOT |
& VIRGINIA WOOLF |
N.B. If needed, I will put on reserve a copy of the Norton Critical Edition of The Mill on the Floss, so those who have a different edition can have access to the critical materials in Norton edition (abbreviated below as NCE).
SCHEDULE:
W 9/5: Introduction to course
F 9/7: Read Mill, opening five chapters, and "Brother and Sister" sonnet sequence (xerox available for anyone lacking Norton edition). Suggested focus for discussion: what might Eliot be up to in juxtaposing the moralizing, nostalgic adult narrator with the creation (or, as an act of memory, re-creation) of emotionally-charged sibling and family relationships which often seem conducive to anything but nostalgia? Also: what in the opening portion of this novel engages you or puts you off?
M 9/10: remainder of Mill, Book One, "Boy and Girl." Come to class with a two-page typed prep paper investigating any passage in Book One that interests you. Work in some specification of what attracts you to the passage in terms of its artistic richness, emotional impact, or thematic suggestiveness. In addition, list your current top three questions for exploration of this novel. They can be as broad or as specific as you want. If you'd care to have your thinking jogged about possible areas for consideration, here are a bunch of possibilities: female anger; differential sex role expectations for Tom and Maggie; female intelligence as a liability; macabre materialism of Dodson women; role of narrator; world of nature as symbolic frame; water imagery; competing claims to "protagonist" (brother and sister as a unit, Maggie solo, the entire social community, Mr. Tulliver as a potential figure of tragedy?). Optional NCE extra: GE letters pp. 427-429.
W 9/12: Mill, Book Two, "School-Time." In the first chapter of this book, watch for ironies and word plays around the schoolroom material introduced -- rules for gender of nouns, etc. Likely focus for discussion: what do the first two books of the novel collectively reflect about differential sex role expectations for Maggie and Tom? What signs do you see about where the author stands on this? Optional NCE extra: Mary Jacobus, esp. pp. 547-553.
F 9/14: Mill, Book Three, "The Downfall." What strikes you as the point or effect of the turn the novel is taking here -- for example as regards the transition from childhood to adulthood for Tom and Maggie? Or the emotional impact of Book Three's closing scene? Begin key-passages commentaries (see "Your Responsibilities" below): Ambrogio & Bacharach?
M 9/17: Mill, Book Four, "The Valley of Humiliation," and the first four chapters of Book Five. Why is Book Four so short?! Does the narratorial disquisition, "A Variation of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet" (Bk 4, ch. 1) feel like an overdone apology? A meaningful intervention? A bore? Why? What angles do you get on Maggie at this stage (Bk 4 and Bk 5 ch. 1-4) through her tastes in reading materials? Or in men? Are you feeling that you're seeing in Maggie an unhealthy silencing of anger, or does this supposition miss the point of something Eliot is implicitly arguing for as a process of moral maturation? Key-passages commentaries: Brecht and Brosgart? Optional NCE extras: E.S. Dallas, GE letter to William Blackwood p. 430.
W 9/19: Mill, finish Book Five, "Wheat and Tares," and read the first five chapters of Book Six. How does your feeling towards either Mr. Tulliver or Tom in this final portion of Book Five interact with your feeling towards Maggie? What's the sense of&emdash;and possible novelistic strategy of--the transition in atmosphere, value, class status as you move into Book Six? Key-passages: Castellano and Cotterill? Optional NCE extra: U.C. Knoepflmacher, to p. 511.
F 9/21: Mill, finish Book Six, "The Great Temptation." Sexual Attraction!! In a Victorian Novel!! But Is He Worthy? And Is She Truly Virtuous? Key-passages: DiPerna and Dredge? Optional NCE extras (if you don't mind give-away on ending): Algernon Charles Swinburne, John Ruskin, Leslie Stephen, Deirdre David pp. 606-608.
M 9/24: Mill, Book Seven, "The Final Rescue." Reviewers and critics have been all over the map on whether this ending is essentially weak (inadequately prepared for, a feminist cop-out, a descent into maudlin sentimentality or emotional regression, etc.) or in its own way effective (a fulfillment of water imagery, a masked affirmation of female anger or heroism amidst unlivable circumstances, etc.) Come to class with a two-page typed prep paper explaining how it strikes you. Key-passages: Fee-Thomson and Friedman?
