Summer Courses
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Maintained by Zailig Pollock; last updated: Octobers 21, 2001
ENGLISH 100 aims to introduce students to the richness and breadth of literature written in English. It is organized in four thematically-based units, each
focused on the problems of responding imaginatively to change and to new realities. The course begins in Elizabethan England in the great age of expansion
(unit 1) and then moves geographically outward and chronologically forward, as it examines English responses to apocalyptic and "monstrous" developments in
European culture (unit 2), the struggle of Americans to voice hitherto unexpressed spiritual and racial realities (unit 3), and the birth of post-colonial literatures
around the globe, with a closing look at Canada (unit 4).
In addition to a weekly lecture and a weekly tutorial, there will be some films and - more importantly - a presentation concerning each of the four units. The
four presentations are an essential component of the course. They will define each unit and also provide essential cultural contexts, including visual material.
WARNING: the presentations will be covered in the mid-year and final examinations.
Angus Cleghorn - office to be announced - phone c/o Department of English, 748-1733 - acleghorn@trentu.ca
Geoffrey Eathorne - CC C4 - 748-1011, ext. 1362 - spavy@trentu.ca (Shirley Pavy, secretary)
Mac Fenwick - TC WH122 - 748-1011, ext. 1822 - mfenwick@trentu.ca
David Glassco - CC K2 - 748-1011, ext. 1408 - dglassco@trentu.ca
Gordon Johnston - OC 229 - 748-1011, ext. 1522 - gjohnston@trentu.ca
Peter Lapp - PR TH21.2 - 748-1011, ext. 1744 - plapp@trentu.ca
Stephen Moore - TC WH122 - 748-1011, ext. 1822 - smoore@trentu.ca
Michael Peterman - TC SH220 - 748-1011, ext. 1737 - mpeterman@trentu.ca
Fred Tromly (Course Co-Ordinator) - CC E30 - 748-1011, ext. 1457 - ftromly@trentu.ca
English 100 Course Pack (to be purchased in bookstore)
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (Heinemann)
Willa Cather, My Ántonia, ed. O'Brien (Signet)
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, ed. C. Watts (Oxford World's Classics)
Athol Fugard, 'Master Harold'āand the Boys (Viking Penguin)
Thomas King, Green Grass, Running Water (Harper)
Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine, ed. Dawson (Norton)
William Shakespeare, The Tempest, ed. Orgel (Oxford World's Classics)
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818 text), ed. Butler (Oxford World's Classics)
Lucille Strath, et al. Notes on the Preparation of Essays in the Arts and Sciences, 4th Edition, Peterborough, Ontario: Academic Skills Centre, Trent University,
1993
Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, ed. Elliott (Oxford World's Classics)
Walt Whitman, Selected Poems (Dover Thrift)
W. B. Yeats, Selected Poems, ed. Kelly (Everyman)
In addition to Notes on the Preparation of Essays (required), two texts by the Academic Skills Centre are highly recommended:
Clear, Correct, Creative: A Handbook of Academic Prose - provides instruction about common problems of grammar, style, and usage
Thinking It Through: A Practical Guide to Academic Essay Writing - covers all stages of planning, organizing, and writing essays.
Mid-year Exam on the first two units (2 hours)
15%
Final Exam on third and fourth units (2 hours)
15%
Seminar Participation
20%
Essay 1: diagnostic essay - 800-1000 words, due in seminar in week of Oct. 1
5%
Essay 2: 1000-1200 words, due before the end of first term
10%
Essay 3: 1200-1500 words, due before second term Reading Break
15%
Essay 4: 1500-2000 words, due before the end of second term
20%
See your tutorial syllabus for essay topics and for specific deadlines for Essays 2, 3, and 4. Like essay topics and deadlines, late essay policies will vary
from tutor to tutor. Make sure you are aware of your tutor's policy.
