HC 222H, Honors College Literature

What's love got to do with it? Literature from the High Middle Ages to the Enlightenment

Bishop, Winter 2005 | 308 Chapman | (541) 346-0733 | lmbishop@uoregon.edu
Office hours:

Class hours: Tues, Thurs. 2:00 pm to 3:20 pm

Class cancellation notice: In the event of inclement weather and class cancellation (unlikely; I live within walking distance of the university), please call my office phone number: 346-0733. If class is cancelled the greeting message will so state.

Librarian notice: Knight Library Honors College liaison Eliz Breakstone will hold office hours weekly in the Honors College library!

• Tuesdays, 2 to 4 pm
• Wednesdays, 10 am to noon.

She's ready to help you with library resources for your Honors College courses this term. Her e-mail is ebreak@darkwing.uoregon.edu, and her phone is 346-2689.

"Discourse: a domain or field of linguistic strategies operating within particular areas of social practice to effect knowledge and pleasure, being produced by and reproducing or reworking power relations between classes, genders and cultures." --Paul Brown, "'This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine": The Tempest and the Discourse of Colonialism," Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism, eds. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield (Manchester, UK: Manchester UP, 1985)

| Requirements | Texts | Grading | Reading schedule | Reading guide | Paper format instructions | Article summary description

Like HC 221H, HC 222H includes writing analysis (composition) with the study of literature. To that end, please be advised that John Gage's The Shape of Reason provides telling analysis of thesis construction and paper organization.

The following texts have been ordered at the U of O Bookstore (Please note: in the following list, AUTHOR name links are to remote sites; TITLE links are to Bishop-authored pages)

• Dante, La Vita Nuova (Notre Dame);
• Chaucer, The Wife of Bath (St. Martin's/Bedford Casebook)(edition includes at end a very handy glossary of literary terms).
• Aphra Behn, Oroonoko (WW Norton)
• Jane Austen, Persuasion (Broadview)

Other things we'll read will be available on-line or as handouts. See

• Christine de Pizan
• Mapping Margery Kempe
• Mirabai
• The 1609 version of Shakespeare's sonnets or Shakespeare's sonnets in modern English (a selection of sonnets is available here, and you can listen to all the sonnets, read by Sir John Gielgud, here)
• Candide (electronic text as PDF file)

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Requirements

• Response papers. You'll write three short response papers this term, between 250 and 500 words each. These papers, and the formal papers, will be thematically- as well as textually-oriented. These are formal papers in the sense that spelling, grammar, and thinking count--all papers must be neat, typed, revised, finished, and proofread. At the same time, these are papers in which to try out ideas, to experiment and challenge yourself intellectually. I will read these papers, comment on them, and grade them pass/no pass. A passing paper requires a strong thesis, cogent evidence, and NO MORE than two grammatical errors. No-pass response papers may be rewritten but MUST be handed back to me within a week. Three passing papers will count as a 4.0, two as a 2.0, one paper as a 1.0.
• Article summary and response. During the term, you will read, summarize, and comment on two critical articles. Our edition of The Wife of Bath includes four articles, and our edition of Oronooko contains six articles written between 1984 and 1996. The first sentence of your summary will be the thesis of the article. Your summary should be at least 5 or 6 sentences long (about a paragraph); longer is acceptable. Following the summary, you'll respond to the article in a second paragraph: how did reading the article enrich your understanding of the text? How did it shift your ideas about literary criticism or literature? What further questions do you now have of the text? You may discuss your article with others writing on the same article or other articles--in fact, I encourage you to do so. At the same time, the summary must be your own work. These summary responses, like the other responses, have the same strictures and will be graded Pass/No Pass: you have one week in which to rewrite No Pass summaries. See the schedule for summary response due dates.
• Graded formal papers. Two 1250-1500 word essays, each of which will treat a course theme and may use observations originally explored in response (and/or article summary) papers. Paper 1, due Thursday, January 27, will treat the fit between poetic form, character, and meaning (treating the Provencal lyrics, La Vita Nuova and/or The Wife of Bath). Paper 2, due Thursday, March 10, will treat love and marriage, using any of our other class texts. Note paper due dates: papers must be turned in on the date specified. Plan ahead.
• Final exam. Cumulative, essay, take-home exam due no later than Tuesday, March 15 (the Ides of March!), at 3:00 pm. (Back to top of page)

