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English 636 Study of Selected Authors: Jane Austen Professor Francus Fall, 2001 R Home
Professor Francus
English 636
Study of Selected Authors: Jane Austen, Fall 2001
Office: 443 Stansbury Hall
Office Phone: 304-293-3107 X442
E-Mail: yfrancus@bellatlantic.net or francus@wvnvm.wvnet.edu
Office Hours: Thursdays, 12:30-2:30 and by appointment


August 23 Introduction

August 30 Lennox, The Female Quixote
Spencer, excerpt from Chapter 6 of Rise of the Woman Novelist
(1986)
Kipling, "The Janeites"
Woolf, "Jane Austen" from The Common Reader (1925; rpt.
1984)

September 6 Burney, Evelina
Forster, "Flat and Round Characters and ‘point of view’ from
Aspects of the Novel (1927)
Johnson, " The Divine Miss Jane: Jane Austen, Janeites, and the
Discipline of Novel Studies"(1996)

September 13 Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho
Johnson, Chapter 1: "The Novel in Crisis"

September 20 Austen, Northanger Abbey
Film version: Northanger Abbey (1986), directed by Giles
Foster, starring Katherine Schlesinger and Peter Firth
Johnson, Chapter 2: "The Juvenilia and Northanger Abbey:
The Authority of Men and Books"
Gilbert and Gubar, "Jane Austen’s Cover Story (and Its Secret
Agents)" from The Madwoman in the Attic (1979)

September 27 Class Cancelled


October 4 Austen, Sense and Sensibility
Johnson, Chapter 3: "Sense and Sensibility: Opinions Too
Common and Too Dangerous"
Sedgwick, "Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl" Critical
Inquiry (1991)
Harding, "Regulated Hatred: An Aspect of the Work of Jane
Austen" Scrutiny (1940)

October 11 Austen, Sense and Sensibility
Film version: Sense and Sensibility (1995), directed by Ang
Lee, starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet

October 18 Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Johnson, Chapter 4: "Pride and Prejudice and the Pursuit of
Happiness"
Allen, "No Love for Lydia: The Construction of Repression in
Pride and Prejudice" from Sexuality in Victorian
Fiction (1993)
First Essay Due

October 25 Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Film versions: Pride and Prejudice (1995), directed by Simon
Langton, starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth; Pride
and Prejudice (1940), directed by Robert Z. Leonard,
starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson
Excerpts from Barrett’s Presumption (1993), Aylmer’s Darcy’s
Story (1996), and Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary
(1996)
Ellington, "A Correct Taste in Landscape: Pemberley as Fetish
and Commodity" (1998)
Nixon, "Balancing the Courtship Hero: Masculine Emotional
Display in Film Adaptations of Austen’s Novels" (1998)

November 1 Austen, Mansfield Park
Johnson, Chapter 5: "Mansfield Park: Confusions of Guilt
and Revolutions of Mind"
Trilling, "Mansfield Park" from The Opposing Self (1955)
Heydt-Stevenson,"’Slipping into the Ha-Ha’: Bawdy
Humor and Body Politics in Jane Austen’s Novels"(2000)

November 8 Austen, Mansfield Park
Film version: Mansfield Park (1999), directed by Patricia
Rozema, starring Frances O’Connor and Jonny
Lee Miller
Said, excerpt from Culture and Imperialism (1994)

November 15 Austen, Emma
Johnson, Chapter 6: "Emma: ‘Woman, Lovely Woman Reigns
Alone’"
Booth, "Control of Distance in Jane Austen’s Emma" from
The Rhetoric of Fiction (2nd Ed., 1983)

November 22 Thanksgiving Break

November 29 Austen, Emma
Film versions: Clueless (1995), directed by Amy Heckerling,
starring Alicia Silverstone; Emma (1996), directed by
Douglas McGrath, starring Gwyneth Paltrow; Emma
(1996), directed by Diarmuid Lawrence, starring Kate
Beckinsale
Excerpt from Joan Aiken’s Jane Fairfax (1990)
Simons, "Classics and Trash: reading Austen in the 1990s" (1998)

December 6 Austen, Persuasion
Film version: Persuasion (1994), directed by Roger Michell,
starring Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds
Excerpt from Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones and the Edge of
Reason (1999)
Johnson, Chapter 7: "Persuasion: The ‘Unfeudal Tone of the
Present Day’"
Second Essay Due

Course Objectives:

--to analyze the major novels of Jane Austen in the context of British
women’s literature and authorship;
--to evaluate Jane Austen in a historical context, as a social critic reflecting,
mediating, and commenting upon the ideologies of her day;
--to examine the works of Jane Austen as novels, as examples of a literary genre
that work with (and often against) the established canon;
--to discuss irony as a mode of discourse, and Austen’s uses of irony in the
novel;
--to study Jane Austen as a cultural and academic icon of the late twentieth and
early twenty first centuries, with particular regard to the popular adaptation
and marketing of her novels, and the critical reception of Austen’s works
and her popularization.

