For Credit: Epistle to Artimesia Follow-Up

Reflections, thoughts, comments, questions that we didn't get to in class?  Offer them up here.

Or, consider the following:

What does Leapor's poem add to your understanding of the later eighteenth century?

Or, reflect further on the challenges presented by later C18 literature.  I gather from the attendance questions that a lot of people were initially baffled by this poem.  As we discussed the poem in the class, what were the key points that opened it up for you and made it more accessible?

Deadline: Wednesday (2/1), 1pm.

Tristram Shandy on the Interwebz

Want to know why? I couldn't fit the "WTF" moment in the screen shot. Click here for the full story (and the 8 runners-up).

Summary of Requirements for Group Projects

Two things to note here:
(1) I neglected to put the points for the self-assessment on the handout you got on Friday: that part is worth 10 points.
(2) The points add up to 65, not 60 as per the syllabus.  I'm okay with that, since the five surplus points come from the "citizenship" component--they will function as extra credit for the people who pull their weight, and a double-penalty for those who screw up the group's score by their negligence.

Requirement	Deadline	Points
E-mail regarding book	Open (but in advance of other requirements)	2
Annotated bibliography	Monday BEFORE the week you present	10
Meet with KW	During week before you present (or earlier)	3
Give readings to class	Friday class before your presentation	10
Preparatory blog post	8pm Sunday before presentation	5
Lead class	Wednesday of designated week (usually)	15
Follow-up blog post	Evening of day you lead class	5
Self-assessment	5pm the day after you lead class	10
Citizenship	On-going	5

For Credit: Epistle to Artimesia

We're not quite done with Gray's Elegy, but let's throw another writer into the mix: Mary Leapor.

Some questions you can respond to in preparation for class on Monday:

How is your experience of trying to make sense of Leapor's Epistle different from or similar to your experience of wrestling with Gray's Elegy?

What puzzles or confuses you about this poem?  Are there any particularly baffling passages or lines?  Is there any clarification I could supply that would help?

What interesting difference do you see between how Leapor depicts the poet and the way Gray does?

Deadline: Monday (1/31), 1pm.

For Credit: Group Projects, in General and In Particular

In class today, I handed out the guidelines for your group projects, and those of you who were in class got to meet the other members of your group and start coordinating your plans for getting the project underway.

Feel free to post here with questions, comments, observations on this requirement (or any of its component parts).  You can of course e-mail me at any time if you have questions or concerns, but if you post a query here, your classmates will get the benefit of it.

Feel free as well to reflect on the nature of group work.  Some people love it, some people hate it. Where do you stand, and why?  What do you see as the benefits of these kinds of projects?  What are its drawbacks?  What aspects of this assignment have you particularly worried?

[My take on it: As I said in class, I am aware of the pitfalls, and I try very hard to structure the requirements and evaluation to avoid them: to minimize busywork, eliminate initial floundering, reward those who take the assignment seriously, and penalize those who rely on the hard work of others.  Still no system is foolproof, and having to rely on the work of others is always more stressful than being in exclusive control of your own work.  That said, I am a slow convert to the merits of group work: it has real pedagogical payoffs that are worth the stress it generates--but I'm interested in where you stand, as we get the semester underway.]

Deadline: Wednesday (2/3), 1pm (posts before midnight on Saturday, 1/29, will count towards Week 2; after midnight on Saturday, they'll count toward Week 3).

For Credit: But Can You Dance to It?

In class today we discussed some of features of Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard that make it difficult for readers in 2011: its latinate sentence structure, its depiction of an unfamiliar landscape feature (country churchyards), its resistance to the interpretive tools we have honed in reading C19/C20 literature, its inability to enter fully into the lives of the laborers that it depicts.  We might have also added its arcane vocabulary to the list.

These features of the poem are not necessarily deal-breakers, particularly for those of us who are making a study of the period.  They only justify our continued neglect of the poem (I would argue) if the poem has no compensating pleasures.  

Does it? 

Identify the lines, images, sentiments, ideas, expressive passages that strike you as particularly worthwhile in this poem.

OR feel free to take issue with my framework for evaluating this poem.

Or offer here any reflections that you did not have the opportunity to voice in class today.

