En322 Fall
2006 TR11-12:30 Levine
People
who have not satisfied CAS writing requirements should not be in this class.
Those
who have not taken (or are not taking this semester) En 220 may experience
abnormal difficulty writing papers and exams.
Much
of the course is devoted to recognizing continuity and change; therefore remarks
about the functions of the Graeco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian material imbedded
in almost everything we read this semester will have little meaning for students
who have not taken Hu 221 or the equivalent.
If
absence and tardiness are vital for your self-esteem, think seriously about
choosing some other course (see remarks on grading below). Normal undergraduates
have almost always regretted taking more than 16 credits or working more than
15 hours a week while taking this course. Anyone working full-time should
be taking no other college-level course.
The
mandatory written assignments must be typed, and submitted at the beginning
of class on the due date. Late papers are categorically unacceptable. People
without word processors may use one of the University's word processors without
charge (see me for more information). The excuse, “my printer broke,” is unacceptable,
since you can print out your files, either in person or by ftp, at no expense,
on the printers located in the basement of Information Technology.
No one who stores files only on the hard-drive of her or his or a room-mates’
computer should be registered for this course.
YOU
ARE EXPECTED TO READ THE INTRODUCTORY MATERIAL PROVIDED IN THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY
FOR EACH HISTORICAL PERIOD AND EACH AUTHOR, AND TO DISPLAY EVIDENCE OF SUCH
READING IN YOUR REMARKS IN CLASS, AS WELL AS IN YOUR EXAMS AND PAPERS.
BE PREPARED EACH MEETING TO ANSWER EITHER IN WRITING OR VIVA
VOCE AT LEAST ONE OF THE QUESTIONS ON THE SYLLABUS FOR THAT DAY.
Read
and attempt to use the section on prosody in the back of the anthology, pp.
A60-A64, for each class, until you have straightened out the terms in your
own mind.
Please pay careful attention to the syllabus and to the sheet of 27 http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/evitanda06.htm
Not
asking questions about instructions that are not clear on the sheet of 27
may produce lower grades. Some students have been too pig-headed to take the
sheet of 27 in the spirit in which it was intended.
Sept
5 introduction: Old English history, literature, language, and genres. English
prosody. introduction to Middle English, Chaucer.
For a useful introduction to some of the traditional schemes and tropes
of rhetoric, see: http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htm
-- for a survey of some of the problems that result from thinking about tropes
see http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem07.html
Sept 7, 12 Read the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, and prepare a 2-minute oral report speculating on two lists and the relationship between them: the pilgrims in order of moral appeal; the pilgrims in order of their appeal as fictional characters. Keep in mind Gombrich's observations that, "without some starting point, some initial schema, we could never get hold of the flux of experience. Without categories, we could not sort out impressions. Paradoxically, it has turned out that it matters relatively little what these first categories are." Prepare to read 10 lines from the Prologue (not the first 10 lines) aloud in class, with an approximately medieval pronunciation, demonstrating some awareness in your reading that Chaucer wrote verse. For help in pronunciation, see the explanatory material in the Norton anthology, and make use of the records in Mugar library (Music library, second floor). Some websites useful for pronunciation are listed on this syllabus towards the end, in the section labeled "Chaucer."
Find
as many Middle English words as you can that may be called faux
amis ("gentle," for example). Try to compose an imitation or parody of
Chaucer by describing in heroic couplets (and in Middle English to the extent
possible) someone you know or observe in the Student Union (or some other
public place). Do you agree with Dryden's appraisal of Chaucer (pp. 2132-2133)?
For more Middle English texts on the web, go to http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/library/me/me.html;
for the complete Canterbury Tales, with glossary and translation,
go to http://www.euronet.nl/~sk87137
sept
14, 19 The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale. Prepare
another ten lines to be read aloud in class. What is Chaucer's attitude towards
Alice's rhetorical competence? Prepare to speculate in class on the relationship
(dramatic, thematic, psychological, rhetorical) between the sensibility Alice
reveals in her autobiographical Prologue and the sensibility of the teller
of her tale. The ultimate student will also re-read Cantos XV-XVII of Dante's
Paradiso.
sept
21
Beowulf:
read Tolkien's "Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics" (Fulk
14-44) tolkien
http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/green.htm
; RL, "Ingeld and Christ; a Medieval Problem," Viator 2 (1971)
pp. 105-128. http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/ingeld.pdf
sept
26
sept
28
Gawain and the Green Knight.
