ENGLISH 705 -- FALL 1996 NEOCLASSICAL LITERATURE: Self, Work and Value Instructor: Dr. Bridget Keegan Office: CA 304D Phone: 280-2523; English Department, 280-2822. Email: bmkeegan. Students are particularly encouraged to make use of email to communicate questions or comments. All messages will be answered promptly, usually in under 24 hours. Office Hours: TTH 9:30-11am, W 2-3:30pm or by appointment. COURSE DESCRIPTION Focusing on works from the "long 18th century," this seminar will study literary explorations of the concepts of "self" and "subjectivity" -- concepts which were, during the period of 1660-1800, under contention in several domains -- aesthetic, philosophical, psychological, political, economic, and religious. In particular, the seminar will examine how writing and the work of literature become a privileged domain to articulate and experiment with models for a modern selfhood. By looking at how authors write about themselves and about their work (literary and sometimes otherwise), we will attempt to outline how the resulting notions of aesthetic value might be connected to concurrent shifts in ideas of the economic and political value individual. We will begin the semester with more explicit forms of writing about the private and public self, both real and fictional. We will analyze how the historical and ideological transformations in the genres of the diary, the autobiography, the biography, and the epistolary novel each postulate and problematize different models of subjectivity. In the second half of the semester, we will approach similar concerns through the poetry of the period, focusing primarily on the genres of pastoral and georgic. Examining the debate on the proper form and content of the pastoral, and its subsequent georgic transformations throughout the century, we will attempt to make further connections between the expression of aesthetic and economic value, particular in so far as it relates to the profession and professionlization of poetry. In both segments of the semester's work, we will pay particular attention to the manner in which a writer's gender or class is reflected and resisted in his or her writing. Finally, as a capstone to the semester, we will consider a selection of late-18th century philosophical and economic texts, in particular, the work of Adam Smith. Through Smith, we will analyze how eighteenth-century conceptions of the value of our human subjectivity (not to mention the value of studying literature) continue to influence contemporary debates on issues such as individual agency, literary education, and the canon wars. COURSE REQUIREMENTS Your grade for this course will be based upon 1000 possible points. The following requirements are designed to serve several professional and scholarly purposes. For example, the response papers and annotations will help you to build a portfolio of ideas and research for future teaching, presentations and writing. The oral presentation is geared toward preparing you for the conventions of speaking at an academic conference. Finally, you should be writing your seminar paper with a view toward publication. All students are strongly urged to consider submitting their finished work to a scholarly journal after the end of the semester. 1. Completion of weekly reading assignments. 2. 2-3 page weekly response paper about each week's reading assignment (10pts each for 13 weeks = 260 points) 3. Seminar paper (400 points) 4. Seminar oral presentation of proposed paper topic (100 points) 5. 7 1-page annotations of relevant recent scholarship, to be handed in throughout the semester (140 points). Select titles from required secondary readings, general course bibliography or share other relevant work. 6. Active participation in class discussion (100 points) REQUIRED TEXTS The following texts are available at the Creighton Univeristy Bookstore: Samuel Pepys, Diary of 1666 (Harper Collins) John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (Penguin) Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (Norton Critical -- recommended) Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (Norton Critical -- recommended) Samuel Johnson, Collected Works (Oxford Authors) James Boswell, Life of Johnson (Oxford Classics) Frances Burney, Evelina (Oxford Classics) Alexander Pope, Collected Works (Oxford Authors) Stephen Duck and Mary Collier, The Thresher's Labour and The Woman's Labour (Merlin Press) PRIMARY AND SECONDARY READINGS ON RESERVE The following texts are available on two-hour/overnight reserve at the Reinert Alumni Library: Primary Selections James Beattie, The Minstrel George Crabbe, The Village John Dyer, The Fleece John Gay, The Beggar's Opera, The Shepherd's Week Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village Thomas Malthus, selections from the Principles of Population Mandeville, selections from The Fable of the Bees James Thomson, The Seasons, The Castle of Indolence Adam Smith, selections Secondary Selections Barker, Francis. The Tremulous Private Body. London: Methuen, 1984. Barrell, John. English Literature in History, 1730-80: An Equal, Wide Survey. New York: St. Martin's, 1983. Damrosch, Leopold. Fictions of Reality in the Age of Hume and Johnson. Madison: The U of Wisconsin P, 1989. Damrosch, Leopold, ed. Modern Essays on Eighteenth-Century Literature. New York: Oxford UP, 1988. Doody, Margeret. Frances Burney: The Life in the Works. