English 123 - Spring, 2013

18th Century British Literature

Class Information

Instructor: Loar, Christopher
Time: TR 10:30-11:50
Location: 118 Olson

Description

Style:

• An instrument made of metal, bone, etc., having one end sharp-pointed for incising letters on a wax tablet.

• The manner of expression characteristic of a particular writer (hence of an orator), or of a literary group or period.

• features of literary composition which belong to form and expression rather than to the substance of the thought or matter expressed.

• A mode of deportment or behavior.

• A stylus, used as a weapon of offense, for stabbing.

(Adapted from the Oxford English Dictionary)

"Style" is a highly unstable term: originally a simple name for a writing instrument, the term now refers to a variety of loosely connected and rather abstract concepts. Style is, most often, a manner of presentation: an empty category that can describe the way a sentence is written--the way a ballet is danced--the way a wardrobe is selected. It can also, in the right hands, be a weapon in high-stakes rhetorical battles.

These battles were everywhere in the eighteenth century. Literary style played a key role in Britain's construction of a canon of English literature as well as in its production of new genres and forms. Interpersonal styles, too, played a key role in establishing and contesting the role to be played by women and the middle classes in an increasingly complex society. In this class we will consider some of the ways that style (in literature, clothing, and cultural taste) in the eighteenth century helped to define new kinds of personalities, identities, and experiences through the public presentation of selves in language, body, and art. We will examine popular fashions and the arts, but we will focus particularly on the style of the written word and the importance that choosing a writing style had for the literate in this period.

Grading

Tentative Course Requirements

Two essays (one 3-4 page, one 5-6 page)
Midterm and final exam
Multiple shorter writing assignments
Class participation and other in-class work

Texts

Evelina, Burney
The Seasons, Thomson
Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Gray
The Commerce of Everyday Life (selections from The Spectator), Addison and Steele (ed. Mackie)
Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Burke
Essays, Johnson
Pride and Prejudice, Austen
Poems, Pope
Essays, Johnson