For a summary of central problems in the poem see Lawrence Besserman, "The
Idea of the Green Knight," ELH 53
(1986), 219-239 PR1.F34 click here for article.
See also
Do
John of Salisbury's remarks
about hunting alter the way you read the hunting scenes in GGK?
oct
3,5 Elizabethan lyric: Wyatt's, "The long love that in my thought doth harbor,"
and Surrey's "Love that doth reign and live within my thought" are translations
of the same poem by Petrarch. What are the differences (diction, rhythm, tone)?
Write a one-page, single-spaced paper in which you attempt, by comparing and
contrasting what each poet does in his translation of the same poem, to characterize
the voice of each. Extra credit for those who try to support their characterizations
by citing other poems by Wyatt and Surrey. For
some help see http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/wyatt1.html
(1) How well does Sidney defend poetry against the charge that it is, "the mother of lies?" (2) Sidney's "Thou blind man's mark" and Shakespeare's Sonnet 129, "Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame" express distaste for the same activity. What are some of the differences? By reading other poems by each poet can you characterize the voice of each, and does this process then help you to distinguish between them? Continue trying to distinguish Shakespeare from his contemporaries by looking at the exercises other Elizabethan poets constructed out of the same material http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/sonnets.htm what has George Starbuck added to and what has he subtracted from some of Shakespeare's sonnets in these poems? http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/starbuck.htm
Read the selection from The Anatomy
of Melancholy, pp. 1578-1581. Is Burton talking about what Shakespeare
is talking about in Sonnet 129? in the same way? Read the selection from Hoby's
translation of Castiglione's Courtier (pp. 647-661). What
solution to the problem does Bembo offer? Rereading Diotima's speech as Socrates
gives it in Plato's Symposium will increase your appreciation
of Castiglione. Those annoyed by the prose style of Sidney, Burton, Browne,
Spenser, Lyly, should consider whether Bacon’s style is preferable (comparing
and contrasting the two versions of “On Studies”, pp. 1561-1563). Some have
found Bacon’s remarks on Idols, particularly on the Idols of the Marketplace
(p. 1545), helpful.
Oct
12 Submit a 3-page single-spaced paper (6-page double-spaced) in which you
consider, on the basis of your reading of GGK, Beowulf,
and Curtius ("Heroes and Rulers," pp. 167-182) http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/curtius.pdf
whether Beowulf or Gawain conforms more exactly or more thoroughly
to the paradigm for classical heroes that Curtius offers. The best papers
are not content with making univocal, reductive assertions about the poems
and their heroes, but instead show some concern with the uncertain nature
of the terms they are using and the texts they are discussing. Do not discuss
the two poems serially, but organize your paper according to an argument that
permits you to discuss both poems in almost every paragraph. Reading Tolkien's
"Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics" has helped some but not all students.
Aristotle may help some of you avoid making severe oversimplifications about
pride and humility: (http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/Aristotle.htm
) No paper should fail to consider the possibility that Curtius is both an
aid and a hindrance. Those who aspire to receive an F (1) will fail to show
that they have read both works carefully (2) will pay little attention to
the sheet of 27. According to what statistics we have, students who show up
for a conference with me -- on the basis of even hastily prepared notes --
before handing in the paper, receive significantly higher grades than those
who do not.
oct
17
Fairy Queen
Book I, Cantos i-vi. (1) Erasmus defended his panegyric of Philip of Burgundy
(composed in 1504) thus:
No
other way of correcting a prince is so efficacious as presenting in the guise
of flattery the pattern of a really good prince. Thus do you instill virtues
and remove faults in such a manner that you seem to urge the prince to the
former and restrain him from the latter (Epistles 179, 180).
Do
you see any evidence that Spenser was working on the same hypothesis? (2)
Find a line that seems to correspond to the schemes set forth in the Norton
Anthology's appendix on prosody, and one that apparently does not. Are
pp. 194-195 of Curtius relevant, helpful for understanding Canto I, stanzas
viii-ix? Read the Letter to Raleigh, (pp. 716-719).