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1988. Goodridge, John. Rural Life in Eighteenth-Century English Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. Holmes, Richard. Dr. Johnson and Mr. Savage. New York: Pantheon, 1994 Landry, Donna. The Muses of Resistance: Labouring-class Women's Poetry in Britain, 1739-1796. Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 1990 Latham, R.C. and W. Matthews. Diary of Samuel Pepys. Vol. 10. Companion. Berkeley: U of California P, 1971 - . McKeon, Michael. The Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1987. Nussbaum, Felicity. The Autobiographical Subject: Gender and Ideology in Eighteenth-Century England. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1989. Nussbaum, Felicity and Laura Brown, eds. The New Eighteenth Century. New York: Methuen, 1987. Rogers, Pat. Eighteenth Century Encounters: Studies in Literature and Society in the Age of Walpole. Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1985. Rogers, Pat ed. The Eighteenth Century. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1978. Trease, Geoffrey. Samuel Pepys and His World. New York: G.P. Putnam's and Sons, 1972. Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel. Berkeley: U of California P, 1957. Williams, Raymond. The Country and The City. New York: Oxford UP, 1973. COURSE SCHEDULE For each week, please read the required primary and secondary texts. Those texts marked with * are optional, but strongly recommended. Week 1: Introduction. Recommended: Rogers, ed., The Eighteenth Century (pp.1-119). Week 2: Journals and Diaries. Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), Diary from 1666; Nussbaum, The Autobiographical Subject (pp. xi-xxii, 1-57); Francis Barker, The Tremulous Private Body (1-69). Recommended: Latham, ed. Diary of Samuel Pepys, vol. 10: Companion (useful background on people, places and themes); Trease, Samuel Pepys and his world. Week 3: Conversion narratives. John Bunyan (1628-88), Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666); Nussbam, The Autobiographical Subject (pp. 58-79) Week 4: Fictional autobiography. Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), Robinson Crusoe (1719); Watt, The Rise of the Novel (pp. 35-92); John J. Richetti, "Robinson Crusoe: The Self as Master" (in Damrosch, Modern Essays on Eighteenth-Century Literature, pp. 201-236) Week 5: Travel Narratives. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Gulliver's Travels (1726); McKeon, Origins of the English Novel (pp. 90-130, 338-356) Week 6: Literary Biography. Samuel Johnson (1709-84), Selections from Life of Mr. Richard Savage (1744); Selections from Lives of the English Poets (1779-81); *Selected Periodical Essays (1750-60); Damrosch, "Johnson and Hume: Fictions of Self and World" in Fictions of Reality (pp 16-65); Bogel, "Johnson and the Role of Authority" (in Nussbaum and Brown, The New Eighteenth Century, pp. 189-209). Recommended: Richard Holmes, Dr. Johnson and Mr. Savage. BEGIN READING BOSWELL. Week 7: Literary Biography. James Boswell (1740-95), Life of Johnson (1791); Nussbaum, The Autobiographical Subject (pp. 103-123); Damrosch, "Boswell: Life as Art" in Fictions of Reality (pp. 66-95); Dowling, "Structure and Absence in Boswell's Life of Johnson" (in Modern Essays on 18th-century Literature, 355-378). Week 8: Epistolary Novel. Frances Burney (1752-1840), Evelina (1778); Doody, Frances Burney, The Life in the Work (pp. 1-65); Patricia Meyer Spacks, "Dynamics of Fear: Fanny Burney" (in Modern Essays on 18th-century Literature (pp. 455-88) Week 9: Varieties of Neoclassical poetry and pastoral. Alexander Pope (1688-1744), Pastorals (1709), *Essay on Criticism (1711), Windsor Forest (1713),Essay on Man (1733-4), Epistle to Arbuthnot (1735); Rogers, "Pope's Rambles" (in Eighteenth Century Encounters, pp. 41-55). Week 10: Satirical pastoral and Newgate pastoral. John Gay (1685-1732) Shepherd's Week (1714), *Beggar's Opera (1728); Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (pp. 1-107) Week 11: Locodescriptive poetry and other forms of pastoral otium. James Thomson (1700-48), The Seasons: Winter (1726), Summer (1727), Spring (1728), Autumn (1730); Castle of Indolence (1748); Required Secondary reading John Barrell, English Literature (pp. 51-109). Week 12: Georgic and Working-class georgics: Stephen Duck (1705-56), The Thresher's Labor (1730); Mary Collier, The Woman's Labor (1762); John Dyer (1699-1757), The Fleece (1757); *James Beattie, The Minstrel (1771-4); John Goodridge, Rural Life (pp. 1-88); Landry, "The Resignation of Mary Collier (in The New Eighteenth Century, pp.99-120). Week 13: Pastoral elegies and Elegiacal pastorals. Oliver Goldsmith (1730-74), The Deserted Village (1770); George Crabbe (1754-1832), The Village (1783). Week 14: Other Discourses of Value: selections from Mandeville, Smith and Malthus. Week 15: Conclusions