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Students taking this course are responsible for all the material in this syllabus, as well as all of the links on the right side of my photograph on my home page.

Text
Abrahms, M. H. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume I. The Eighth Edition. W. W. Norton & Co., 2006.

Prerequisites
To be eligible for this course, you should have taken and successfully completed English 111 and English 112.  From another college or university, the prerequisite is a full year of English Composition.

Description
English literature is a three-credit college course in literature from Beowulf through the Eighteenth Century.    Throughout the semester, we will study selected poetry, drama, and essays from this  period, particularly focusing on the themes, style, and content of the works.  We will also discuss the literature as a reflection of the tone and temper of the society in which it was written.

Course Objectives
By the completion of this course, you should be able to accomplish the following tasks:

Evaluation
Throughout the course, you will write three essays based on the literature from our text.  These essays will be argumentative, interpretative, and analytical in approach.  That is, rather than simply summarize what occurs in a piece of literature, you will create a thesis statement that expresses your interpretation of one of the topics presented in the work. Then you will use passages from the text to support your view. Each of these essays will be a minimum of one thousand words, and each will be worth one hundred points.  Throughout the semester, we will also have unnannounced quizzes, so please bring a scantron and a number two pencil to class each day.  The essays will comprise approximately 70% of your grade, whereas the quizzes will comprise approximately 30% of your semester grade.

The Honor Code:
This code stipulates that when independent work is required—for instance, on written work and quizzes—each of you does that work within the boundaries that I set. See my web site on "Plagiarism" for clarification of how the honor code applies to your written work. For quizzes, each of you will refrain from using the assistance of textbooks, notes, or other students to help you with the work. Failure to adhere to this code will cause a breach in the healthy academic environment of trust that I wish to foster. It will also lead to your receiving a zero for the work you have sought assistance on, and it may jeopardize your passing the course. Your continuing in this class will tell me that you abide by the honor code as I have set it forth here and on the above-mentioned web link.

The Honors Option
Northern Virginia Community College offers an Honors Program for highly motivated students. To be eligible for this program, you should have a grade point average of 3.5 or higher. If you are interested in this option, please see me. An honors option will allow a student to delve more deeply into the work under discussion and then choose a project to work on for the semester. For instance, you may read more fully in the sonnets of William Shakespeare, and then write a paper exploring something about those works interests you. In addition, you would arrange to meet with me several times outside class to discuss your findings. After you have successfully completed the project that you and I agree on, you will receive honors credit for this course; this will be designated on your transcript as an honors class. If you are graduated from NOVA and have completed eighteen hours of prescribed honors courses, you will receive an honors distinction on your transcript and diploma. Such a distinction will acknowledge to any employer or four-year college or university that you chose the more rigorous path in earning your degree. To learn more about the Honors Program at Alexandria, follow this link: Honors Program.

Readings
The following is a schedule of the weeks of the course and of the writers and works that we will be reading during those weeks.  After the name of each writer, I have put a page number; this number indicates the first page of the work I've assigned.  The work may go on for several pages, so please read it until the end.  Where two works (short poems) may appear on the same page, I have written a key word in parenthesis to let you know which work to read. The exceptions to this notation are Shakespeare and Donne.  The numbers after their selection of sonnets indicate the sonnet number, not the page number.  For your benefit, I have italicized long works so that you'll know to spend more time on them.

Week 1 8/25 Introduction to the Course; Middle Ages 1-21; Beowulf (Introduction); 29-33, Beowulf 34-100
Week 2 9/1 Beowulf, continued; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (introduction)160; Sir Gawain 162-213
Week 3 9/8 Gawain, continued; Chaucer The Canterbury Tales 213, "Prologue" 218, 
Week 4 9/15 "The Miller's Tale" 235; The Wakefield Second Shepherd's Play 391
Week 5 9/22 Everyman, 445; Spenser, Amoretti (all the sonnets) 863 
Week 6 9/29 Epithalamion 868; Marlowe 989; Doctor Faustus 990
Week 7 10/6 Marlowe Faustus, continued; Shakespeare, sonnets # 18, 29, 71, 97, 130, 138
Week 8 10/13 Shakespeare's King Lear 1106
Week 9 10/20 Spring Break -- No Classes
Week 10 10/27 Shakespeare's King Lear continued; Johnson 2755-2764; 2764 (on King Lear)
Week 11 11/3 Donne 1263 (both works), 1265, 1266, 1267 (both poems), 1275; From Holy Sonnets, beginning on page 1296: # 10, 13, 14, 17; "A Hymn to God the Father, 1302; Jonson 1428 ("Daughter"), 1430 ("Son"), 1436 (both works)
Week 12 11/10 Herbert 1605, "Easter Wings," "The Collar," "The Pulley"; Herrick 1653, "To the Virgins . . .,"; Marvell 1695, "To His Coy Mistress," "The Definition," "The Mower Against Gardens," "The Mower's Song," "The Garden"
Week 13 11/17 Milton 1785, "On Shakespeare," "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," "Lycidas," Johnson 2768-2774; Milton "Areopagitica," 1828 ("When I Consider . . . "); Paradise Lost--book I 
Week 14 11/24 Locke: 2151 (biography), 2152 ("An Essay Concerning Human Understanding"); Swift 2301 (biography), 2462 ("A Modest Proposal"); Pope 2493 (biography), 2513 ("The Rape of the Lock"), 2540 ("An Essay on Man")
Week 15 12/1 Astell 2284, 2285 ("Reflections on Marriage");Defoe 2288, Roxana 2289; Read all the selections on "Debating Women" 2589-2611
Week 16 12/8 Johnson 2664, 2749 ("A Dictionary"); Thomson (biography and "From Autumn"; Gray 2862, 2867 ("Elegy"); Popular Ballads 2898 (all selections)
Week 17 12/15 Final Quiz

Essay #1-- This essay deals with Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The essay is due on Tuesday, September 23, at the beginning of class. If you choose, you may turn in the essay as a late paper, with a full grade deducted in your evaluation (you will, therefore, begin with a possible "B," not with a possible "A").  Late papers are due at the beginning of class on Thursday, September 25.  If you do not meet either of the deadlines--and you don't have a valid reason--your grade for the essay will be a zero, a grade that will jeopardize your satisfactory progress in the course. If you do have a valid reason, and I approve it, you can still submit the essay by a time that I stipulate. The grade on that essay would be no higher than a "C."

Essay #2 -- This essay deals with William Shakespeare's King Lear. The essay is due on Tuesday, November 4, at the beginning of class. If you choose, you may turn in the essay as a late paper, with the same stipulations that applied for essay one, on Thursday November 6.

Essay #3 -- This essay deals with one of the following poets: Donne, Herbert, Marvell, or Milton. The essay is due on Tuesday, December 2, at the beginning of class. If you choose, you may turn in the essay as a late paper, with the same stipulations as for essay one, on Thursday, December 4.

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