English 131
340 Brooks and 112 Armstrong
MWF 9:30-10:20 and 12:30-1:20
Spring 2004

Lecturer: Dr. Paul Graham
Office: 343 Stansbury Hall
Office Hours: Monday-Thursday 10:30- 11 :30 Also by appointment
Phone: 293-3107, ext. 420

Course Obiectives:
In English 131, you will
- Read and evaluate works of drama and poetry
- Provide analytical commentary on literary works
- Recognize the value of literary works as cultural artifacts
- Write about, explain, or perform your findings from time to time

Required Texts:
Ferguson, Salter, Stallworthy (eds.). The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 4th edition.
Janet E. Gardner (ed.). 12 Plays: A Portable Anthology.
Burton Raffel (trans.). Beowulf
Tennessee Williams. A Streetcar Named Desire.

Highly Recommended:
Notebook

Course Reouirements:

You must complete all of the following to pass the class:

-Some short homework assignments
- All announced and unannounced quizzes
- Regular attendance and class participation
- A non-cumulative midterm and final (purchase at least 2 blue books)
- Two group projects, each consisting of a small dramatic performance that demonstrates students' abilities to process their readings and offer interpretive commentary upon them. Specific instructions will be given out two weeks before the due date. Some class will be used in preparation for the final performances.

Policies for Handed-in Work:
- For short writing assignments, use only MLA style when turning in your work. Use only Times New Roman in black ink, size 12. -In-class work should be in blue or black ink and double-spaced. Use a standard 8 1/2 x l l " loose-leaf paper or a blue book. Use only the front of the page.
- Late work will not be accepted for credit. It will be marked in my grade book as "turned in," but its point value will be zero. This policy is non-negotiable.
- Problems with printers or other computer- and electronic-related difficulties do not qualify as adequate reasons for late assignments. Operation of computer equipment should be considered part of students' academic work.
- At no time will assignments on disk or via email be accepted for credit.
- There will be no makeup, do-over, or extra-credit assignments given at any time.

Email Policies:
-Please use email only to ask for details, advice, or elaboration about the reading material or class discussion; for example, if you didn't understand something about the day's lecture, email me for clarification.
- Do not use email to tell me about absences, lateness, sickness, family emergencies, or to ask what we covered in class when you were absent; these kinds of messages will be discarded.
- Be sure to have another student's email address or phone number to ask about missed work.

Other Policies:
- Plagiarism is the same thing as theft. It will not be tolerated in any form. Any student caught copying the work of another verbatim, paraphrasing written work or ideas without documentation, or using the work or ideas from a conference, seminar, or audio/visual source, without documentation, will receive an F in the course.
- Only three unexcused absences are allowed. Additional absences must be supported with documentation, including the deaths of friends or family, and sports-related outings. Grades will be lowered by one letter after the third unexcused absence. Six absences will result in an F for the course.
- Consistent tardiness will also lower your grade. You and your homework assignments are considered late one minute after class begins.
- Cell phones and beepers should be turned off before coming to class. At no time should any electronic device be audible in the classroom. No exceptions.

Tentative List of Lectures and Readings:
Classical Period (to 476)
-Lecture on the Classical period and ancient poetry and drama, including commentary on epic poems from the period and Ovid's Metamorphoses
-Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

Middle Ages (and Medieval Period)(476-1450)
-"C`edmon's Hymn"
- "The Seafarer"
- Beowulf
- "The Cuckoo Song"
- Lecture on the medieval period, including religious drama (mystery plays and allegories) and the difference between the epic and the romance (or Breton lays).
- The first 18 lines of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, discussion of the rest

Renaissance (1450-1650)
Lecture on Renaissance drama and poetry.
-William Shakespeare, Hamlet
-Lecture on sonnets.
-William Shakespeare, "Let Me not to the Marriage of True Minds"
-William Shakespeare, "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?"
-William Shakespeare, "My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun"
-John Donne, "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"
-John Donne, "Song" -John Donne, "The Flea" -Ben Jonson, "To Celia" -Robert Herrick, "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" -John Milton, "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity"

The Restoration (1660-1710 [Neoclassicism 1660-1780; Enlightenment]
-John Dryden, "Mac Flecknoe"
-Alexander Pope, "Impromptu"
-Edward Taylor, "Housewifery"
-Philip Freneau, "The Indian Burying Ground"

The Romantics(1 798-1830.)
-Brief lecture on the Romantics and their beliefs.
-William Blake, "London" (from Experience)
-William Blake, "And Did Those Feet" (also called "Jerusalem," from Milton)
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Kubla Kahn"
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Frost at Midnight"
-William Wordsworth, "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey"
-William Wordsworth, "Mutability"
-Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandias,"
-Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Mont Blanc"
-John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
-Brief lecture on American Transcendentalism
-William Cullen Bryant, "To a Waterfowl"
-Edgar Allan Poe, "Sonnet–To Science"
-Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven"

The Victorian Period (1800-1901)
Lecture in this area and possible readings of Tennyson and Browning

The Modern and Contemporary periods
- Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself
-Walt Whitman, "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing,"
-Emily Dickinson, "49"
-Emily Dickinson, "712"
-T. S. Elliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,"
-William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheelbarrow,"
-William Butler Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium,"
-William Butler Yeats, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"
-Robert Frost, "The Silken Tent"
-Robert Frost, "Mending Wall"
-Carl Sandburg, "Chicago"
-Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
-Langston Hughes, "Dream Variations"
-Langston Hughes, "Cross"
-Langston Hughes, "Harlem,"
-Elizabeth Bishop, "The Fish"
-Arthur Miller, The Death of a Salesman
-Robert Lowell, "Mr. Edwards and the Spider"
-Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gently into that Good Night,"
-Allen Ginsberg, Part I of Howl
-Richard Wilbur, "Love Calls Us to the Things of this World," 1956, p. 92
- Richard Wilbur, "Advice to a Prophet"
-Robert Creeley, "Heroes"
- Adrienne Rich, "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
- Amiri Baraka, "An Agony. As Now"
- Louise Gluck, "The Garden"
- Samuel Beckett, Endgame

Grades
Class Participation 50 points
Quizzes and Homework points vary for each assignment
Project 1 75 points
Midterm 150 points
Project 2 75 points
Final 150 points

Calculating Your Scores:
-Always keep track of what you are getting in the class by using fractions (142/150, for example). At the end of the semester, add all of the top numbers and all of the bottom numbers. Then divide the top sum by the bottom sum. This will yield a decimal number less than one, which you should simply convert to a percentage to see what you final score is for the course. For example, your grades may add up in the following way: 46/50 + 82/100 + 66/75 + 142/150 + 70/75 + 139/150 = 545/600 = .9083. To convert this number to percentage, simply move the decimal point two places to the right. 90.83% = B in the course.
- Use the space below to record your grades and do the calculations at the end of the semester.

Grading Scale:

A= 91–100 percent

B= 81–90 percent

C= 71–80 percent

D= 61–70 percent

F= below 61 percent