Monday, 9:30 am and 4:30 pm, Science Complex Lecture Hall
Selected Wednesdays, 7:00 pm, Wenjack Theatre
It is important that students read the assigned work in its entirety
before attending the lecture and seminar in which it is to be discussed.
Sept. 10
Lecture: Donne, Selected Poems (in Syllabus, pp. 6-14)
Tromly
Sept. 17
Lecture: Marlowe, Tamburlaine, Part One
Moore
Sept. 19
Presentation: Discovery and Tradition in the Renaissance
Pollock/Tromly
Sept. 24
Lecture: Marlowe, Tamburlaine, Part One
Tromly
Sept. 26
Workshop: On Essay Writing
Staff
Oct. 1
Lecture: Shakespeare, The Tempest
Pollock
FIRST ESSAY due in seminar this week: see assignment sheet on p. 15.
Oct. 8
Thanksgiving - No Classes
Oct. 15
Lecture: Shakespeare, The Tempest
Glassco
Oct. 22
Residential Reading Week - No Classes
Oct. 29
Lecture: Shelley, Frankenstein (1818 text)
Moore
Oct. 31
Presentation:
Apocalyptic Visions: Monsters and Revolutions
Johnston/Tromly
Nov. 5
Lecture: Shelley, Frankenstein (1818 text)
Fenwick
Nov. 12
Lecture: Yeats, Selected Poems
Cleghorn
Nov. 19
Lecture: Yeats, Selected Poems
Johnston
Nov. 26
Lecture: Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Eathorne
Nov. 28
Film: Apocalypse Now! (F. Coppola, director)
Dec. 3
Lecture: Conrad, Heart of Darkness/Review of Exam Format
Glassco
MID-YEAR EXAMINATION: 2 HOURS during the formal exam period, from Dec. 8 through Dec. 18. (The specific day, time, and place will be determined and announced by the Registrar's Office.)
Jan. 7
Lecture: Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Peterman
Jan. 14
Lecture: Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Staff
Jan. 16
Presentation: Creating America's Literature
Peterman/Cleghorn
Jan. 21
Lecture: Whitman, Selected Poems
Cleghorn
Jan. 28
Lecture: Dickinson, Selected Poems (in course pack)
Johnston
Feb. 4
Lecture: Cather, My Ántonia
Peterman
Feb. 11
Lecture: Cather, My Ántonia
Lapp
Feb. 18
Residential Reading Week - No Classes
Feb. 25
Lecture: Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Eathorne
Mar. 4
Lecture: Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Staff
Mar. 6
Presentation: The Empire Writes Back
Fenwick
Mar. 11
Lecture: Fugard, 'Master Harold'āand the Boys
Tromly
Mar. 18
Lecture: Walcott, Selected Poems (in course pack)
Fenwick
Mar. 25
Lecture: King, Green Grass, Running Water
Johnston
Apr. 1
Mini-lecture: Green Grass, Running Water/Course Evaluation
Tromly
FINAL EXAMINATION: 2 HOURS, during the formal exam period, from April 11 through April 27. (The specific day, time, and place will be determined and announced by the Registrar's Office.)
Students are to read the assigned selections of poetry before the first lecture or seminar of each of the following weeks:
September 10: Donne
For a complete description of this assignment, please see pp. 6-14 of this Syllabus.
November 12: Yeats
"The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (5); "When You are Old" (7); "Adam's Curse" (18); "No Second Troy" (20); "Easter 1916" (36); "The Second Coming" (39);
"Sailing to Byzantium" (42); "Leda and the Swan" (55); "Byzantium" (68).
November 19: Yeats
"The Second Coming" (39); "Sailing to Byzantium" (42); "Leda and the Swan" (55); "At Algeciras - A Meditation upon Death" (67); "Crazy Jane Talks with
the Bishop" (74); "Lapis Lazuli" (78); "Long-Legged Fly" (84); "The Circus Animals' Desertion" (88); "Politics" (89).
