Eighteenth-Century British Women Writers
& Literary Traditions
Syllabus, Winter 2005
ENGL 8240.01
W 5:45-8:15 p.m., Tate 109
Prof. Devoney Looser
Office: 316H Tate Hall
Office hours: W 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. and by appointment
Required Texts
Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey. (W. W. Norton)
Barbauld, Anna Laetitia. Selected Poetry and Prose. (Broadview)
Behn, Aphra. The Rover. (2nd ed.) (Broadview)
Burney, Frances. Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress. (Oxford UP)
Edgeworth, Maria. Belinda. (Oxford UP)
Felski, Rita. Literature After Feminism. (U of Chicago P)
Haywood, Eliza. Fantomina and Other Works. (Broadview)
Radcliffe, Ann. A Sicilian Romance. (Oxford UP)
Robinson, Mary. Selected Poems. (Broadview)
Scott, Sarah. Millenium Hall. (Broadview)
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Mary, and The Wrongs of Woman. (Oxford UP)
Critical essays (available in .pdf format in Electronic Reserve and/or on traditional reserve in Ellis Library)
Course Goals
•To study the writings of British women active during the “long eighteenth century” in their historical, literary, and national contexts.
•To become familiar with contemporary feminist literary scholarship and with controversies over the construction of a women’s literary tradition.
•To engage in debates with each other and with the assigned texts, in order to join professional conversations on these and other topics.
•To offer opportunities to hone graduate-level research, writing, and presentation skills.
Course Description
Is there such a thing as a women’s literary tradition? How about a feminist literary tradition? What is illuminated and what is lost when writing women’s literary history or studying women writers together–or, put another way, when separating the study of literature by women from that of their male contemporaries? In this course, we will tackle these questions and the debates they have provoked through the study of British women writers active between 1660 and 1800. This period, known as “the long eighteenth century,” has in recent years been one of the most fruitful for the study of British women writers. During the long eighteenth century, hundreds of women published fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction prose, some under their own names. By the first half of the twentieth century, most of them had fallen off of the literary historical radar screen. How this happened (and how these women are now being and will next be remembered) remains a surprisingly open question.
As a result, constructing a syllabus for this course proved oddly difficult. I found myself wondering how one ought best to teach the question of studying a women’s literary tradition. Is the most effective way to enter into debates about a women’s literary tradition to read emerging canonical texts by women, starting perhaps with Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko and ending with Austen’s Pride and Prejudice? Should women’ writers texts be read alongside those by canonical (or non-canonical) male writers, so that Behn’s work would be seen in comparison with Dryden or Rochester and Austen with Richardson, Fielding, or Godwin? Or is the best way to approach debates about women’s literary traditions to read works not already frequently mentioned in such conversations along with those that are, in order to test their supposed representativeness or uniqueness? I faced similar questions in trying to determine which works of feminist literary criticism we would read together. Ought one coming to the study of eighteenth-century women writers to read the “greatest hits” of second-wave feminist criticism? Or should one start with the work of feminists, published beginning roughly a decade ago, that overturned earlier theories and assumptions? Perhaps one should start with the most current arguments, whether or not they are breaking significant new ground?
In constructing a syllabus, I knew we could not have it both–or all–ways. We are reading female authors who have emerged as newly canonical, although not necessarily their most renowned works. We are not reading the works of their male counterparts, although they are certainly germane to questions of constructing a women’s tradition. In terms of criticism, I have favored feminist scholarship published during the past five years, in the hopes that entering the debates as they are playing out now (and in the recent past) will be the most effective way for you to join the conversation.
Many courses on eighteenth-century women writers, like most scholarly works on the subject, begin with Aphra Behn and end with Jane Austen. This framework is, in itself, worthy of question, and perhaps one or more of you will want to engage the matter in your research project for the course. We, however, will begin with Austen, starting with a text that is often used to describe an ending–Northanger Abbey–and then move back to Behn. Austen’s novel imagines itself in an eighteenth-century literary tradition that is itself worth investigating. We will read several novels that Austen points us back to, including a Gothic romance by Radcliffe, Edgeworth’s Belinda, and Burney’s Cecilia. It is not clear to me what kind of “story” these texts tell collectively; I hope this is a question we will ask together as we proceed through the course.