Course Texts:

--The novels by Austen, Burney, Lennox, and Radcliffe, and Claudia Johnson’s
Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel, are available at the WVU Bookstore.
--The 1940 film version of Pride and Prejudice and 1995 Sense and Sensibility
are on reserve in video format at Colson Library. Colson’s fall hours are Mondays
through Thursdays, 8:00 a.m. to midnight; Fridays, 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.;
Saturdays, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.; and Sundays, 1:00 p.m. to midnight.
--All the other film versions of Austen are available on video in the main office of
the English Department. Please sign out the videos with Michele.

Course Assignments:

--One essay (approximately 10 pages) on any aspect of Jane Austen’s literature
that intrigues you. You may choose to focus on a single novel, a
combination of her novels, or all of her works.
--One essay (again, approximately 10 pages), on some aspect of the current
marketing, adaptation, or modernization of Jane Austen.
--One class presentation, approximately 15 minutes, on a late 18th-century or early
19th-century figure who helped shape the discourse of the novel or cultural
history in Austen’s period.
Course Grading:
--Each of the two essays will count for 35% of your final grade, and the class
presentation will count for 30% of your final grade.


Comments:

--Ideally, every paper that you write in graduate school should have a germ of an idea that you can turn into a conference presentation or a publication, or both. What I am looking for in your two papers is that germ of an idea, and its development into something of professional quality. Accordingly, I expect your papers to reflect your own thought, a sense of the parameters of the subject, and research on the subject. If you are having difficulties in choosing a subject, or envisioning how it could be pursued, or in finding appropriate research materials, please come and see me.

--You may submit your essays in the order of your choice. In other words, the first essay, due on October 18th, could be either the essay on Austen or the essay on the marketing/adaptation of Austen. Obviously the second essay, due on December 6th, will be the corresponding essay option.

--Your class presentation should reflect your research on the person, as well as your analysis of how that person adds to the history of the period, and to our understanding of the texts that we are examining. Your presentation should include a handout outlining your talk, as well as any other handouts or materials that you think are illuminating. If you are having difficulties in locating information, please come and see me.

--I would strongly encourage you to bring questions to every class — and those questions can be about Austen, history, the novel, film, theory, graduate study — anything that is of concern to you. Your questions will help me discern your needs, and structure our class discussions.

--I would recommend that you read the novels before you watch the films (and before you read the sequels and adaptations, for that matter). The novels provide the baseline for Austen’s alternate representations, and analyzing Austen in her varied forms without that baseline can be quite difficult.






Please Note:

West Virginia University is committed to social justice. I concur with that commitment and expect to foster a nurturing environment based upon open communication, mutual respect, and non-discrimination. Our University does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, age, disability, veteran status, religion, sexual orientation, color or national origin. Any suggestions as to how to further such a positive and open environment in this class will be appreciated and given serious consideration.

As noted in the Graduate Catalog, "West Virginia University expects that every member of its academic community shares the historic and traditional commitment to honesty, integrity, and the search for truth" (p. 46; 1998-2000 edition). As a professional academic and as a member of this University I concur with this statement, and accordingly, plagiarism will not be tolerated in this course. Please note the University definition of plagiarism, as explained in the Graduate Catalog: "To take and pass off as one’s own the ideas, writings, artistic products, etc. of someone else; for example, submitting, without appropriate acknowledgment, a report, notebook, speech, outline, theme, thesis, dissertation, or other written, visual, or oral material that has been knowingly obtained or copied in whole or in part, from the work of others, whether such source is published, including (but not limited to) another individual’s academic composition, compilation, or other product, or commercially prepared paper" (p. 46). If you have any questions regarding plagiarism, collaborative projects, documentation of your sources, or related issues, please feel free to ask.

If you are a person with a disability and anticipate needing any type of accommodation in order to participate in this class, please advise me and make appropriate arrangements with Disability Services (293-6700).

 

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