Course Description and Policies

Autumn 2019: Classes meet M W F 11:00 - 11:50 AM, 136 McKenna Hall

Jump Down to the Schedule

Complete all assigned readings before the class period on which they are listed.

Updates and revisions to this schedule will be announced in class and via Courseweb, and posted here.

Courseweb address: http://courseweb.pitt.edu

Abbreviations:
an illustration of Laura paying the goblins with a golden curl, made by Dante Gabriel Rossetti for Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market

Week 1

Readings due

Assignments due

M 08-26

First day! Anna Barbauld, The Mouse’s Petition and The Caterpillar

  • First, create a Hypothes.is account for online annotations, with your pitt userid.
  • Then, join our class’s Hypothes.is annotation group
  • Set up Hypothes.is to run in your preferred browser, following the instructions. There is an extension in Google Chrome, or a “bookmarklet” for other browsers.
  • Begin annotating the assigned reading for next class. Turn on hypothes.is in your browser window, and change your group setting (at the top of the Hypothes.is panel) from Public to our class annotation group, 2019-UPG-19cBrit, so you will be part of our class conversation.
  • Annotations on passages can raise questions, provide information, point to related resources with links, provide illustrations, and be replied to by me and your peers. We will start a running informative conversation in the margins of our readings this semester.
Resources for annotations:
  • Look up definitions of words first in the Oxford English Dictionary (via the Pitt Digital Library Database login). Choose what strikes you as the best-fitting definition for an interesting word, and then also be sure to explain how the word fits in the context of the larger phrase: Why does this word fit here, or what significance does it seem to have in context with the language in the poem at this point?
  • Try looking up unusual phrases in the Credo Reference (Pitt Digital Library database) or with a Google Search, or in Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. As with definitions, in your annotation, describe what strikes you as the best explanation for a phrase, and explain how it fits in context with the passage in the poem of which it is part.
  • Look for images or multimedia that help illuminate a phenomenon being described verbally, and provide some explanation and context (link to their source on the web if you can).

W 08-28

Anna Barbauld, The Caterpillar, and Washing Day

F 08-30

William Blake, poet, artist, and printer: Start Songs of Innocence and Experience: just Songs of Innocence (first printed 1789) for today. Read Copy L (1795) on the William Blake Archive. How to read and annotate:
  • On the top right, set G for gallery mode.
  • In the white-on-black menu below the Blake plate, select Diplomatic Transcription, to help us read Blake's text and make annotations.
  • In the grey menu bar, you can Objects from the Same Matrix to see how this print compares to other printings Blake made of the same plate. Or look at Objects in Copy to see all the plates in the Copy L.

How did Blake create his plates? Read William Blake Prints and watch the eight-minute video at the end.

Week 2

Readings due

Assignments due

M 09-02

Labor Day Holiday: No classes.

W 09-04

Blake, Songs of Experience in Copy L. CNV: Threaded reflection on pairings

F 09-06

drop-add period ends

Week 3

Readings due

Assignments due

M 09-09

Revolution and apocalypse

W 09-11

Robert Southey, Wat Tyler: Introduction and Act I, and A Brief Publication History of Wat Tyler

Assign Digital Sound/Video Interpretation I in Canvas.

F 09-13

TEI
Reading Day: no class meeting. Survey readings and experiment with technology for Digital Sound/Video Interpretation I.

Week 4

Readings due

Assignments due

M 09-16

TEI
Finish Finish Wat Tyler: Acts II and III Choose a reading and experiment with technology for Digital Sound/Video Interpretation I.

W 09-18

TEI

F 09-20

TEI

Week 5

Readings due

Assignments due

M 09-23

W 09-25

Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: Dedication to M. Talleyrand-Périgord, Introduction, and Chapter II. Digital Sound/Video Interpretation I due in Canvas.

F 09-27

Week 6

Readings due

Assignments due

M 09-30

The Lyrical Ballads experiment and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Midterm Exam 1 due by 11:59pm.

W 10-02

  • Continue discussion The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
  • Kubla Khan

F 10-04

Lyrical Ballads (1800): William Wordsworth’s poems: Goody Blake and Harry Gill, The Thorn and the Note to The Thorn

Week 7

Readings due

Assignments due

M 10-07

Wordsworth poems:

W 10-09

Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800) Suggestions for annotations:
  • Define and explain uses of interesting / unfamiliar words and references.
  • Try to boil down complex stretches of language in this Preface in your own words more simply: or raise questions about particularly difficult passages: what questions do these passages raise for you?
  • What passages indicate positive and negative qualities of poetry (what makes for good vs. bad poems, according to WW)? Highlight and comment on these.
  • Note where WW uses language from the sciences to describe the ideal Poet or the act of writing poetry.
  • Note what specific capacities and experiences WW claims poets need to have. How are poets different from other people, according to WW?
  • Note what kinds of people poets should be connecting with, and how they make a connection.

F 10-11

Introduce Annotation and Research Assignment

Week 8

Readings due

Assignments due

M 10-14

W 10-16

Frankenstein to the end of Volume 1

F 10-18

Frankenstein through Vol. II Ch. VIII (the end of the Creature’s narration)

Week 9

Readings due

Assignments due

M 10-21

Annotation Research Assignment: Choose your text to annotate: Indicate your choice with an hypothes.is annotation on our Assignment page.

W 10-23

F 10-25

Week 10

Readings due

Assignments due

M 10-28

W 10-30

John Keats, The Eve of St. Agnes with Ode to Psyche

Initiate Midterm Exam 2 (take-home exam)

F 11-01

Week 11

Readings due

Assignments due

M 11-04

Wuthering Heights to the end of Ch. IX (9). Midterm Exam 2 (take-home exam) due by 11:59pm.

W 11-06

Wuthering Heights to the end of Ch. XIV (14).

F 11-08

Wuthering Heights to the end of Ch. XX (20). Annotation Research Assignment: Complete a draft round of annotations and choose a topic to investigate at greater length in the paper.

Week 12

Readings due

Assignments due

M 11-11

Reading Day (no class meeting). (Read Wuthering Heights to the end of Ch. XXVIII (28).

W 11-13

Finish Wuthering Heights.

F 11-15

Week 13

Readings due

Assignments due

M 11-18

Annotation Research Assignment: Research milestone: develop researched annotations and rough draft of paper.

W 11-20

Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market

F 11-22

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Solitary Cyclist from The Return of Sherlock Holmes

Week 14

Readings due

Assignments due

M 11-25 to F 11-29

Thanksgiving Recess: no classes

Week 15

Readings due

Assignments due

M 12-02

George Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Warren’s Profession Act 1 (skip Shaw’s long preface)

W 12-04

Mrs. Warren’s Profession Acts 2 and 3

F 12-06

Last Day! Finish Mrs. Warren’s Profession. Initiate Take-home Final Exam on Canvas. Annotation Research Project due: Submit research paper and finalize annotations on the digital text.

M 12-09 to F 12-13

Take-Home Final Exam due on Canvas by 11:59pm on W 12-11