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ENGE2370A: FROM ROMANTICISM TO MODERNISM

COURSE OUTLINE, SPRING 2020

EVELYN CHAN

EVELYN_CHAN@CUHK.EDU.HK

3/F FUNG KING HEY BUILDING

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The period from the early nineteenth to the early twentieth century witnessed the rise of

modernity. Two important artistic movements in these periods in Western culture were

Romanticism and Modernism. Moving from Romanticism to Modernism, we encounter the

literature of the Victorian period. The three periods will be studied and contrasted in this

course, with representative works from these periods studied. How does a writer describe

imagination, inspiration and love? How does a writer describe a person’s connection with

nature? How does a writer interact with his/her social context? How does a writer describe

the experience of living in a city? These are examples of questions we will try and answer.

Course goals

1. To understand the terms Romanticism and Modernism, and the characteristics of these two

literary periods.

2. To understand Victorian literature both as a chronological bridge between Romanticism

and Modernism, and as a major literary period in its own right.

3. To understand the literature across the timespan covered in the course through the lens of

some of the historical issues and social debates in this period.

4. To examine the impact of modernity (e.g., modernization, urbanization, and

institutionalization) and resistance to it in the literatures studied.

5. To analyze the interplay between content and form in the works studied, and between the

works and their contexts.

6. To develop further skills in critical and creative thinking, and oral and written

communication.

SCHEDULE

TUTORIALS START IN THE THIRD WEEK (AFTER THE LECTURE ON 20/1)

6/1 Introduction to the course --------------------------------------------

13/1 Visionary imagination, the figure

of the child, nature,

William Blake: From Songs of Innocence:

“Introduction,” “The Chimney Sweeper,”

“Nurse’s Song,” “Holy Thursday”

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20/1 Imagination versus Reason,

contraries, exploitation

Blake: From Songs of Experience:

“Introduction,” “The Chimney Sweeper,”

“Nurse’s Song,” “London,” “Holy

Thursday,” “The Tyger”

27/1 Chinese New Year holiday

3/2 Nature, the city, the “Self,” William Wordsworth: “I Wandered

Lonely as a Cloud,” “Composed upon

Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802,”

“The World is Too Much with Us”

10/2 The sublime, inspiration,

revolution

Percy Bysshe Shelley: “Ode to the West

Wind”

17/2 The Gothic and the Victorian

period; the 19th-century woman

writer contextualized

Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre, selected

chapters

24/2 Patriarchy, marriage, love, duty,

sacrifice

Brontë: Jane Eyre, selected chapters

2/3 Heroism, nationalism, empire;

Aestheticism, satire;

Religion, doubt

Alfred Tennyson: “Ulysses”

Oscar Wilde, “The Critic as Artist”

(excerpt);

Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach”

9/3 Modernism and its historical

context

Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway

16/3 Modernist themes Woolf: Mrs Dalloway

23/3 Modernist form and technique;

stream of consciousness

Woolf: Mrs Dalloway

30/3 University reading week

6/4 The city; alienation and

modernity

Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred

Prufrock,” “Preludes,” “Rhapsody on a

Windy Night”

13/4 Public holiday: Easter

REQUIRED TEXTS

- The poems and the excerpt from Wilde’s essay listed in the schedule

- Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre. Penguin Popular Classics. ISBN-13: 978-0140620115

- Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway. Penguin Popular Classics. ISBN-13: 978-0140622218

The above two novels need to be purchased from the university bookstore. It is important that

students have these specific editions of the texts, because any page references in class will be

based on them.

RECOMMENDED TEXTS

Ferber, Michael. The Cambridge Introduction to British Romantic Poetry. Cambridge

University Press, 2012.

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Menand, Louis. Discovering Modernism: TS Eliot and His Context. Oxford University Press,

2007.

Goldman, Jane. The Cambridge Introduction to Virginia Woolf. Cambridge University Press,

2006.

Peter Childs. Modernism. Routledge, 2000

Moran, Maureen. Victorian Literature and Culture. Continuum, 2006.

As with most reference books, these do not have to be read from cover to cover; instead, make

use of the indices at the front and the back of these reference books to choose the topics or

chapters you are looking for.

Additional reference material will also be introduced during the lectures, and quoted in

the Powerpoint lecture slides

ASSESSMENT

Tutorial attendance and participation: 5%

Tutorial presentation: 15%

Paper 1 (1500 words) 35%

Paper 2 (1800 words) 45%

Failure to submit both essays for the course will result in a fail grade (i.e. lower than D) for

the whole course.

COURSE FORMAT

Classes will consist of a combination of lectures and tutorials. Lectures will give students a

thorough overview of the course material. Some time will be reserved in each lecture for in-

class discussion of focused questions, allowing the opportunity to summarize knowledge, and

most importantly, discuss further implications and ideas. Remember, the study of literature is

not just about the (passive) absorption of knowledge, but most importantly about how to apply

it, relate the previously unrelated, and go beyond it.