Oct
19
Fairy Queen
Book I, Cantos vii-xii. Continue to search for lines that correspond and lines
that do not correspond to the prosodic schemes offered in the appendix to
the Norton Anthology. For
two of Spenser's models, see:
http://www.netserf.org/Literature/Authors/Ariosto/
http://www.netserf.org/Literature/Authors/Tasso/
Oct 24 Fairy Queen Book II, canto 12; Book III.6 and III.12. Compare the conclusion of Book III.xii with the conclusion of the 1590 edition at http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/fqIII.xii.htm Can you distinguish between the Bower of Bliss and the Garden of Adonis? For Spenser’s attempt to deal with some of the problems the first three books generated see http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/FQIV.htm Read Curtius, pp. 183-202, and speculate on some of the ways in which Spenser has made use of, and perhaps transcended, the prefabricated locus amoenus: http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/amoenus.pdf
Donne’s
Satire III (pp. 1284-1287) shares some of the same theological material Spenser
uses in the Fairy Queen; does Donne get different results?
For the full text of the FQ see http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/fqintro.html
; those who are profoundly interested in the theological morass into which
sexuality can drive theologians will find useful material in http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/augustine.htm
oct 26 Marlowe, Faustus. (1) Is Marlowe's blank verse unusual? Look at The English Faust book: edited by John Henry Jones. 1994. PT923 .E5 or http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Texts/Marlowe.html .
oct
31 Shakespeare, King Lear. Look
at a tape of the play in Geddes Language Lab (5th floor of CAS).
Show some sensitivity to the use of the word "nature" in the play. For
another version of the play see http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/leir.htm
; for Spenser’s version of the story of Lear see http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/fq.htm
; be prepared to deliver one sentence in class on a significant difference
you see or hear between Shakespeare’s language and Spenser’s as reflected
in their treatment of the story of Lear (or do the same for Leir and
Lear).
Nov
2 Jonson, Volpone. Can you distinguish Jonson's verse from Marlowe's?
from Shakespeare's?
Nov
7 Write two three-paragraph essays on drama:
1. Read http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/faustbook.htm and compare
and contrast the last part of the Faustbook with the comparable scene
in Marlowe’s Faustus. 2. Read
Leir and Lear and try to determine
which play is more rhetorical, intense, Christian? Support your assertions
with specific, significant detail.
Nov
9 Seventeenth-Century Lyric: Donne. "The Sun Rising," "The Canonization,"
"Air and Angels," "The Flea," "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning," "The Ecstasy,"
"Elegy 19," Holy Sonnets 5, 7, 10, 14. Read also Meditation 17 (p. 1277-1278)
and Izaak Walton's description of Donne's death (pp. 1583-1587). Do Donne's
poems seem the work of the man who wrote Meditation 17? of the man Walton
describes? Was he alternately Christian and pagan? Has Donne anticipated Proust's
epigram, "L'anatomie n'est peut-être pas ce que choisirait un coeur tendre,
si l'on avait le choix"? What are the significant differences between Donne's
"Death be not proud," and Herbert's "Death"? Read the selection from Thomas
Browne's Hydrotaphia (pp. 1590-1594)). What do Browne and
Donne share? Can you also distinguish between them? Does Jonson ("To Donne,"
p. 1429) admire Donne for the same reasons you do? Does Thomas Carew’s “Elegy
upon the Death of Donne” (pp. 1666-1668) help identify Donne’s peculiar characteristics?
For a German poet operating in a similar tradition see M.S. Schindler, The
Sonnets of Andreas Gryphius, Gainesville 1971 (particularly pp. 140-167).
For French devotional poetry begin with Terence Cave, Devotional
Poetry in France 1570-1613, London 1969 BV4818.F69. For Spanish verse,
see http://sonnets.spanish.sbc.edu/
as well as http://luis.salas.net/index.htm
; for the poetry of San Juan de la Cruz, see http://cvc.cervantes.es/obref/sanjuan/edicion/
; for some of the poetry of Sor
Juana Inés de la Cruz, see http://members.tripod.com/Heron5/sor.htm
: does Lope de Vega's sonnet, to be found at http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/lopedevega.jpg,
remind you of any poem by Donne?
See
also Johnson on Metaphysical Wit (pp. 2766-2768) and Addison on Wit (pp. 2481-2485).
nov
14 Seventeenth-Century Lyric II: Herbert. "Jordan
(1)," "The Windows," "The Collar," "The Pulley," "Love (3)."
