English 711: The Wordsworth Circle
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Feb
 14 WW & STC, Lyrical Ballads, cont.
WW:
"Salisbury Plain": (mw): 13-28
"The Female Vagrant" (handout)
"Old Man Travelling" - "Lines Left Upon a Seat" (mw): 29-31
"Lines Written a Small Distance" - "The Thorn" (mw): 54-66
"The Idiot Boy" - "Last of the Flock" (mw): 67-91
"Expostulation and Reply" - "The Tables Turned" (mw): 129-31

Possible Topics:

  • Superstition In "Goody Blake" and/or "The Thorn"
  • Pathetic Fallacy in "Lines Written in Early Spring"
  • Portrayal of Childhood in "We are Seven" or "Tintern Abbey"
  • Education In "Expostulation and Reply" and "The Tables Turned"
  • Exemplification of Ideas found in Advertisement and/or Preface
  • Attitude toward the Rustic in One of the Poems

21 DW, Journals
DW, Poems (handout)
WW, "A Whirl-blast from Behind the Hill" (mw): 66-7
"Beggars," (mw): 243-44
"To a Butterfly" (mw): 244
STC, "Christabel" (cpp): 158-79

Possible Topics:

  • Attitude toward  Nature in the Journals
  • Attitude toward the Poor in the Journals
  • The Relationship between DW and WW in the Journals
  • Connection between the Journals and One of the Poems
  • "Christabel" and the Gothic
  • Superstition in "Christabel"
  • Sexuality in "Christabel"

28
 STC, “Dejection: An Ode” (cpp): 143-58
WW, "Resolution and Independence" (mw): 260-64
“Ode: Intimations of Immortality” (mw): 297-302
Handouts:
Letter from WW to SH
IF Notes to "Ode"
STC/WW, "The Mad Monk"

Possible Topics:

  • Attitude toward the Poor in "Resolution and Independence"
  • Theology in the Intimations Ode
  • Function of Memory in Intimations Ode
  • Power of the Imagination in Intimations Ode and/or "Dejection: An Ode"
  • Coleridge's Intended Audience(s) in the Dejection Ode
  • Differences between "A Letter to --" and "Dejection: An Ode"
Mar 6
 WW, The Recluse (excerpts)
Preface (handout)
"The Ruined Cottage" (mw): 31-44
"[A Night-Piece]" (mw): 44-5
"Discharged Soldier" (mw): 45-49
"Old Cumberland Beggar" (mw): 49-54
"Home at Grasmere" (mw): 174-99
Appendix, (mw): 676-81

Possible Topics:

  • Domesticity in "Home at Grasmere"
  • Gender in "The Ruined Cottage"
  • Philosophy in the Appendix passages

13 WW, The Prelude (Bks.1-8) (mw): 375-508

Possible Topics:
  • Portrayal of Childhood
  • Attitude toward the City (Book 7)
  • Love of Nature and Love of Man (Book 8)

20 ** Spring Break **

27
 WW, The Prelude (Bks. 9-13) (mw): 509-92
Handout: Excerpt from 1799 Prelude

Possible Topics:

  • Views of the French Revolution
  • William Godwin (Book 10)
  • "Spots of Time" (Book 11)
Apr 3
 STC,  Biographia Literaria (cpp): 372-552
WW, from 1815 Preface to Poems (mw): 630-39

Possible Topics:

  • Coleridge's Plagiarism
  • Attitude toward Wordsworth
  • Imagination vs. Fancy

10 De Q,  Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (ceo): vii-80
Suspiria de Profundis, (ceo): 87-181
Handout: Letter of WW to De Q, 29 July 1803 

Possible Topics:

  • Orientalism: i.e., English Self vs. Turkish Other
  • Reliability of the Autobiographical Narrator
  • Prostitutes and other Marginalized Figures
  • Dreams
  • Concept of Involute

17 De Q,  Recollections of the Lakes and the Lake Poets

24 Hazlitt,  "The Character of Mr. Burke" (sw): 54-66
"The French Revolution" (sw): 84-98
“My First Acquaintance with Poets” (sw): 211-29
"Mr. Wordsworth" (sw): 347-58

Possible Topics:

  • Attitude toward Burke and / or the Revolution
  • Attitude toward Coleridge
  • Attitude toward Wordsworth
May 1
 Lamb,  Essays of Elia 
"The South Sea House" (ee): 1-14
"Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago" (ee): 27-50
"Imperfect Sympathies" (ee): 133-47
"Modern Gallantry" (ee): 181-88
"The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers" (ee): 249-61
"A Complaint on the Decay of Beggars" (ee): 262-75
"Old China" (handout)

Possible Topics:

  • Portrayal of Class / Poverty in "Christ's Hospital" or "Chimney-Sweepers" or "Beggars"
  • Prejudice in "Imperfect Sympathies"
  • Portrayal of Gender in "Modern Gallantry"
  • Identity: Charles and Mary in "Old China"