January 21: Whitman
"I Hear America Singing" (1); "I Sing the Body Electric" (12); "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" (39); "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" (73); "When Lilacs Last
in the Dooryard Bloom'd" (82); "A Noiseless Patient Spider" (113).
January 28: Dickinson
All of the Dickinson poems in the course pack.
March 18: Walcott
All of the Walcott poems in the course pack.
In all the other weeks, we will be reading prose or drama. Students are to read the entire work before the first lecture or seminar on it. The works are listed in
the schedule on pp. 3-4.
The poems by John Donne (printed below) are to be read before the lecture on Monday, September 10, and they will be discussed in your seminar that week.
John Donne (1572-1631) is one of the most interesting figures in English Literature, partly because his writing career was deeply fractured. In his twenties, he mainly wrote love poems, many of which have a very explicit (and for their time) revolutionary emphasis on sexuality. Eventually, these love poems became an embarrassment for Donne, for in his forties he was ordained as a minister, quickly becoming the most famous preacher in England. All of his later poetry is on religious subjects, often involving his struggle to make himself worthy of God. In the poems printed below, both phases of his writing are represented in five love poems and two "Holy Sonnets."
Though Donne's poetry concerns itself with two very different kinds of subject matter (the sexual and the sacred), these two groups of poems have many things in common. Both kinds of Donne poem are intensely dramatic, featuring an excited speaker who tries to convince a silent listener (usually a lover or God) to agree with an argument that to the reader may not quite make sense. There are many other connections between the two groups as well, including numerous references to religion in the sexual poems and to sex in the religious poems.
The poems printed below have been chosen to emphasize another overarching theme in Donne's verse: an emphasis on the relation of the microcosm ("the small world") to the macrocosm ("the large world"). In Donne's time and earlier, many people believed that everything that is contained in the macrocosm of the universe is also contained (in miniaturized form) in the microcosm of the individual person. Thus, the two-part composition of the world (the heavy earth plus the pure heavens) is reflected in the two-part composition of the individual person (the heavy body plus the pure spirit). Likewise, it was thought that each person is composed of four humours, which are the bodily equivalent of the four elements that make up the cosmos.
Donne's poems are full of symbolic macrocosms and microcosms, ranging from maps of the world and models of the universe to little enclosures like the pulsating body cavity of a flea. In the love poems Donne often seeks to find within the microcosm of a sexual experience some kind of macrocosm, and thus he will try to turn his bedroom into the entire universe ("The Sun Rising") or his woman's body into the unexplored American continent ("On His Mistress: Going to Bed"), or the act of falling in love to a voyage of discovery ("The Good Morrow"). The linking of small worlds and large worlds also appears in many of his religious poems, where the speaker often sees himself as a sinful microcosm ("a little world made cunningly") who is sealed off from God, the ultimate macrocosm.
In theory, the idea of a corresponding microcosm and macrocosm should be comforting, for it implies that the individual contains within himself/herself the essence of the entire universe. One cannot be alienated from the world because one is the world. But is this the way that microcosm and microcosm relate in Donne's poetry? Do macrocosm and microcosm really fit together in Donne? Or are they forced together? Does the speaker really feel that he belongs to a larger world of meaning, or is he an alienated person who wants to feel that way? Are these poems about love and connectedness, or about something else?
Come, madam, come, all rest my powers defy;
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe ofttimes, having the foe in sight,
Is tired with standing, though he never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glittering,
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breast-plate, which you wear,
That th' eyes of busy fools may be stopp'd there.
Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime
Tells me from you that now it is bed-time.
Off with that happy busk, which I envy,
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
Your gown going off such beauteous state reveals,
As when from flowery meads th' hill's shadow steals.
Off with your wiry coronet, and show
The hairy diadems which on you do grow.
Now off with those shoes, and then safely tread
In this love's hallow'd temple, this soft bed.
In such white robes heaven's angels used to be
Revealed to men; thou, angel, bring'st with thee
A heaven-like Mahomet's paradise; and though
Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know
By this these angels from an evil sprite;
Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.