Does the predicament in which Pope Gregory
the Great (sixth-century) finds himself resemble
any of the predicaments in which Herbert claims to find himself? (Gregory,
Moralia 35.20.49 ; Latin
version also available)
"Now that I have finished this work, I
see that I must return to myself. For our mind is much fragmented and scattered
beyond itself, even when it tries to speak rightly. While we think of words
and how to bring them out, those very words diminish the soul's integrity
by plundering it from inside. So I must return from the forum of speech to
the senate house of the heart, to call together the thoughts of the mind for
a kind of council to deliberate how best I may watch over myself, to see to
it that in my heart I speak no heedless evil nor speak poorly any good. For
the good is well spoken when the speaker seeks with his words to please only
the one from whom he has received the good he has. And indeed even if I do
not find for sure that have spoken any evil, still I will not claim that I
have spoken no evil at all. But if I have received some good from God and
spoken it, I freely admit that I have spoken it less well than I should (through
my own fault, to be sure). For when I turn inward to myself, pushing aside
the leafy verbiage, pushing aside the branching arguments, and examine my
intentions at the very root, I know it really was my intention to please God,
but some little appetite for the praise of men crept in, I know not how, and
intruded on my simple desire to please God. And when later, too much later,
I realize this, I find that I have in fact done other than what I know I set
out to do. It is often thus, that when we begin with good intentions in the
eyes of God, a secret tagalong yen for the praise of our fellow men comes
along, taking hold of our intentions from the side of the road. We take food,
for example, out of necessity, but while we are eating, a gluttonous spirit
creeps in and we begin to take delight in the eating for its own sake; so
often it happens that what began as nourishment to protect our health ends
by becoming a pretext for our pleasures. We must admit therefore that our
intention, which seeks to please God alone, is sometimes treacherously accompanied
by a less-righteous intention that seeks to please other men by exploiting
the gifts of God. But if we are examined strictly by God in these matters,
what refuge will remain in the midst of all this? For we see that our evil
is always evil pure and simple, but the good that we think we have cannot
be really good, pure and simple. But I think it worthwhile for me to reveal
unhesitatingly here to the ears of my brothers everything I secretly revile
in myself. As commentator, I have not hidden what I felt, and as confessor,
I have not hidden what I suffer. In my commentary I reveal the gifts of God,
and in my confession I uncover my wounds. In this vast human race there are
always little ones who need to be instructed by my words, and there are always
great ones who can take pity on my weakness once they know of it: thus with
commentary and confession I offer my help to some of my brethren (as much
as I can), and I seek the help of others. To the first I speak to explain
what they should do, to the others I open my heart to admit what they should
forgive. I have not withheld medicine from the ones, but I have not hidden
my wounds and lacerations from the others. So I ask that whoever reads this
should pour out the consolation of prayer before the strict judge for me,
so that he may wash away with tears every sordid thing he finds in me. When
I balance the power of my commentary and the power of prayer, I see that my
reader will have more than paid me back if for what he hears from me, he offers
his tears for me.”
Is
T.S. Eliot's position your own?
Why, I would ask, is most religious verse so bad, and why does so little religious verse reach the highest levels of poetry? Largely, I think, because of a pious insincerity. The capacity for writing poetry is rare; the capacity for religious emotion of the first intensity is rare; and it is to be expected that the existence of both capacities in the same individual should be rarer still. People who write devotional verse are usually writing as they want to feel, rather than as they do feel." T.S. Eliot, After Strange Gods.
