Homework Page, English Literature 1 Fall 2010 -- Prof. Furr

English Literature 1 Fall 2010 -- Mr. Furr

Homework Page

Back to Home Page for this course. To schedule of readings.

I will post all writing assignments on this page.. You should create a 'bookmark' of your own to this page, so you can go to it without having to first go to the Home Page for the course.

NOTE: BE SURE TO USE THE PROPER SUBJECT LINE ON ALL HW ASSIGNMENTS! SEE BOTTOM OF HOME PAGE FOR EXAMPLE!

Be sure to "send a copy to yourself" of ALL your homework assignments!

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS

For Tuesday, September 7:
- send me two emails, from different email accounts, on two different servers
  - One of these MUST be the MSU 'mail' account. It is "free" (you've already paid for it, in your tuition), but you MUST use it for this course.
  - See the full instructions on the Internet page.
See the list of free web-based email providers at the bottom of our Home Page.
Make sure that the Subject line of the email messages conforms to the model at the bottom of our Home Page.
Read our text, pp. 5-12, "England Before the Norman Conquest." Do this assigment.

Assignments on Old English Poetry and Beowulf

Listen to the opening of Beowulf and other passages from the poem, plus other Old English poems, and selections from Geoffrey Chaucer, read in the original by experts! (thanks to Norton publishers).

For Thursday, September 9. Do this assignment on "The Wanderer" and "The Seafarer." Take your time -- this involves some reading!
For Monday, September 13 . Note: by today, make sure you have read 1/2 of Beowulf, pp. 60 - 81, end of § 23.
For Thursday, September 16. By this assignment you should have finished reading Beowulf. We'll finish discussing it in the first half of Thursday's class.

Assignments on Middle English Literature

Middle English Lyrics

For Monday, September 20.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Read Constantine Cavafy's wonderful poem "Ithaca" (1911). There are many translations. I like this one. But there's also this one, and this one,

See these images of the "Wheel of Forture".

For Thursday, September 23
For Monday, September 27. This assignment involves listening to a 45-minute long lecture by a famous medievalist. It is a REALLY GOOD lecture, and you will learn a lot by listening to it. It requires two things: (a) the free RealPlayer; (b) a login and password.
- I will email you the login and password.
- If you don't have the free RealPlayer (most computers come with it already installed) you can download it FREE from here or see the "Streaming Audio Instructions" box in the table on our course's Home Page.

Geoffrey Chaucer

For Thursday, September 30: on the General Prolog to The Canterbury Tales. NOTE: No written assignment for today because the one for Thursday is somewhat longer than usual. So, just read the General Prolog carefully and bring your text to class with you.
For Monday, October 4, on The Wyf of Bath's Tale.
For Thursday, October 7, on The Pardoner's Prolog and Tale. Read this page on the Tale ( from the Harvard "Canterbury Tales" site.). NOTE: If you want extra credit, or an extra challenge, read Robert Miller's fine article from Speculum, also mentioned on the Harvard page. No written assignment, but read carefully!

Everyman

For Monday, October 11. No additional readings today; just the text of the morality play itself.

Thomas Malory, Morte DArthur

For Thursday, October 14. Just read the selections on the Schedule page, and bring the text to class. No written assignment.

Assignments on Renaissance Literature -- the Sixteenth Century

Thomas More, Utopia

For Monday, October 18. Read the selections on the Schedule page, and bring the text to class. No written assignment, but read, and bring to class with you, this text on "Apostolic communism in the Book of Acts."

Wyatt, Surrey, English and Petrarchan Sonnets

For Thursday, October 21.
For Monday, October 25.

Spenser, Epithalamion

For Thursday, October 28.
1. Read Spenser's marvellous poem Epithalamion. Read the whole poem, carefully.
2. Read these two reviews of the book by A. Kent Hieatt, Short Time's Endless Monument (1960).
3. Then, do this assignment.
  NOTE: You may want to read through Catullus' Carmina ("Songs"), No. 61, the main classical Latin model for Spenser's Epithalamion. Here is a site with Latin and English together, on three successive screens. Notes on the Latin text, in English, at Tufts University's Perseus project.