Deadline: Friday (1/28), 1pm.

For Credit: So What Have We Learned? (UPDATED AND BUMPED)

Later today (I hope), I'll be collating and posting the results of your list-making activities in class today, so that everyone can have a list of some key writers/texts from this period.   Here is the short-list of authors that you all found in the 18th-century survey anthologies:

James Boswell

Robert Burns 

Edmund Burke

Frances Burney

William Cowper 

Olaudah Equiano 

Benjamin Franklin 

Oliver Goldsmith

Thomas Gray 

Thomas Jefferson 

Samuel Johnson 

Thomas Paine

Hester Thrale Piozzi

Ignatius Sancho

Phillis Wheatley

Mary Wollstonecraft 

This list not meant to be definitive or canonical--it's simply meant to give you a map--of sorts--to the terrain that you'll be covering this semester.  Chances are a few of these names will resurface in your group projects, but if they don't, that's okay.

In the meantime, though, feel free to respond with any comments, reflections, questions about class today.


Feel free to respond to this post with your reflections on the British literary canon, the processes by which some authors from the past fade into obscurity while others rise to prominence, or the particular authors identified here.


Deadline:  Friday (1/28), 1pm.

For Credit: The Short and Simple Annals of the Poor

Here's a grab-bag of questions related to Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"--pick one you'd like to address in preparation for class and respond to this post with your answer, being sure to cite some text to support your claims:

1. How would you characterize the poet's attitude to the poor people buried in the churchyard?

2. Towards the end of the poem, the poet depicts how he ("thee, who mindful of the unhonoured dead/Dost in these lines their artless tale relate") hopes be remembered after his death. First, he describes what some "hoary headed swain may say" about him (a "swain" being the way male peasants are conventionally described and romanticized in pastoral poetry), then he supplies the epitaph that his tombstone will bear. What do these two imagined memorials tell you about how the poet regards himself?

3. What confuses you about this poem? What questions do you need answers to in order to make sense of it? What stanzas seem particularly difficult or obscure?

Deadline: Wednesday (1/26), 1pm.

For Credit: Is There No Sin in It?

In class on Monday, we'll be doing a "tracking" exercise, trying to discern the shape of the white bear we might have in our sights.

In preparation, give some thought here to what kind of game we're pursuing this semester.  We know the white bear is literature, and we know approximately the dates between which it flourishes.  We even (thanks to the writing/time-line exercise on the first day of class) have a few authors to anchor either end of our time span: Defoe, Swift, and Pope precede our opening date (1740s) and Wordsworth and Blake come at the tail end (1790s).

Before we ask what lies in between, though, perhaps we should ask how we'll know our prey when we see it.

What makes a text worthy of study some 250 years later?

• Its capacity to show readers what it felt like to be alive at the time it was written?  (the "snapshot of its time" argument)
• Its ability to transcend its time and speak timeless truths to later eras?  (the "Great Books" argument)
• Its significance within the unfolding tradition of English literature, building on prior works and laying the ground for future ones?  (the canon of British literature argument)
• The clues it provides to the formation of present-day beliefs about the self and society?  (the cultural historicist approach)

Which of these reasons for studying the literature of the past should take precedence when we decide which texts we ought to study?

The question is not merely of theoretical interest.  In these next three weeks, we'll be looking at texts that I've selected, with a view towards making these choices clearer while you get comfortable with C18 diction, vocabulary, and literary convention.  After that, you'll be deciding for yourselves in your groups what particular texts warrant closer scrutiny--and other groups will be making that decision for you.

Which approach do you hope your peers will take?

Deadline: Wednesday (1/26), 1pm.

For Credit: 250 Years from Now? (BUMPED)

Respond to this blog post by engaging in a thought experiment.  Project yourself 250 years in the future, and imagine that the future version of the UIUC English Department is offering a 400-level course, "Literature of the Later Twentieth Century."

• What will be the specific time span of the course?  What events will mark the starting point and the end point and differentiate the "Later" C20 from the "Earlier" C20?
• What genres of literature will the course emphasize?
• What specific authors or texts ought to be on the syllabus?
• What will be the important themes to be covered?
• How will scholars in 250 years disagree about how the literature of this period is to be understood?