It has been the frequent lamentation of good men, that verse has been too little applied to the purposes of worship, and many attempts have been made to animate devotion by pious poetry; that they have very seldom attained their end is sufficiently known, and it may not be improper to enquire why they have miscarried. Let no pious ear be offended if I advance, in opposition to many authorities, that poetical devotion cannot often please. The doctrines of religion may indeed be defended in a didactick poem; and he who has the happy power of arguing in verse, will not lose it because his subject is sacred. A poet may describe the beauty and the grandeur of Nature, the flowers of the Spring, and the harvests of Autumn, the vicissitudes of the Tide, and the revolutions of the Sky, and praise the Maker for his works in lines which no reader shall lay aside. The subject of the disputation is not piety, but the motives to piety; that of the description is not God, but the works of God.Contemplative piety, or the intercourse between God and the human soul, cannot be poetical. Man admitted to implore the mercy of his Creator, and plead the merits of his Redeemer, is already in a higher state than poetry can confer. The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and delights. The topicks of devotion are few, and being few are universally known; but few as they are, they can be made no more; they can receive no grace from novelty of sentiment, and very little from novelty of expression. Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more grateful to the mind than things themselves afford. This effect proceeds from the display of those parts of nature which attract, and the concealment of those which repel the imagination: but religion must be shewn as it is; suppression and addition equally corrupt it; and such as it is, it is known already. From poetry the reader justly expects, and from good poetry always obtains, the enlargement of his comprehension and elevation of his fancy; but this is rarely to be hoped by Christians from metrical devotion. Whatever is great, desireable, or tremendous, is comprised in the name of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted; Infinity cannot be amplified; Perfection cannot be improved.The employments of pious meditation are Faith, Thanksgiving, Repentance, and Supplication. Faith, invariably uniform, cannot be invested by fancy with decorations. Thanksgiving, the most joyful of all holy effusions, yet addressed to a Being without passions, is confined to a few modes, and is to be felt rather than expressed. Repentance, trembling in the presence of the Judge, is not at leisure for cadences and epithets. Supplicaton of man to man may diffuse itself through many topicks of persuasion; but supplication to God can only cry for mercy. Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most simple expression is the most sublime. Poetry loses its lustre and its power, because it is applied to the decoration of something more excellent than itself. All that verse can do is to help the memory, and delight the ear, and for these purposes it may be very useful; but it supplies nothing to the mind. The ideas of Christian Theology are too simple for eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and too majestick for ornament; to recommend them by tropes and figures, is to magnify by a concave mirror the sidereal hemisphere.
Sidney's
"Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show," and Herbert's "Who says
that fictions only and false hair" (Jordan I) express discomfort with the
artificial nature of language. Do they express their discomfort in significantly
different ways? In what ways does the following poem carry out and in what
ways does it resist the implied and stated prescriptions found in Sidney and
Herbert?
Tell
all the Truth but tell it slant
Success
in Circuit lies
Too
bright for our infirm Delight
The
Truth's superb surprise
As
Lightning to the Children eased
With
explanation kind
The
Truth must dazzle gradually
Or
every man be blind.
nov
16 Seventeenth-century Lyric: Crashaw, "The Flaming
Heart"; Marvell, "To his Coy mistress," (what does Marvell do with the erotic
topoi to be found in some poems from the Greek
Anthology?) "The Garden"; Vaughan, "The Retreat," "The World." Does Crashaw's
poetry require the kind of argument that Bernard of Clairvaux (Sermo
70.1) offered in defense of the Song of Songs?
We
must remember that love reveals itself, not by words or phrases, but by action
and experience. It is Love which speaks here, and if anyone wishes to understand
it, let him first love. Otherwise it would be impossible for a cold heart
to grasp the meaning of language so inflamed.
In what poem does Crashaw use the paradoxes offered by Innocent III (Migne 217 sermo xiv on Annunciation)?:
»Hodie novum fecit Dominus super terram,
mulier circumdedit virum« (Jer. XXXI) gremio uteri virginalis. Mulier, sed
intacta; mater, sed virgo. Haec in utero circumdedit puerum, sed virum; infantem,
sed Deum. O [Col. 0522C] vere novum, quod hodie fecit Dominus super terram;
quia stella solem, creatura Creatorem, filia patrem concepit.
For
a reading by Bruce Redford of two poems of Crashaw listen to http://people.bu.edu/bobl/
nov
21 Milton's sonnets, “Lycidas”. Are you of the same opinion as Samuel Johnson
(pp. 2738-2739)? " ... the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the
numbers unpleasing."
nov
28 - dec 12 Paradise
Lost.
Sensible students will re-read the first four or five books of Genesis
and the opening of Vergil's Aeneid. Is Milton's idea of blank
verse different from Shakespeare's? Are you of the same opinion as Samuel
Johnson (pp. 2740-2746)? What is your response to Addison's appraisal (pp.
2494-2498)? For a text of PL unusually well annotated with
hypertext links see: http://www.dartmouth.edu/research/milton/reading_room/pl/book_1/index.html
Those
bothered by problems of grace and free will could do worse than look at Augustine:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1510.htm
also
useful: http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/milton/plost.htm
http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/genesis.htm
is a translation of an Old English Biblical paraphrase with which Milton may
have been familiar. What has the Old English poet added? Subtracted?
