English 422. Circle of Swift and Pope

Course Description.   The eighteenth century in England was a period of profound social, political, economic, religious, and artistic change. People of earlier centuries looked to the monarch, court, and aristocracy to support and define the art worth producing and preserving. Artists and poets depended upon wealthy patrons for financial support. In the eighteenth century, however, artists began to exercise greater control over their work, and decisions about how art would be defined and valued moved away from the courts and into the realm of emerging circles organized for social, artistic, moral, political, or educational purposes. One such circle was the Scriblerians, which was formed in 1713 by Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, John Gay, John Arbuthnot, and Thomas Parnell, a group of writers who created a fictitious writer, H. Martinus Scriblerus, who exemplified the pomposity and scholarship the Scriblerians detested. By collaborating and supporting one another's work, the Scriblerians  embarked on  an artistic program of remarkable scope. Both as the Scriblerians and as individuals, they collaborated to create poetry, drama, novels, music, criticism, and satirical works that pointedly imitated received forms while criticizing the social, political, and aesthetic changes they thought were destroying the moral, ethical, and artistic fiber of England. This course will explore the work of this circle of writers with the goal of understanding the nature of their collaboration within its cultural context.

Texts and Materials
(Pe) Gay, John. The Beggar's Opera and Other Eighteenth-Century Plays. Ed. David W. Lindsay.  New York: Penguin, 1993.
(TE) Pope, Alexander. The Poems of Alexander Pope. Ed. John Butt. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1963.
(Ev) Swift, Jonathan. The Complete Poems. Ed. Pat Rogers. New York: Penguin, 1983.
(WS) Swift, Jonathan.  The Writings of Jonathan Swift. Ed. Robert Greenberg and William Piper. New York: Norton, 1973.
(CP) Coursepack to be provided

Course Policies and Components

Policies

Late work All work is due at the beginning of class on the date posted on the course schedule. I will not accept late work except in extraordinary circumstances. If you cannot attend class on a due date, send your work along with one of your classmates, or make arrangements with me to turn it in before the due date. I will distribute a voluntary student contact sheet to help you contact one another should it be necessary.

Attendance. Although I do not take attendance, daily in-class writing and frequent in-class assignments make attendance mandatory (see In-class Writing component below).

Cheating & Plagiarism. All work submitted must be written exclusively for this course. The use of sources (ideas, quotations, argument structures, and paraphrases) must be properly documented. Any plagiarism, whether on a regular assignment or on an extra credit assignment, will result in failure of the entire course. Please see me if you have any questions about your use of sources.

Study Questions. In advance of most reading assignments for the class, I will post definitions, notes, study questions, and assignments on the course schedule at  http://www.nku.edu/~rkdrury/422/f05422sched.html. These study questions are intended to help you think about the passages you read, to prepare for quizzes, and to prepare for exams. You need not turn in formal answers to these questions, but you are encouraged to think about and respond to them on your own. Occasionally, I may ask you to complete some of the questions as part of your in-class work; these will be collected and graded.

In-class writing. At some point during many class sessions, I may ask you to respond in writing to a question pertaining to the reading assigned for that day. These responses help us to focus collectively on the material at hand and provide me with important insight into your needs as a class. Although these responses are not graded for content, they must attempt to address the question posed and demonstrate engagement with the assigned reading (that is, off-topic or contentless responses will not count). Your grade on in-class writing will be assigned based upon the number of appropriate responses you turned in. In-class writing assignments are collected immediately and cannot be made up, even the same day.

Short Assignments. At several points during the semester, I will ask you to complete a short assignment inside or outside of class. These assignments will be due in writing either at the end or that class meeting or at the beginning of the class meeting following their assignment. These assignments will usually linked to the class website; if you must miss a class, you should make arrangements to print out the assignment from the website.

Participation. You are expected to participate regularly and thoughtfully in class discussions and group activities.

Exams. This course includes a final exam. The exam will consist of identifications of terms, significant characters, and quotations from the materials assigned during on the course schedule. To do well on the exam, you will need to take careful notes on any materials we discuss in class and refer to the materials provided on the course website for your benefit.  Detailed information about exact point breakdowns for term, character, and quotation identifications are as follows:

Quotations
1 point--title of the work
1 point--author of the work
2 points--context of the quotation within the work (i.e., the speaker(s), if any, and what is happening in the story where the quotation appears)
2 points--significance of the quotation and the ideas it expresses to the period

Terms
2 points--complete definition of the term
2 points--example from the texts we read (author and title)
2 points--explain how the example you gave illustrates the term (give specific details)

Characters
2 points--title of work in which the character appears
2 point--name of the work's author
2 points--explain the character's significance to the work

Please take into account the exam requirements as you read the materials, attend class, and take notes. If you wait until just before the exam, you will be unprepared.

Papers.  During the term, you will write one paper on a topic you choose in consultation with me. Papers must be written on the materials we study in this course and must meet the requirements of the assignment. Papers written on topics or materials not studied in this class will not receive a passing grade unless you receive prior approval. In addition, papers that do not make a recognizable point, do not use appropriate quotations from the text, or do not cite the sources used cannot receive a grade higher than a "F." Papers are expected to be 8-10 pages in length and must be typed in a 10-12 point font, double-spaced, with 1 inch margins all around. All quotations and sources must be cited in proper MLA documentation style. You are also expected to use and cite at least five relevant critical sources in your paper in addition to the primary text and that edition's introductory material.Please review the grading criteria for written work several times during the semester. Paper assignments will include several milestones you must fulfill before your final paper can be graded.

Presentation. Each student is expected to give a short presentation during the term. Criteria for this presentation will be provided on a separate assignment sheet. In addition, I will circulate a signup sheet with possible early in the term.

Course Schedule

Dr. Roxanne Kent-Drury
Revised 8/26/05