Tutorials will continue this process, but also give students the space to discuss any difficulties,

and to practise expressing their ideas to other students in prepared presentations.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND POLICIES

Readings

You are required to have read the texts before the class in which they will be taught. Without

this preparation, it will be difficult to understand what is being said, or participate in the joint

discussions afterwards. Students are expected both to listen and express their ideas, both in

lectures and tutorials.

Tutorial attendance and participation (5%)

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You must be able to justify any tutorial absences. Any unexplained absences will result in a

reduction in the participation grade. More than three unexplained absences will result in a

reduction in the overall grade.

If you cannot attend a tutorial for valid reasons, please contact your tutor so that your grade is

not affected.

Tutorial presentation (15%)

Each student needs to present on one tutorial question, or on a topic of their choice relevant to

the course material. You will arrange for a presentation slot with your tutor. Unless there are

compelling reasons, you will be expected to stick to this arranged date as if it were a paper

deadline.

Presentations should be at the most 15 minutes long, and should contain original ideas beyond

those taught in the lectures. They can be treated as practice for the essays. This means the most

helpful format will be to have a mini-argument to structure them.

25% of the presentation grade will be decided by the delivery (appropriate and sensible levels

of engagement with audience, and expressiveness), while 75% will be determined by the

content (clarity of structure, and quality of ideas).

Papers (30% and 50%)

For the midterm paper, students will be able to choose a topic on the material covered so far in

the course to write on. It should be between 1500 to 1700 words long, exclusive of the

bibliography. The requirements of the final paper will be similar, but the topics will encourage

a more overall grasp and a comparative approach to the course material. It should be between

1800 and 2000 words long. The preferred format for the essays is the MLA style.

Essays should be submitted to Veriguide. Submission by email or of hardcopies of essays is

not necessary.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES AND RULES FOR WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS

Submission guidelines

You should submit your written assignments to Veriguide on or before the deadline. The file

should be in Microsoft Word format. The file name should start with the following information:

SurnameForenameStudentID (e.g. ChanTaiMan00112233_______.docx).

Written assignment deadlines

The following rules will apply without exception to everyone on the course, for the sake of

fairness to students who do work hard to hand in their essays on time, and to create original

work for each task.

You will be given essay topics one month before the final deadline. Therefore, if you anticipate

being busy near the deadline, you must plan your time well and finish your assignment early.

This will be wholly your responsibility. Because you will receive essay topics well before they

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are due, there will be no individual extensions of deadlines unless it is for medical reasons

evidenced by a doctor’s certificate. Please do not email the teachers in this course to ask for

deadline extensions unless it is for documented medical reasons.

Any late essays will automatically be downgraded by one increment of a grade for each day

late (for details please refer to the document on Blackboard titled Course Assessment

Guidelines).

Academic honesty

Your written work for this course must be your own original work, and must not contain

plagiarized material. Assignments will be checked for plagiarism by Veriguide. Please refer to

<http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/> for guidelines on how to avoid plagiarism,

and on how to properly attribute and cite sources (including unpublished ones) you may have

used.

Each written assignment must be uploaded to Veriguide by the deadline. Assignments not

uploaded to Veriguide will be treated as not submitted, and will not be graded or returned

to students.

The final paper should be different from the midterm paper. Apart from perhaps a few sentences

or general statements, very little material from the midterm paper should reappear in the final

paper. This will be checked by Veriguide. If substantial parts (i.e. over 10%) of the final paper

turn out to have appeared previously in the midterm paper, the student may receive a failing

grade for the final paper.

TENTATIVE COURSE OUTLINE

Department of English

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

ENGE 2370B From Romanticism to Modernism Prof. Michael O’Sullivan

Room 319, Fung King Hey Building E-mail: osullivan@arts.cuhk.edu.hkTel: 3943 7024

(To be updated)

Description:

The early nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were important periods in the rise of

modernity. The two most important artistic movements of these periods in Western

culture were Romanticism and Modernism. The two periods will be studied and

contrasted on this course. How does a writer describe the imagination, inspiration and

love? How does a writer describe a person’s connection with nature? How does a writer

describe the experience of growing up in a city? These are questions we will try and

answer.

On this course you will have to give close readings of poems and short pieces of prose.

Each lecture will focus on the major themes and techniques of writing of selected works

by one or two writers. We will also examine how political themes such as revolution,

nationalism, empire, urbanization and poverty influence the writers and their characters.

The course will also cover different poetic and narrative forms and techniques such as the

ballad, the sonnet, the ode, narrative poetry, interior monologue and imagery.

Contents/fundamental concepts

1. Explanations of the terms Romanticism and Modernism.

2. The importance of imagination and of nature for Romantic writers.

3. The impact of modernity (e.g., modernization, urbanization, and institutionalization)

and resistance to it.