Dec
15 11 AM FINAL PAPER DUE. Read Vendler pp. 25-56 http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/Vendler-Alternatives.pdf
, Fish Self-Consuming pp. 156-223
http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/Fish-Letting_Go.pdf
; Martz pp. 249-320; some people have made judicious use of empson
Lewalski
283-316. Those looking for even more strenuous activity can add Flesch pp.
22-84, and/or Stewart 199-247. Write an essay (7 pages, double-spaced, one-inch
margins, in a 12-point font, in which you attempt to determine which of at
least three readings accounts for more of what Herbert is doing. Consider
their areas of agreement, disagreement, and what is unique to each reading.
Papers which show no signs of having read the poems themselves are unacceptable;
your task is to test the critics against the texts of the poems themselves.
Obey the sheet of 27 slavishly. For the complete
works of Herbert see: http://home.ptd.net/~gherbert/PoemTOC.html
; some students have found Herbert's Country Parson useful:
Dec 19 FINAL EXAM, a paper due at 11 AM: in what ways does Curtius' section on the locus amoenus
(
OFFICE
HOURS: M 11:15-12; TR 12:30-1:15,
at 236 Bay State Road, rm. 321 (tel. 358-2535). If these times conflict with
your other classes, appointments may be made at other mutually convenient
times. No harm will come to you if you call me at home (617-491-3958) 7-9:00
weeknights, or on Saturday or Sunday 10 AM - 9:00 PM. If I am not home, PLEASE
leave your name, telephone number, and, if possible, hours you expect to be
at that number. Send e-mail to bobl@bu.edu
The
course involves significant amounts of reading (a minimum of 6-8 hours a week
normally) that must be done on time. Written exercises, typed, with one-inch
margins, and PROOFREAD SCRUPULOUSLY, must be submitted no later than the beginning
of class on the due date, in grammatical, idiomatic English. The style sheet
distributed at the first meeting indicates specific penalties for specific
crimes against the English language; in this area, justice outweighs mercy.
Criteria
for grading: in
no case can your grade exceed the percentage produced by dividing the amount
of time you are present by the amount of time I am present;
exams and papers count 90% (Chaucer quiz 5%; first paper 15%; drama paper
10%; second paper 25%; final exam 25%; performance in class can add as much
as a letter, if written work is at least tolerable. Merely sociable responses
in class discussion are welcome, but add nothing to the grade. Remarks that
demonstrate familiarity with the primary texts produce higher grades; remarks
that demonstrate familiarity with secondary material as well as primary texts
produce superior letters of recommendation. Conferences: you are required
to put in at least two appearances during the semester. The time to express
your problems about papers and exams is before the day on which the paper
is due, or the exam is to be taken. If you think that the grade you receive
for any of your work is mysterious or unfair, sulking in silence or heaping
maledictions upon my head behind my back are less useful strategies than appearing
at my office and demanding clarification, justice, satisfaction.
REQUIRED
TEXT Norton Anthology of English Literature,
Eighth Edition, volume I.
RECOMMENDED
TEXTS
GENERAL
In
your papers, the only dictionary to which you may refer is the OED (Mugar
Reference X PE1625 .O87 1989) or http://dictionary.oed.com/entrance.dtl
Much
of English and American literature is online at: http://lion.chadwyck.com/home/home.cgi?source=config2.cfg
N.
Frye, Anatomy of Criticism PN81
F57.
E.
Auerbach, Mimesis PN56.R3.F53.
and Literary Language etc. PA8027 A813.
E.R.
Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. New
York, 1963 PN674 F53
C.S.
Lewis, Allegory of Love, Oxford 1936 PN688 .F36
MIDDLE
AGES
Jacques
Le Goff, The Medieval Imagination, Chicago, 1988. PQ155 M27
L413 1988
C.S.
Lewis, The Discarded Image PN671
F64.
http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/orpheus.htm
RENAISSANCE
J.
Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods in the Renaissance
BR135.S483 (to be read in conjunction with http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/orpheus.htm
and http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/ovide.htm
see
also http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/paganchristian.pdf
E.
Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance N6915.F58.F671.
William
Kerrigan and Gordon Braden, The Idea of the Renaissance CB361
K37 1989
E.M.W.
