English BC 3178
Victorian Poetry & Criticism
Fall term, 2007
Tu Th 1.10
2.25

C. H. Plotkin
401B Barnard Hall
X4 2101
cplotkin@barnard.columbia.edu

Syllabus

Written requirements | Required texts | Books on Reserve

Week

Date

Readings

I

Sept. 4

6

Introduction: The Victorian Eras

Buckley, ch. 1*; Houghton, Preface & ch. 1; "Victorian Analects"

II

11

 


13

"Victorian Analects" (cont'd); Jeremy Bentham, from "The Rationale of Reward" (1825)*; Thos Babington Macauley, from "Milton" (1825); Wm J. Fox, review of Tennyson's Poems, Chiefly Lyrical [1830] (1831); Arthur Henry Hallam, "On Some of the Characteristics of Modern Poetry" (1831); Henry  Taylor, "Preface" to Philip Van Artevelde (1834)

(I) Men & Women
Houghton, ch. 13;
Alfred Tennyson, "Dedication" & "Lancelot and Elaine"
from Idylls of the King

III

18




20

"Mariana" (1830); from The Princess: ["The Woman's Cause Is Man's"] (1847)*; "Locksley Hall" (1842)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Sonnets from the Portuguese 1, 13, 21, 32, 43 (1850); "To George Sand: A Desire" and "To George Sand: A Recognition" (1844)

Sarah Stickley Ellis, from The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits (1839)*; John Henry Newman, "[A Definition of a Gentleman]" from The Idea of a University (1852)
(a) Coventry Patmore, The Angel in the House (1854 - 62)

IV

25

 

27

John Stuart Mill, from The Subjugation of Women, ch. 1 (1869)
Frances Power Cobbe, from Life of Frances Power Cobbe as Told by Herself (1894)
(b) Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1862)

Robert Browning, "A Woman's Last Word" (1853?)*; "Any Wife to Any Husband"*; "A Lover's Quarrel" (1853)*; "Love among the Ruins" (1852); "Two in the Campagna" (1854)*; "By the Fire-Side" (1853); "The Last Ride Together"



V

 

Oct. 2





4
 

Matthew Arnold, "To Marguerite--Continued" (1849);
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, "The Blessed Damozel" (1847); from The House of Life (1850): "The Kiss," "Nuptial Sleep"
Robert Buchanan, "The Fleshly School of Poetry: Mr D. G. Rossetti (1871)
Algernon Charles Swinburne, "Laus Veneris" (1866); {[("Anactoria")]}??

Christina Rossetti: "Goblin Market" (1859); "Promises Like Pie-Crusts" (1861); "Winter: My Secret" (1857); "Sleeping at Last" (1896)

VI
 

9
 
George Meredith, Modern Love (1862)
Thomas Hardy, "Neutral Tones" (1867)*; "Ah, Are You Digging at my Grave?" (1914)*


 

 

11

 

(II) Civilization & Entropy Houghton, chs. 2 & 3
Tennyson, "The Lotos-Eaters" (1832); "Ulysses" (1833); "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1854)

VII

 16


18

Tennyson: Idylls of the King: "Dedication" (1862), "The Coming of Arthur" (1869), "The Passing of Arthur" (1869)

Robt Browning, "'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came'" (1852)

VIII

23


25

Arnold, FROM Essays in Criticism, First Series: "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" (1864); "Dover Beach" (1851); "Memorial Verses" (1850); "The Buried Life" (1852)

Arnold (cont'd);
Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Tom's Garland" (1887);
Tennyson, "The Dawn" (1892)
Hardy, "The Convergence of the Twain" (1912); "Channel Firing" (1914)

IX

30




Nov. 1

(III) God the Question: Houghton, ch. 4, 9.6; Plotkin, "Victorian Religious Poetry (452-68)*; Houghton, ch. 10.2; Hillis Miller, "Introduction"*
Robt Browning, "Rabbi Ben Ezra" (1862), "An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician" (1855);  "Cleon" (1854)

