ENGLISH 441
SEMINAR: GEORGE ELIOT & VIRGINIA WOOLF
Spring, 1998
Kathie Linehan
Rice 10, ext. 8578
Off. hrs: M&W 3:30-4:30
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (1860)
Daniel Deronda (1876)
Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
To the Lighthouse (1927)
A Room of One's Own (1929)
The Waves (1931)
.
RECOMMENDED:
.
Eliot, Selected Essays, Poems, and Other Writings
All texts available at Coop in Penguin paperback (or for Dalloway,
Harbrace)
SCHEDULE:
Th 2/5: Introduction.
.
Tu 2/10: Read: Mill , Book One, Sel Essays
pp. 110-12 & 125-131 from"Nat. Hist. German Life", xeroxed
excerpt from Smiles' Self-Help; 2 pp. typed prep paper due
in class: Either a) comment on how excerpts from "Nat. Hist."
or Self-Help stimulate your thinking about what Eliot is up to in
this novel, or b) investigate any passage in Book One in terms of its artistic
richness and its links to what seems to you a central issue or concern
in the text thus far. In addition, jot down your top three questions
for exploration of this novel.
.
Th 2/12: Read through to end of Book Two of Mill.
Suggested focus: female anger. What do you see as the psychology of Maggie's
sulks and turbulent outbursts? How is interpretation shaped by the narrator's
frequent association of Maggie with Medusa, witches, etc.? Where and how
does any authorial anger on behalf of Maggie come through to you in the
first two Books of the novel? Relevant reserve reading includes Auerbach's
"The Power of Hunger: Demonism and Maggie Tulliver," and Jacobus'
"Men of Maxims" (bound in "Mill-Boy and Girl" folder).
Tu 2/17: Read through to the end of Book Four of Mill.
Possible focus: the life of reading in the text, as Maggie moves from Defoe
and Bunyan to Thomas a Kempis, with romantic novels to follow. Perhaps
also revisit a reading of the book as double bildungsroman or social
history.
Th 2/19: Read through to chapter 6 of Book Six. What's
your reading of the main psychological or feminist or moral issues involved
in the developing love triangle? What metatextual play are we now getting
with references to narrative romance versus moral allegory?
Tu 2/24: Finish Mill . 2 pp. typed prep paper due in class:
How do you view the controversial ending of this novel, and why? Melo-
dramatic cop-out? Symbolically powerful? Fractured but revealing? Feel
free to consult critics or work from your own reading responses. If you
do consult critics, you'll find that just about everyone who writes on
Mill offers a take on this. Among our reserve readings, you'll find
especially thoughtful recent contributions to the debate in David Carroll's
chapter on Mill in GE & the Conflict of Interpretations
and in Susan Fraiman's article "The Mill on the Floss, the
Critics, and the bildungsroman." Oral reports could focus on
those articles, or on Victorian responses to the novel anthologized in
David Carroll's George Eliot: the Critical Heritage.
Th 2/26: For a retrospect on The Mill on the Floss,
and a way to take stock of Eliot's mental life in the years leading up
to her writing of it, read the following material in Selected
Essays and come prepared to discuss it in itself and in application
to the novel:
--A.S. Byatt's Introduction (pp. ix-xxxiii)
--"Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft" (pp. 332-338)
--Brother and Sister Sonnets, pp. 426-432.
You might also browse through Byatt's introduction to Mill,
if you're using the Penguin edition.
.
Tu 3/3: D Der, Books One and Two (or close to it). In
reading the opening chapters, jot some notes to yourself about what feels
different in this book from Mill, in terms of such things as social
focus, historical setting, artistic technique (including narrative style),
and intellectual concerns. As touchdown points for discussion, I suggest
looking especially closely at the opening casino scene, ch. 1; the analysis
of Gwendolen offered early in ch. 6; issues of female commodification implicit
in ch. 10; the first courtship conversation and closing narra- torial commentary
in ch. 11; and the scene at Whispering Stones in ch. 14.
.
Th 3/5: D Der through the end of Book Three. Possible
focus for discussion: organizing and connecting motifs for the hefty cast
of major and minor characters.
.
For the remaining four classes before Spring Break, try to push through
D Der Books Four and Five for Tu 3/10, then
Book Six for Th 3/12, then finally Book Seven for
Tu 3/17. That will leave us an extra day on Th 3/19 for further
digesting the novel, with only a light bit of assigned reading (the excerpt
from "Debasing the Moral Currency" in Sel Essays
pp. 437-442.) Topics for discussion and oral reports these last two weeks
before Break might include:
-- the figure of the woman artist; voice and vengeance; female ambition;
commodification and genteel prostition (supplementary resources include
D Der essays on reserve, plus books by Barrett, Beer, and Booth,
plus Eliot's poem "Armgart," about an opera singer who loses
her voice, plus items suggested in the Penguin Deronda's "Further
Reading" section).