Tilyard, The Elizabethan World Picture PR428 P5 F60
BEOWULF
R.D.
Fulk, Interpretations of Beowulf, Bloomington 1991. Tolkien
14-44; Magoun 45-65; Brodeur 66-87.
http://humanities.byu.edu/chaucer/oldeng.htm
CHAUCER
C.
Muscatine, Chaucer and the French Tradition PR1912 F7 F57.
D.W.
Robertson, Preface to Chaucer PR1924 F62
Caedmon
TC 1226 The poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer. Caedmon TC 1226. [1967]
PR1068
.K63 1976 Chaucer, Geoffrey, The Knight's tale London : Argo,
c1976
Caedmon
TC 1223 Chaucer, Geoffrey, Canterbury tales: The miller's
tale [and] the reeve's tale.
Caedmon
TC 1151 Chaucer, Geoffrey, The Canterbury tales.
Argo
ZPL 1003- 1004 Chaucer, Geoffrey, Troilus
and Criseyde. Argo ZPL 1003-1004. [1971]
Argo
RG 401 Chaucer, Geoffrey, Prologue to the Canterbury tales.
[Phonodisc]
http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/pronunciation/
http://academics.vmi.edu/english/audio/Audio_Index.html
for
the text of the complete Canterbury Tales, with glossary and
translation, go to
http://www.euronet.nl/~sk87137/
SPENSER
G.
Hough, Preface to the Fairy Queen PR2358. A7 F62.
SHAKESPEARE
W.
Carroll, The Metamorphosis of Shakespearean Comedy. PR2981.C37.1985.
J.
Siemon, Shakespearean Iconoclasm. PR3072 S53 1985.
MILTON
Theocritus and Bion: http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03/thbm10h.htm
Robert
Adams, Ikon: Milton and the Modern Critics, PR3588.F66
Alciati,
Latin Emblems PN6349.A42.1985. 2 vols.
Stanley
Fish, Surprised by Sin, NY 1967 PR3562.F671
W.G.
Madsen, From shadowy types etc. PR3588.F685.
Dean
Patrides, Lycidas: the tradition and the poem PR3558.M54.1983.
C.
Ricks, Milton's Grand Style PR3562 F631.
W.
Riggs, The Christian Poet in Paradise Lost PR3562.R56.
SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY LYRIC
Stanley
Fish, Self-Consuming Artifacts, Berkeley 1972 PN741.F5
S.
Fish, The Living Temple, Berkeley 1978 PR3508.F57M
William
Flesch, Generosity and the Limits of Authority, Ithaca, 1992.
PR428 G45 F58 1992
Barbara
Lewalski, Protestant Poetics and the 17th century Religious Lyric,
Princeton, 1979 PR545.R4.L48
Louis
Martz, The Poetry of Meditation, New Haven, 1954, PR549.R4
F541.
(ed.)
John R. Roberts, New Perspectives on the Seventeenth-Century Lyric,
Columbia 1994 PR545.R4.N48.1994
Stanley
Stewart, "Renaissance" Talk, Pittsburg, 1997 PR421.S67
Harold
Toliver, George Herbert's Christian Narrative, University
Park, 1993. PR3508.T65
Rosemond
Tuve, Allegorical Imagery, Princeton 1966 PN731.F66
Tuve,
A Reading of George Herbert, Chicago, 1952 PR3508.F52.
Helen
Vendler, The Poetry of George Herbert, Cambridge, 1975. PR3508.V4
Some
sites for listening to early music
http://www.netstrider.com/music/fitz/i047.mid
http://www.netstrider.com/music/fitz/i214.mid byrd, carman’s whistle
http://www.midiworld.com/earlymus.htm
http://www.classicalmidiconnection.com/cgibin/x.cgi/mid/c1/gib_nom2.mid gibbons in nomine 5 viols
http://www.shipbrook.com/jeff/funeral/copr_ft1.mid
do not know the answer, you say you do not know but you do know if you
did not know the answer you could not spend your life in teaching but
I really do not know, I really do not, I do not even know whether
there is a question let alone having an answer for a question. To me
when a thing is really interesting it is when there is no question and
no answer, if there is then already the subject is not interesting and it
is
so, that is the reason that anything for which there is an answer is not
interesting, that is the trouble with governments and Utopias and teaching,
the things not that can be learnt but that can be taught are not interesting.
G.S.