4. The difference between the two terms modernity and modernism.

5. The interplay between content and form.

Learning Outcomes

1. To enjoy the reading of literary works and find their relevance to our everyday life.

2. To understand the close relationship between content and form, between what we say

and how we say it.

3. To be able to assess the writers’ representations of their times.

4. To be able to connect the works of different writers and also to connect their works

with our contemporary configurations of modernity.

Assessment Scheme

Attendance & participation: 10 %

Presentation: 10 %

2 Papers:

Use font size 12 and double-space. Give the word count at the end of the paper.

Paper 1 (5 pages or 1500 words) 35%

Paper 2 (6 pages or 1800 words) 40%

Close readings

One in-class close reading of texts 5%

Recommended Texts

James Joyce, Dubliners. Penguin. Twentieth-Century Classics (with introduction by

Terence Brown).

Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories (translation by

Edwin Muir).

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein. Accessible online as an e-book on CUHK library catalogue

and on Project Gutenberg.

A Poetry Booklet with all the poems (and the Woolf Story) will be left in the English

Department office for browsing. All poems are available online, the short stories as well.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol 2. (You may consult the notes and

introductions there.)

References (on reserve in Main Library)

Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms.

Bygrave, Stephen. Romantic Writings. (The introduction and the first two chapters,

“Romantic Poems and Contexts” and “Versions of British Romantic Writing,” are quite

readable.)

Childs, Peter. Modernism.

Other works on reserve:

Bradbury, Malcolm & James McFarlane, eds. Modernism, 1890-1930.

Booth, Howard J & Nigel Rigby, eds. Modernism and Empire.

Eysteinsson, Astradur. The Concept of Modernism.

Seidel, Michael. James Joyce: A Short Introduction.

Abrams, M.H. English Romantic Poets; Modern Essays in Criticism.

Butler, Marilyn. Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries.

Discussion Schedule:

Week 1 Introduction: Romanticism and Modernism. Revolution and Alienation.

Week 2 Innocence: Visionary Imagination.

William Blake. From Songs of Innocence: “Introduction,” “The Chimney Sweeper,”

“Nurse’s Song,” “Holy Thursday.”

Themes and Forms: The figure of the child, nature, the ballad.

Week 3 Experience: Reason and Exploitation.

Blake. From Songs of Experience: “Introduction,” “The Chimney Sweeper,” “Nurse’s

Song,” “London,” “Holy Thursday,” “The Tiger.”

Themes and Forms: Imagination versus Reason, contraries.

Week 4 Nature, the “Self,” and the Sonnet.

William Wordsworth. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” “Composed upon Westminster

Bridge, September 3, 1802,” “The World is Too Much with Us,” from The Prelude, Book

I, lines 1-45.

Themes and Forms: Nature, the city, the “Self,” the sonnet, the epic.

Week 5 The sublime, inspiration and revolution.

Wordsworth continued.

Percy Bysshe Shelley: “Ode to the West Wind.’

Themes and forms: The sublime, inspiration, revolution, blank verse, the ode.

Week 6 The Gothic.

Mary Shelley: Frankenstein (chapters 1-5).

Themes and Forms: Technology, education, the gothic.

Week 7 Gothic and the Victorian Period.

Charles Dickens: “The Signal Man” (Close Reading # 1).

Themes: The Gothic, Industrial Revolution, narrative voice.

Week 8 Realism and early Modernism.

James Joyce: “Araby” and “Eveline.”

Themes and Forms: Patriarchy, imperialism, colonialism, first person narration,

epiphany, urbanization, dehumanization, realism.

Week 9 Modernism and the Short Story: Exploitation in the City.

Joyce: “Two Gallants.”

Virginia Wolf: “The Lady in the Looking Glass: A Reflection.”

Themes and Forms: Technology, speed, capitalism, objectification of women.

Week 10 Modernist Poetry.

W.B. Yeats: “Sailing to Byzantium.”

T.S. Eliot: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

Themes and forms: Affirmation, alienation, irony.

Week 11 The Role of the Artist.

Franz Kafka: “A Hunger Artist.”

Themes and Forms: Alienation, consumerism, understatement, ambivalence.

Week 12 “All that is solid melts into air.”

Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis.

Themes and forms: Change, alienation, fragmentation, man and animal.

Week 13 Recapitulation

Week 14 Consultation on paper

Important Please read carefully the information regarding academic honesty on the following

website: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/ Fill in the declaration form

and attach it to your paper.

FEEDBACK FOR EVALUATION

The lecturer will closely monitor the progress of students and get feedback through

discussion with students and TA and through checking student performance in their

papers and in the examination. There will be the mandatory end of term course

evaluation, in response to which the lecturer will provide reflections on student

comments. The external examiner of the English Department may also select the course

to review its content and assessment.

There will be a serious penalty incurred for all essays submitted past the deadline.