Grading

The response papers constitute 15% of your grade; the two formal papers, 30% each; the article summaries 10%; participation, 5%, and the final exam will constitute 10% of your grade. Please note the University's "grade point value" system effective 9/90, as I will be using this system (unless otherwise noted):

A+ = 4.3	B+ = 3.3	C+ = 2.3	D+ = 1.3
A = 4.0	B = 3.0	C = 2.0	D = 1.0
A- = 3.7	B- = 2.7	C- = 1.7	D- = 0.7

Note that a grade of "C" is, according to academic regulations, "satisfactory," while a "B" is "good." That means that a "B" is better than average, better than satisfactory, better than adequate. The average grade, then, is a "C"; a grade of "B" requires effort and accomplishment.

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Daily reading schedule Please read the assigned pages before class

January 4 Introduction: The invention of love	January 6 Provencal poetry, 13th and 14th centuries (for assignment due today, log on the Blackboard website; see also La Comtessa de Dia poem; Guido Cavalcanti poem )
January 11 Dante (1265-1321), La Vita Nuova: the year 1292, allegory, numbers, and love. Be sure to read the introduction and through page 81. The Intro: Pages 1-8: Dante's life; chronology Page 9: the "stil nuovo", "new style"; love's contradictions and sufferings, its tensions with moral/social structures Page 10: 1292-95 composition of VN, Dante aged 27-30 Page 11: immaterial and transcendent realities (this is a very challenging part of the intro) Pages 13-18: time--past, present, and future Pages 19-28: issue of manuscript and text divisions (primarily for Italianists) Pages 28-44: temporality and narrativity: also a challenge; pay special attention to page 40.	January 13 La Vita Nuova Poetry as experience, experience as poetry: be sure to have read the entire text The destabilizing effect of romantic love
January 18 La Vita Nuova Transcendent and immanent love, experiential and ideal; see the complete Petrarch (1304-1374) Canonziere online First response paper due	January 20 Chaucer (c. 1340-1400), The Wife of Bath Read the biographical and historical introduction, pp. 3-17, manuscript and linguistic introduction, pp. 28-41, and the PROLOGUE, pp. 42-73
January 25 The Wife of Bath Read her TALE, pp. 73-85, Article summary due	January 27 Christine de Pizan (c.1364-1430), The Book of the City of Ladies--See the article in Blackboard on Christine and Colette *First formal paper due: form and meaning
February 1 Margery Kempe (born c.1373)	February 3 Mirabai (1498-1546): see the assignment on Blackboard
February 8 Mirabai's devotion	February 10 Shakespeare (1564-1616) and his sonnets Second response paper due
February 15 Shakespeare's sonnets	February 17 Aphra Behn (1640-1689), Oroonoko r
February 22 Oroonoko	February 24 Oroonoko Article summary due
March 1 Voltaire (1694-1778), Candide Third response paper due	March 3 Jane Austen (1775-1817), Persuasion
March 8 Persuasion	March 10 Persuasion *Second formal paper due: love and marriage

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Reading guide

The following questions are meant to complement your reading of the text. They are the central questions we'll be discussing in class. At the same time, be aware that not every question will be answered, and many questions cross over from one text to the next.

La Vita Nuova and Provencal love lyrics: What are the "rules" of love for the troubadours, and for Dante? How does he answer the troubadours? How does he develop his rules in La Vita Nuova? Take one of the troubadours' songs and one of Dante's sonnets and paraphrase them. What are the poems' themes? How does the poem give its effect? In the case of Dante, how does the sonnet fit with the narrative surrounding it? Use your poems to discuss Dante's purpose in writing La Vita Nuova. How and why does he answer the troubadours? What is the center of Dante's text? What is the place of poetry in (auto)biography?