You shouldn't answer all of these questions in your response (a couple of sentences addressing any one of them is fine!), but do offer some specific ideas about such a future course.  You can also respond by taking issue (kindly and collegially, please!) with a classmate's projection of the future.

Deadline: Saturday (1/22), midnight.

Questions about the Syllabus or Course Requirements?

Feel free to ask your questions in response to this post--that way your classmates will get the benefit of the answer (and know they're not alone in their puzzlement).

For Credit: "Then Kindly Stab Her" (UPDATED AND EXTENDED)

On Friday we'll talk about the poem I read aloud at the end of class on Wednesday: Joseph Warton's "The Dying Indian" (1755), which you can find on p. 391 of the Blackwell anthology.  In preparation for class, consider the following questions:  I've extended the deadline on this post--feel free to post with reflections, questions, thoughts you didn't have the opportunity to express in class today.  Among the issues you might address:


To what extend is Warton's depiction of the dying Indian more sensational than sympathetic?


What prejudices does the poem play to?  What aesthetic tastes is does it appeal to?


We spent the bulk of class on Wednesday taking a collective mental inventory of the class's knowledge of literature between the 1740s and the 1790s.  How does this poem track with you and your classmate's prior knowledge of the period?  In what ways does this poem complicate the depiction of the period that emerged during discussion?

You don't need to analyze the poem as a whole in your response!  A couple of sentences focused on a specific idea, image, or concept are enough.  You can also respond by taking issue (kindly and collegially, of course) with a classmate's ideas.

Alternatively, if you puzzled by what exactly this poem is saying, feel free to say so here--try to identify a specific line or passage that trips you up.

Deadline: start of class Friday (1/21) Saturday (1/22).

The First Week in English 427

The Syllabus
I've e-mailed everyone the syllabus, but if you've lost the attachment or need to refer to it while you're online, it's right over there in the sidebar, under "Helpful Pages."  Do not be alarmed by the amount of white space in the schedule for the semester, or by the fact that only a handful of pages from the two assigned course texts are specified as assigned readings.  You will be making more intensive use of these books as you and your classmates figure out (with plentiful guidance from me) what you need to know about later eighteenth-century literature and how you can best go about learning it.  Please feel free to e-mail me (kwilcox@illinois.edu) if you have questions or concerns, or if you notice discrepancies in the syllabus.  [UPDATE 1/18:  the table formatting in the syllabus under "Helpful Pages" is a little screwy--you can find a tidier and printable version in the "Readings" box in the sidebar.  Or you can click here.]

Getting Comfortable With the Blog. 
Over in the sidebar on the right (under "Helpful Pages") are guidelines for how the blog functions as a course requirement in 427, and some suggestions for troubleshooting.  Below are two posts you can respond to for credit during this first week (half-week) of class.  One is worth a single point.  It's there so you can give the blog a trial run and make sure you know how to respond.  The other blog post has more substance to it, so it's worth a maximum of three points (the system for grading blogs is described in the "The Blog: Rules of Engagement" page).  More posts will be available for you to respond to after the first day of class, but it's a good idea to get familiar with the blog now.  Please e-mail me if you run into any problems or have any questions!

Week 1 Reading
For the first day of class (Wednesday) we will be looking at Joseph Warton's poem, "The Dying Indian," which you can find on p. 391 of the poetry anthology (Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology, ed. David Fairer and Christine Gerrard) assigned for the course.  The reading for class on Friday will be p. 363 - 366 of The Life and Opinion of Tristram Shandy.  (Yes, the excerpt is confusing, but NOT because you're starting the book in the middle--trust me on this one!  Feel free to read some of the chapters leading up to it, but be aware that they won't help.  Never fear though--all will become clear.)

For Credit: Is This Thing On?

Here's a question, totally unrelated to the course material, to get you used to the blog. This one is only worth one point. If you answer it, you get the point--if not, you don't.

Part of the purpose of this question is to identify any bugs in the blog or any problems you have connecting to it before the semester kicks in. If you run into problems, please e-mail me (kwilcox@illinois.edu) to let me know!

So here's the question: what is the most delicious thing you ate over winter break?

Deadline: Saturday, 1/22, midnight.