W 9/26: The novel and the ending as seen by George Eliot, early reviewers, and two recent critics. Readings in NCE (reserve copy needed?): Letters from middle of p. 430 to p. 434; Saturday Review, pp. 444-448, MacMillan's Magazine, pp. 458-464, Virginia Woolf, pp. 480-483; and, for two different views of the ending, George Levine, pp. 499-502 and Deirdre David, 601-9.
F 9/28: Daniel Deronda, Book One, "The Spoiled Child." How does this book feel different from Mill? (among other things, consider role of chapter epigraphs). In the sharply critical treatment given to English Establishment society, does Gwendolen seem a conduit for social criticism or an object of it? Are feminist concerns implicated? Logic of beginning with gambling casino scene? Key passages: Glauber and Kish?
M 10/1: DD, Book Two, "Meeting Streams." Possible focal points: narrative strategy of following Gwendolen's consciousness in meeting with Grandcourt? Grandcourt versus Daniel Deronda? Key passages: MacKesson and Mauk?
W 10/3: DD, Book Three, "Maidens Choosing." Following the cue of "Maidens Choosing," let's look comparatively at the frameworks within which range of choice (involving both art, marriage, and subjection to male authority) is available to Mirah, Catherine, and Gwendolen; and also what about their character is revealed in the way they respond. Key passages: Mizock and Render?
F 10/5: DD, Book Four, "Gwendolen Gets Her Choice." Triangle of Gwendolen, Grandcourt, and Lydia Glasher; new lights on Grandcourt; special focus on ch. 31. Two-page typed prep paper: commentary on interaction of theme and imagery in ch. 31 (or redefine topic if you prefer). Key passages: Sabatier and Seidelman?
M 10/8: DD, Book Five, "Mordecai." Deronda as filter for Mirah, Gwendolen, Mordecai. Possible focus: ways in which Jewish and English characters implicitly comment on one another. Key passages: Shiba and Summers?
W 10/10: DD, Book Six, "Revelations." Possible focus: significance of Mordecai, Judaism, and Zionism for Eliot's treatment of English society generally. Try to take a look at George Eliot's Daniel Deronda Notebooks on reserve. Key passages: Theodore and Todor?
F 10/12: DD, Book Seven, "The Mother and the Son." The magnificent, subversive Halm-Eberstein: what does she add to issues of authority, autonomy, and self-expression for the woman artist? What do you read as the implied author's attitude towards her? Explored by various critics whose books are on reserve, including Gillian Beer (George Eliot , ch. 7). Key passages: Tokuda-Hall and Waldman?
M 10/15: DD, Book Eight, "Fruit and Seed." Messages conveyed by fates of characters? Comparison with ending of Mill? Key passages: --?
W 10/17: No class; draft-stage conferences on papers
F 10/19: TBA; possibly a short critical piece or two on Daniel Deronda. Due this class: 8-page midterm paper on either Mill or Daniel Deronda
FALL BREAK!! SLEEP LATE!! SCRUNCH THROUGH LEAVES!!
M 10/29: Video: "The War Within: Virginia Woolf"
Evening, M 10/29: 7:30 p.m., dessert at my house (329 Edgemeer); chance to compare notes on Break, reactions to video, confess yourself as a Woolfomaniac, and like that.
NB Now a more freewheeling version of our coverage of textual segments and discussion topics; we can see if more specific daily topic assignments are needed or wanted when we get there. We'll also do another round of key passage presentations, whether alphabetically or based this time on your preferences about which Woolf novel you'd like to work on. Two recent round-ups of Woolf criticism on reserve and likely to be especially helpful for background reading are: The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf, ed. Sue Roe and Susan Sellers, and Approaches to Teaching Woolf's To the Lighthouse, ed. Beth Rigal Daugherty and Mary Beth Pringle. Also especially well worth looking at for evolution of text are To the Lighthouse: The Original Holograph Draft and The Waves: The Two Holograph Drafts. And enormously valuable at every stage: Woolf's A Writer's Diary.