The Wife of Bath and antifeminism: Think about the many layers this text contains: a male poet masquerading as a male pilgrim masquerading as a woman answering strident misogynistic texts--and that's just the Prologue. Think about the connections between the Wife's narrative and her disquisitions. Why would Chaucer complicate the portrait in this way? What is the Wife's definition of love? Are "love" and "lust" easily distinguished? What's the shape of such distinctions?

Christine de Pizan and The City of Ladies: Christine attempts to answer her era's misogyny through an edifice (the city) and stories of exemplary women. What place does Christine assign to love? To marriage? Compare her rhetorical strategy to Dante's--how does the aim of each writer fit his/her choice of form (poetry vs prose), details (metaphor, history), and language (as much as you can gauge from a translation)? Compare Chistine's strategy to the Wife of Bath's regarding form, details, and language. What do we as readers need to measure literary effectiveness?

The Book of Margery Kempe and the pious prose self: Critics have often differentiated between Chaucer, the author of The Canterbury Tales, and Chaucer, the character in the Canterbury pilgrimage. So too for Margery Kempe. Lynn Staley differentiates Kempe, the author of the book, from Margery, the character /persona Kempe creates for the book. How does this paradigm affect your understanding of the descriptions of suffering the text includes? What does it mean to suggest that suffering heightens spirituality? What are the evidentiary moves that Kempe makes in order to support Margery's claims? How does Margery, ostensibly illiterate, fit writing into the relationship between spirit and body? Characterize Margery's "voice": be alert to what you're taking from the text, and what expectations or assumptions you're bringing to your analysis. Margery Kempe has been variously characterized as deluded and saintly. How does Margery use "story" to make her points? What is Margery's notion of time? Compare it to Dante's.(Back to Reading Schedule)

Mirabai and feminine devotion: In the Hindu tradition, Mirabai is a saint. Her poetry recounts her passions, devotions, and "inner life" with Krishna and her "Master." What correspondences do you find between Mirabai and Margery? Compare their literary devotion--what qualities do they share? Think about the role of suffering and how that suffering is portrayed. What difference does poetry make to Mira's work compared to Margery's? Conversely, what quality does Margery's prose lend her work? Characterize Mirabai's poetry in relation to the troubadours: similarities? Differences? How do they affect the reader?

Shakespeare's sonnets and Renaissance love: Shakespeare's sonnets have an interesting history. First published in 1609, they represent more than youthful musings if we accept the premise that Shakespeare had consciously produced them over time as a collection, and that he wanted them published. However, some argue that the sonnets, which had circulated privately, were not intended for public consumption. Notice the metaphors Shakespeare uses: which ones are familiar from our earlier readings? Would you say that the controlling theme in the sonnets is immortality conferred by words, wherein poetic power is figured through birth? Or do you detect another controlling metaphor? In light of these sonnets, what differentiates secular from divine love? What difference does it make that the bulk of the sonnets are addressed to a man?

Oronooko and colonial romance: Aphra Behn wrote plays as well as prose works (some consider Oroonoko the first novel). Why didn't Behn write Oroonoko for the stage? Another fascinating component of this work is the narrator: how would you characterize her? What does the narrator's position add to the story of Oroonoko? How does the colonial impulse show up in this novel, and how does it construct the novel's characters? Or affect the novel's language?

Candide and satiric love: Candide exemplifies an eighteenth-century taste for satire. Does Candide work best in contrast to the romance tradition? In other words, as with all parodies, does greater familiarity with satire's object actually make parody funnier? What place does "Enlightenment" play in Voltaire's novel?

Persuasion and marriage economy: Austen's fame rests with six novels, all of which treat the marriage market in c. 1800 England. Compare Austen's satiric bent with Voltaire's: do you attribute their differences to class? nation? gender?

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This page created by Louise M. Bishop | Last updated 9 February 2005