Licence my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O, my America, my new-found-land,
My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd,
My mine of precious stones, my empery;
How blest am I in thus discovering thee !
To enter in these bonds, is to be free;
Then, where my hand is set, my seal shall be.
Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee;
As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be
To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use
Are like Atlanta's ball cast in men's views;
That, when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem,
His earthly soul might court that, not them.
Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made
For laymen, are all women thus array'd.
Themselves are mystic books, which only we
- Whom their imputed grace will dignify -
Must see reveal'd. Then, since that I may know,
As liberally as to thy midwife show
Thyself; cast all, yea, this white linen hence;
There is no penance due to innocence:
To teach thee, I am naked first; why then,
What needst thou have more covering than a man?
NOTES
heaven's zone: the zodiac
busk: corset
Mahomet's paradise: According to the Koran the righteous will be attended in Paradise by beautiful maidens.
empery: empire
handāseal: on old legal documents a wax seal was placed alongside the signature ("hand")
Atlanta's balls: Atalanta (the usual spelling) agreed to marry anyone who could outrace her. Melanion succeeded in doing so by distracting her with three
golden apples which he dropped during the race.
46no penance due to innocence: Penance and innocence are both symbolized by white.
Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late schoolboys, and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams, so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear: "All here in one bed lay."
She is all states, and all princes I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compar'd to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.
NOTES
all alike: unchanging
both th' Indias: the East Indies and the West Indies, one famous for perfumes and spices, the other for gold and mines
alchemy: here means counterfeit gold
centreāsphere: In the Ptolemaic astronomical system each of the heavenly bodies revolved in its own circular shell or sphere, with the earth at the centre.
Let me pour forth
My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here,
For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,
And by this mintage they are something worth,
For thus they be
Pregnant of thee;
Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more,
When a tear falls, that Thou falls which it bore,
So thou and I are nothing then, when on a diverse shore.
On a round ball
A workman that hath copies by, can lay
An Europe, Afric, and an Asia,
And quickly make that, which was nothing, all;
So doth each tear
Which thee doth wear,
A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,
Till thy tears mix'd with mine do overflow
This world; by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so.
O more than moon,
Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere,
Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forbear
To teach the sea what it may do too soon;
Let not the wind
Example find,
To do me more harm than it purposeth;
Since thou and I sigh one another's breath,
Whoe'er sighs most is cruellest, and hastes the other's death.
NOTES
Valediction: farewell poem
emblems: symbols
diverse: different
round ball: globe.
thy sphere: In the Ptolemaic astronomical system each of the heavenly bodies revolved in its own shell or sphere, with the earth at the centre.
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas! is more than we would do.
O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true; then learn how false fears be;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
NOTES
one blood made of two: In Donne's day it was believed that in sexual intercourse, the blood of the man and the woman mixed and this led to procreation.
jet: black
use: habit
I wonder by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? were we not wean'd till then?
But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?
'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be;
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got,'twas but a dream of thee.
And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone;
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown;
Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one.
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mix'd equally;
If our two loves be one, or thou and I
Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.
NOTES
Good-Morrow: a greeting, the Elizabethan way to say "Good Morning"
Seven Sleepers' den: According to legend seven youths of Ephesus hid in a cave from their persecutors and slept there for 187 years. When they awoke the
world had become Christian.
but: except for
Whatever diesāmixed equally: a reference to the belief that matter decays because the four elements that make it up (earth, air, fire, water) are not mixed
equally .
I am a little world made cunningly
Of elements and an angelic sprite,
But black sin hath betray'd to endless night
My world's both parts, and oh both parts must die.
You which beyond that heaven which was most high
Have found new spheres, and of new lands can write,
Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might
Drown my world with my weeping earnestly,
Or wash it, if it must be drown'd no more.