-- intertextuality or the life of reading behind the text (one resource
here is Eliot's Daniel Deronda Notebooks, on reserve)
-- Eliot's investigation and representation of Judaism; the novel's
critique of imperialism; the reception given to the book by its Victorian
readers; the role in the book of visionary and mystic belief, etc.
Friday, March 20: FIRST GRADED PAPER DUE (See "course requirements"
below).
WEEK OF MARCH 23: SPRING BREAK! WILD
CHEERS!!
Tu 3/31: Lead-in to Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury. Recommended
background reading: Woolf's autobiographical essay "A Sketch of the
Past" in Moments of Being (on reserve). You might also
be interested in browsing the reserve shelf to get a sense of such items
as A Writer's Diary," or the one-volume selections from the
complete diaries or letters, or the new Hermione Lee biography.
.
Th 4/2, Tu 4/7, Th 4/9: Mrs Dalloway. Cover the novel
in roughly three equal segments over these three classes. Possible topics
for discussion/report:
-- style and consciousness
-- relevance of the sociopolitical world of the novel (see esp. A.Zwerdling
on res)
-- Septimus Smith in relation to Clarissa Dalloway
-- Female relations: Clarissa re Sally Seton (and/or Miss Kilman, Elizabeth)
-- the nature of climax or ending in the concluding party scene
-- or any other topics suggested by your interests or by materials
you hunt up or by materials on reserve (NB especially the collection of
essays in Modern Critical Interpretations: Mrs. Dalloway, ed. by
Harold Bloom).
.
Tu 4/14, Th 4/16, Tu 4/21: Three classes on To the Lighthouse
following the novel's division into three parts. Possible topics:
-- the autobiographical dimension of the novel
-- perspectives on Mrs. Ramsay
-- the role of books and reading in the text
-- issues of the woman artist, female ambition, female voice
-- Time Passes and WW I
-- lessons of manuscript revision (see reserve list)
-- grappling with the roles of Lily and Mr. Ramsay in the final section
(Again, consult your interests and reserve readings for other ideas.)
.
Th 4/23: A Room of One's Own. Let's see whether we can
get through the entire essay in one class. Focal points might include:
the way this piece of feminist literary history/theory differs from and
yet relates to Woolf's fiction; her reasons for arguing against expressions
of feminist anger in fiction; the role of materialism in her analysis;
the critique offered by Alice Walker in "In Search of Our Mother's
Gardens"; grounds for frustration or engagment with Woolf's concluding
views on androgyny.
.
Tu 4/28, Th 4/30, Tu 5/5: The Waves . Possible topics:
goals of Woolf's further experimentation with style; boy-girl socialization;
the artist figure; lessons of manuscript revision (see reserve list); idea
behind the title; culminating meanings or effects achieved through Bernard's
concluding soliloquy.
.
Th 5/7: Extra time for Waves if needed
Monday, May 11: SECOND GRADED PAPER DUE (See "course requirements"
below).
Further note on class schedule: We may schedule an extra hour or so
for a workshop on locating research resources. Also, depending on how the
schedule of oral reports works out, I may assign a few prep papers beyond
the two listed above for The Mill on the Floss.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
--regular attendance and participation
--occasional CR/NE prep papers as assigned
--two graded papers, one on George Eliot due by March 20, the other
on Virginia Woolf due by May 11. Aim to make one of the two about five
pages, the other about fifteen pages. The longer paper should involve
a component of research or secondary reading; the shorter paper has
no obligation to do so. It's dandy to have the graded papers be an outgrowth
of your oral report.
--two 10-15 minute seminar reports, one in each half of the semester.
Reports can be done solo (a 10-15 minute presentation) or in teams of two
(work interactively in research stage, then share reporting responsibilities
in a 20-30 minute presentation). I'll do my best to honor preferences on
dates and topics, but may have to do some juggling. Accordingly, on the
sign-up sheet I'm handing out, I'm asking you to indicate your top three
preferences for each half of the semester. If you want to change direction
on topic at some point, see me; I'll try to keep maximum flexibility. For
that and other reasons, try to start work early! Aim also to rehearse presentation
time, so as to keep within the proposed time limit.
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