Spenser, The Faerie Queene

[NOTE: Go here for a brief summary of the whole Faerie Queene. It's very helpful! ]

For Monday, November 1. No written assignment.
In-class mid-term exam today. Be on time; no extensions for lateness, illness, impending doom -- nada! Be present -- to repeat: NO makeup exams for any reason.
Then, make sure you have read the material listed for today on our schedule page: "Introductory pages on Edmund Spenser and his epic The Faerie Queene, pp. 573-6."
For Thursday, November 4, on the "Bower of Bliss", the "Garden of Adonis", and the "Mutabilitie Cantos" of Spenser's magnificent epic The Faerie Queene.

Marlowe, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

For Monday, November 8: Read Acts I and II only. No writing assignment for today.
Please read these brief pages for background on the Faust legend and on Marlowe's famous play. "You'll be glad you did!"
- Read the introductory material on Marlowe, pp. 736-737, and on Dr. Faustus, pp. 750-751.

NOTE: Some people believe that not Shakespeare but Christopher Marlowe actually wrote Shakespeare's plays! This is a really interesting question, which you can, if you wish, begin to explore on this page. Fascinating stuff! This is not "required" for the course -- but who would be so dull of mind as to miss it? Surely not you?? (I didn't think so!)

For Thursday, November 11. Finish reading Marlowe, Doctor Faustus. No writing assignment for today.
- Time permitting, e will also begin our review of British History. Please carefully read the Wikipedia page on The Tudor Dynasty. Print it out and bring it to class with you. This will give you some idea of the very tense political situation that existed during the time Wyatt, Surrey, Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare were writing.
- Pay special attention to "The Age of Intrigues and Plots: Elizabeth I."
- To really get an idea of the kind of social and political unrest that characterized this whole period, from the 1530s to the end of Elizabeth I's reign (and really long after that too), read a few of these pages on some of the significant rebellions and wars:
  - The Pilgrimage of Grace (1536)
  - Kett's Rebellion (1549)
  - The Prayer Book Rebellion (1549)
  - There were many, many other rebellions, including working-class rebellions in the cities. We will read about some of them for next class.

NOTE on Explicitly Bawdy Language

Explicit sexual and bawdy, or ribald, language and its use in literature was common until about the second half of the 18th century. Since the Romantic and especially the Victorian periods ribald language has been considered "obscene." Earlier works of literature were either censored altogether or "expurgated" (= censored), with ribald passages removed. The most famous example of this is the "Bowdlerization" of Shakespeare's works by Thomas Bowdler, beginning in 1818.

Not everybody supported the "purification" of literature through censorship of the bawdy. In 1871 Mark Twain wrote "1601", the full title of which is " Date, 1601. Conversation, As It Was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors." You can read the Wikipedia article about "1601"; the publication history followed by the text; and a facsimile of an early edition.

It's important to understand that modern and contemporary squeamishness about the discussion of sex, sexuality, bodily functions, and the like is a mark of Romantic and post-Romantic style and sensibility, and not an "eternal" marker of "good taste" or quality in literature, art, and culture generally.

For Monday, November 15. No writing assignment for today - but a good, hefty reading assignment on British history.

Shakespeare, The Sonnets

For Thursday, November 18.

Shakespeare, King Lear

For Monday, November 22.

Thursday, November 25: Thanksgiving Day. NO CLASS.
Spend this long weekend reading the readings for the rest of the course. Get started on Milton, "Paradise Lost" Book I!
Also, remember to do the assignment for Monday!

For Monday, November 29

John Donne, Robert Herrick, Andrew Marvell

For Thursday, December 2. No writing assignment. Read through all this great poetry. I'll read over a bit more. Be prepared to read some of it aloud in class.

John Milton

For Monday, December 6. This is the assignment on the shorter poems.
- Take a look at this annotated online edition of "Lycidas", at the Dartmouth College "Milton Reading Room." It shows how heavily allusive -- full of allusions to Classical authors and to the Bible -- Milton's poem is. This is a dimension of the poem that his audience would have fully appreciated, since they would have been well read in the Classics and the Bible. Today almost all of us have to learn about it from scholars, as here. We miss this dimension of Milton's incredible accomplishment, in which almost every line is an allusion to some other work.
For Thursday, December 9. This is the assignment on "Paradise Lost", Book I.
Monday, December 13 is our last day of class (see the MSU Academic Calendar). We'll discuss end-of-semester matters. Please attend! There'll be some important things to talk about, and to do.

Final Examination Schedule

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