But oh it must be burnt; alas the fire
Of lust and envy have burnt it heretofore,
And made it fouler; let their flames retire,
And burn me O Lord, with a fiery zeal
Of thee and thy house, which doth in eating heal.
NOTES
cunningly: cleverly, skillfully
sprite: spirit
You which beyond that heaven: astronomers, and perhaps Galileo in particular
if it must be drown'd no more: After the Flood, God promised Noah that the world would never be destroyed by flood again (Genesis 9.11).
it must be burnt: It was commonly believed that the world would eventually be destroyed by fire.
thy house, which doth in eating heal: "For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up" (Psalms 69.9).
Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
NOTES
viceroy: the King's representative
enthrall: enslave
ravish: rape
DUE DATE:
This essay is due in your tutorial in the week of October 1.
LENGTH:
It should be in the 800-1000 word range.
EVALUATION:
Its purpose is to alert you to university expectations for essays about literature, and thus it counts for only 5% of your final mark.
TOPICS:
Students should choose ONE of the following three poems or speeches to write on:
OR
OR
The focus of your essay should be on an aspect of one of these passages that you find interesting. Concentrate your attention on this particular passage, and be careful to avoid sliding into generalities about John Donne, or Tamburlaine, or the Renaissance that are not supported by details in the passage.
All three of these speeches are very rich, and there is no single right thing to say. Since many more valid observations can be made than can be squeezed into a thousand-word essay (at the max!), your essay needs to be focused and to concentrate on what you want to argue is most important.
The focus of your essay should be apparent, or at least hinted at, in the title. It is NOT adequate to give your essay a vague, generic title like "Essay One" or "Marlowe's Tamburlaine."
Do not assume that the significance of these passages is self-evident. How precise can you be about what the speaker is saying?
Your task is to interpret and to analyze. Analytical reading involves answering questions that one asks oneself about the text. Here are some examples of the kinds of questions that may lead to fruitful analysis, but you need not answer any of these specific questions (and certainly you should not attempt to answer all of them):
How does the speech relate to the immediate situation in which the speaker finds himself/herself? (In the case of the Donne poem, the reader has to infer what
this situation is.)
What do the lines reveal about the speaker's character? Does the speaker reveal aspects of himself/herself that he/she may not be aware of? Are there
contradictions in the position that the speaker is taking?
Since one of the primary ways that poetry works is though imagery, it is always useful to ask questions such as: which images are particularly forceful or
strange? is the imagery what we might expect, given the subject matter? are there different kinds of imagery? if there are, how do they impact on each other (do
they blend together or collide)?
Are there repeated images, or words, or concepts in the speech? What do the repetitions emphasize?
What is the rhythm of the passage? Are there breaks in the rhythm? Places where the language speeds up or slows down? What do these shifts in rhythm
suggest about the speaker's state of mind? (In order to hear rhythmical effects, it is necessary to read the passage out loud.)
What kinds of imaginative power and emotional affect do the lines have? Where do they take us? What do they invite us to feel?
You should NOT use secondary sources (critics) in this essay.
Your tutor will tell you about any particular expectation that she or he has for the essay. For questions of format and much else, consult Notes on the Preparation of Essays, which is the Trent University style guide.
It is part of Trent University's Policy on Plagiarism, which can be found on p. 19 of the Trent University Calendar 2001-2002, that all course syllabuses should
contain the following statement:
While scholarly work often involves reference to the ideas, writing, and data of other scholars, it is intellectually dishonest to present the work of others without
explicitly and clearly giving them credit and appropriate reference. Plagiarism is a failure to indicate the ownership of the ideas or the work of another author
by, for example, not using quotation marks and/or appropriate citation when rewriting the words of a source. Definitions, procedures, and penalties for dealing
with plagiarism are set out in Trent University's Policy on Plagiarism which is available on request from every Department or College Office or from the
Registrar's Office.
If you have any questions about plagiarism or the proper documentation of source material, please speak to your instructor, preferably before an error in
judgment is made.