Literatures in English II: 1700-1900
Class Information
Instructor: Johns, Alessa
Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Location: 1227 Haring
Description
We will begin with Mary Wortley Montagu?s lively Turkish Letters and move chronologically through the period, reading works by a great variety of authors including Eliza Haywood, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, Olaudah Equiano, Jane Austen, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Oscar Wilde, and Pauline Hopkins. We will consider a variety of literary genres, fictional and non-fictional, canonical and non-canonical, in verse as well as prose. And we will explore a range of themes, including travel and exploration, colonial and imperial expansion, slavery, sentiment, poverty, reform, and war, all the while paying attention to social and cultural contexts and related art forms.
Grading
Grading will be based on quizzes and in-class assignments (15%), two papers (40%), a midterm (15%), a final (15%), and attendance and participation (15%).
Texts
Lady Susan, Jane Austen
Fantomina, Eliza Haywood
Rasselas, Samuel Johnson
The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde
Great American Short Stories, ed. Paul Negri
Great Speeches by African Americans, ed. James Daley
Online Readings