Thomas Carlyle, FROM Characteristics (1831)* ; selections from Charles Darwin and Leonard Huxley
Thos Hardy, "Hap" (1866)
Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H. (1833-1850)

X

6

 

 


8

David Friedrich Strauss, FROM The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined (1835)*;
John William Colenso, FROM The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined (1862)
Arthur Hugh Clough, "Epi-straussium" (1847)*, FROM Dipsychus: "The Latest Decalogue" (1862)
Arnold, "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse" (ca. 1852)
Swinburne, "Hymn to Proserpine" (1866); The Triumph of Time (ll.257-304)Gerard Manley Hopkins: Plotkin, "Victorian Religious Poetry" (468-76)*; "God's Grandeur" (1877); "As kingfishers catch fire dragonflies draw flame" (ca. 1881); "Pied Beauty" (1877);  "The Windhover" (1877); The Wreck of the Deutschland (1876) 

XI

13

 


15

G.M. Hopkins (cont'd), "Spelt from Sibyl's Leaves" (1885); "[Carrion Comfort] (1885); "No worst, there is none" (ca. 1885); "I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day" (ca. 1885), "Thou art indeed just, Lord" (1889)
Francis Thompson, "The Hound of Heaven" (1883)

(IV) Art/Nature/Society: [Review: Bentham, FROM The Rationale of Reward (1825)*; Macaulay, FROM Milton (1825)*; Taylor, FROM Preface to Philip Van Artevelde] Matthew Arnold, "Preface to Poems, 1853"; FROM "On the Modern Element in Literature" (1857)*;  FROM "On Translating Homer" (1861)   FROM "Maurice de Guérin" (1863);  "The Study of Poetry" (1880)*
Tennyson: "The Palace of Art," "The Lady of Shalott"
Robt Browning, "Fra Lippo Lippi" (1853?)

XII

20

22

Eliz. Barrett Browning: Aurora Leigh, bk. V; "A Musical Instrument"

Walter Pater, The Renaissance; Studies in Art and Poetry (1873): "Preface,"  FROM "The School of Giorgione"*, FROM "Leonardo da Vinci"*, "Conclusion"
Oscar Wilde, "Hélas" (1881), Impressions: "Le Jardin," "La Mer" (1882);  "Symphony in Yellow" (1889)
W.B. Yeats, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (1890),* When You Are Old" (1892)*

XIII

27




29

Oscar Wilde, Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)*; "The Critic as Artist" (1890); Aphorisms*
Arthur Symons, "The Decadent Movement in Literature" (1893), "White Heliotrope" (1895)* Postscript: Thos Hardy, "Channel Firing" (1914)*

(V) Stuff and Nonsense, or "seriously funny"
Gilbert and Sullivan, TBA

XIV

Dec. 4

 

6

Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky," "The Walrus and the Carpenter," "The Hunting of the Snark"
Edward Lear, "The Owl and the Pussycat," "The Dong with the Luminous Nose," "The Jumblies," "How Pleasant to Know Mr Lear"

The Ages of Victoria: Summing Up

Written requirements
Two papers, the first 1250 words (due October 11th), the second 2500 words (December 4th).

Course texts

Collins, Thomas J. & Vivienne J. Rundle,  The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory (Broadview)
Houghton, Walter E.  The Victorian Frame of Mind (Yale)

Books on reserve

Armstrong, Isobel. Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics, and Politics
__________.  Nineteenth-Century Women Poets
Beckson, Karl.  Aesthetics and Decadents of the 1890's
__________.    London in the 1890s: A Cultural History
Buckler, William.  The Victorian Imagination
Buckley, Jerome H.  The Victorian Temper: A Study in Literary Culture
Miller, J. Hillis.  The Disappearance of God
Morse, David.  High Victorian Culture
Woodring, Karl and James Shapiro.  The Columbia History of British Poetry