W 10/31, F 11/1, M 11/5, W 11/7: Mrs. Dalloway. Cover the novel in roughly four equal segments over these four classes. Likely prep paper along the way. Possible focal points:
F 11/9: Concluding discussion Mrs. Dalloway, perhaps using reserve readings? Or else Woolf's autobiographical essay, " A Sketch of the Past" and selections from A Writer's Diary.
M 11/12, W 11/14, F 11/16, M 11/19: To the Lighthouse. First two classes: first and second halves of opening section, "The Window"; then a class apiece on "Time Passes" and "The Lighthouse." Possible topics:
(Again, consult your interests and reserve reading for other ideas.)
W 11/21: Concluding discussion To the Lighthouse via secondary sources.
Thanksgiving Weekend
M 11/26 to F 12/7: The Waves. 11/26: first two sections; 11/28: third section; 11/30 fourth and fifth sections; 12/3 sixth and seventh sections; 12/5 eighth section, 12/7 final long section (Bernard's soliloquy).
M 12/10: Concluding discussion The Waves
W 12/12: No class; draft stage conferences on papers
F 12/14: Bring those tired bodies in for course evaluations and wrap-up! 8-page final paper due on Woolf novel of your choice, preferably by Fri. Dec. 14; outside limit Mon. Dec. 17.
YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES
1) Helping to make discussion productive. That means attending regularly (attendance policy below), coming prepared, and doing your bit to facilitate exchange that goes somewhere. Two further responsibilities related to discussion are:
2) Key passage commentaries. Once in each half of the semester I'm asking you to come to class having done an extra step in preparing that day's reading assignment: pick a passage (roughly in the range of a half-page to two pages in length) that you find especially interesting and well worth close scrutiny, and be ready to tell us what interested you in the passage and why. The "why" could have to do with the previous class's discussion, the suggested focus for that day, an independent interest of yours, your pleasure in the style, your realization that this passage ties some things together for you, your sense that it raises some questions you have a feeling may be important but that you don't know how to answer -- whatever! You don't need to worry about holding forth at length; a few minutes is fine. I'd encourage you to check in advance with the other person listed for the same day, but it's not mandatory.
3) Prep papers. These are short, relatively informal response papers, intended to warm you up for discussion on the day that they're due. I may not always return them; I merely record them on a Cr/NE basis. However, to get credit, they do have to come with you to class on the day they're due; otherwise the assignment misses the point.
4) Graded papers. This being a 300-level course, I would ask you to have a modest research component in at least one of your two papers. This could translate to something as small as working in a relevant passage from Woolf's A Writer's Diary into a Woolf paper, or as large as developing a thesis in response to one or two critical articles dealing with your topic in Woolf or Eliot. To keep things manageable, I'd suggest you deal centrally with only one novel for your paper. You may even want to narrow down quantitatively within the one novel (e.g. chapter analysis, framed by explanation of why you see that chapter as important in the book as a whole). Feel free to consult with me at any time about questions on topics or possible background reading. It's OK if your topic develops as an offshoot of class discussion. To make sure you're breaking new ground, though, think of your reader as someone who has participated in all our discussions and is ready to be taken in a new direction from there.
MY POLICIES
1) Attendance. I didn't want to do it, I didn't want to do it, but I've capitulated. Patterns on attendance have gotten spotty lately and my in-class eye and after-class memory are both rotten. So this year I'm trying the experiment of keeping tabs by passing around a sign-up sheet each class (or, after registration settles down, a list of names for initialling). Two absences you get as freebies; three or more will affect your grade, proportionately. Emergency absences will be considered on a case by case basis.
2) Late papers. I downgrade at the rate of one-third of a letter grade for each day beyond due date. Barring true emergencies, I MUST have mid-term papers in time to grade them over Break.
3) Your communications with me. The days I've set aside for paper conferences are intended mostly for draft-stage consultations. I strongly encourage you to see me earlier if you'd like help working out a topic or thinking through your thesis. If my office hours (MW 3:30-4:20) don't work for you, we can find another time. I would also ask you in general to try to see me after class or in office hours for things that need to be discussed, and limit emails to brief items of information.
RESERVE: I've put about 20-25 books on Woolf and Eliot on
reserve for your use as a back-up to discussion preparation and/or
papers. Please go over soon and browse so you have a sense of what's
there. Lotsa goodies.
