For more information see Professor John Loftis.
Prerequisites: Senior status, English major
Course Description: ENG 497 Senior Seminar: A Literary Geography of
England. (3) Prerequisite: senior status, English majors only. Three weeks
of on campus study of major works of English literature from all historical
periods, with special attention to authors' lives and the places they lived and
wrote about, followed by a three week tour of England to visit some of the major
sites studied.
Course Objectives: To enrich students' understanding of and
personal responses to English literature by providing an intellectual and
experiential knowledge of the importance of place in literature. Unlike
students of American literature who live daily in the culture and geography of
their national literature, many students of English literature have never
experienced first hand the physical culture and history of their subject.
Authors from Chaucer to Emily Bronte to Graham Swift have described in detail
the physical locations of their and their characters lives, and first hand
experience of those places enriches our experience of the literature in a
multitude of ways. Many other literature-related sites-Poet's Corner in
Westminster Abbey, or the recreated Globe Theater, for example-reinforce our
sense of the larger cultural importance of the nation's writers.
The purpose of the senior seminar is to provide an occasion for graduating
senior English majors to synthesize and employ all their previous work as
English majors, in short, to define themselves as undergraduate English majors
The subject matter of this course is historically wide ranging, including
texts from all periods of English literature, some of which will be familiar to
students from earlier courses, but it places this literature into a new
experiential context as students first study and then actually visit specific
locations. It raises fundamental issues about the sense of place in
literature, about the relationship of authors and their works to the places
lived in and described in those works. It asks students to analyze some
familiar literature in a new and different way, to integrate their earlier
understanding into a new context. It invites students to bring to bear all
their reading, historical knowledge, and analytical skills--the totality of
their experience as English majors--to focus in understanding how literature
reflects our necessary physical location in space. By extension, it also
invites them to apply the same principles to other literatures set in or
originating in other places. On a more practical level, if offers an
opportunity for teaching majors not only to see but also to photograph and
collect artifacts from English literary locations which they can use in their
own teaching for years to come.
Weekly Schedule:
N.B.: Some specific readings will be assigned for the entire class.
Discussion will not be limited, however, to those readings, since part of the
idea of a senior seminar is to allow students to bring to bear all their work as
English majors.
WEEK I:
Beowulf; selected short pieces
Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, General Prologue
WEEK II:
Shakespeare, whatever play is being presented at the Globe or in London
Gay, Trivia; or the Art of Walking the Streets of London
Swift, "Description of a City Shower"
Pope, selections from the Dunciad
Johnson, "Preface to the Dictionary," selected essays
Sterne, selections from Tristram Shandy
Smollett, selection from Humphrey Clinker
WEEK III:
Wordsworth, selected poems; Prefact to Lyrical Ballads
Keats, selected poems
Emily Bronte, Wuthering
Dickens, Great Expectations
Virginia Woolf, selections
WEEKS IV-VI (daily schedule, usually morning and afternoon activities):
1. Travel to London
2. Double decker bus tour; tower of London
3. Greenwich; by boat to Westminster Abbey
4. Free morning; walking tour, the Literary City
5. St. Paul's Cathedral; S. Johnson House
6. Globe Theater; attend production of Shakespeare play
7. British Museum; Dicken's house
8. Free day, with list of suggested activities (Tate, Nat'l Gallery, Cambridge,
Canterbury, see site of student's special interest, etc.)
9. Hampton Court (all day)
10. Walking tour, Dicken's London; free afternoon
11. Travel to York; walk old city wall
12. Jorvick Center; Shambles; York Minster
13. Haworth (all day)
14. Grassmere and Dove Cottage (all day)
15. Travel to Bath
16. Walking tour of city; Baths; Pump Room; Assembly Room
17. Jane Austen Center; Royal Cresent
18. Travel to Stratford upon Avon; attend play
19. Travel to Oxford; Ashmolean Museum
20. Travel to London
21. Travel home
Course Requirements:
1. One short paper about the importance of place in literature using one or more
examples from earlier courses in the major-10% (assigned the first day of class,
due the next day)
2. One short analytical paper on some aspect of the physical setting in one of
the assigned literary works (to be written on campus in the first three-week
period)-10%.
3. One oral report, with a written version to be turned in, a geographical
biography of one of the authors being studied--10%.
4. Lead discussion on one assigned work-10%
5. A daily journal of the entire three week tour of England with a summary of
each day's travel, description of literary and other sites visited, and a
concluding reflection on how visiting the site(s) changed or enhanced the
understanding of at least one literary work-25%
6. A revision and expansion into a single formal paper of a part of the journal,
drawing on the experience of the trip and further research; may use photographs
and other illustrative material-25%.
7. Class participation-10% (based on class attendance, group work, preparation
for class, discussion, responses, questions on other students' reports)