As you will see from the course schedule, a great deal of reading will be assigned–hundreds of pages a week. Other requirements will include online responses to assigned literature and criticism; in-class discussion and presentation; paper proposals; and a final research paper (rough draft and revision).
Course Expectations
I will be grading you in the following areas: 1) a proposal and revised proposal; 2) online and in-class discussion; 3) a presentation of work-in-progress; and 4) a seminar paper.
1) Proposal and Revised proposal (20%) (Due March 9th and April 6th)
In your proposal, you should outline the paper you intend to produce for this course. A proposal is a short document (approximately 250-500 words) that describes a piece of research you have undertaken or plan to undertake. Most conference organizers require their prospective presenters to send proposals for consideration. Proposals must have titles and should summarize your anticipated project. It is important that you get to your point(s) right away—in the first sentence if possible—and that you outline briefly the steps of your argument and the expected scope of your work. It also helps to indicate your knowledge of recent work in the field and to differentiate your project from what has come before it. You will revise the proposal, based on my comments and those of your peers. I expect it will be typed and double-spaced. The proposal should be turned in electronically.
2) Online and In-Class Discussion Contributions (10%)
The course will be seminar style and largely discussion based. (I will give mini-lectures from time to time and will guide us through the readings, as needed.) Our discussion will take place in the classroom, as well as online, in Web CT. In any given week, half the class will post an online response before our meeting, and half will post afterward. (These should be done as assigned, by the first letter of your last name. Those with last names beginning with letters A-H will post in a group, and I-Z will post in another.) When it is your week to post before class, you should craft a reading response of approximately 500 words, to turn in prior to 4 p.m. on Wednesdays. Use this forum to make comments or ask questions about the texts (literary or critical), to make connections among texts, and to describe important issues, concepts, or arguments that you hope the class session will address. These responses may be informal but they must be substantive—that is, they should reflect the work you have done processing the week’s readings. When it is your turn to post after class, you should reply to one or more of your classmates’ postings (again, approximately 500 words), reflecting on the issues it raises, as well as those we discussed in class. Again, these responses ought to be substantive, engaging seriously—and, of course, respectfully—with the ideas of your classmates, as well as those ideas raised in the texts themselves. These postings are due by the end of the weekend following our class meeting. During the course of the term, you may elect to skip two online responses without penalty. Additional missing responses will result in a lowered final course grade, unless you have made prior arrangements with me about your inability to complete the work.
3) Presentation of work-in-progress (20%) (Scheduled from April 27th to May 4th)
I will be assigning you to “panels” in which you will present your work-in-progress (on the subject of your final paper) to the class. You will be given 15 minutes to present your work, followed by five minutes of questions. This exercise is a performance. You should practice reading your paper aloud in a well-modulated voice, get rid of any constructions that are more easily read than spoken, and be careful to stay within the time limit.
One of your classmates will be assigned as the chair or moderator of the panel. It is the moderator’s job to introduce each participant and paper and to make sure that participants do not go over time. The chair also facilitates our question-and-answer session after the papers are given. Finally, the chair is responsible for generating questions for each participant in case the audience gets off to a slow start.
4) Seminar paper (50%) (Due May 11th)
Your seminar paper should be of article length (approximately 20 pages typed and double spaced, plus any brief endnotes and works cited in MLA style). Your paper must consider the texts/ideas/issues raised in the course and demonstrate familiarity with relevant scholarship on your chosen topic. I expect that your paper will particularly demonstrate knowledge of (in other words, will situate itself among) recent research.
--A Postscript on Attendance
I will be here for each of our class sessions, barring unforeseen illness, and I expect you to be here during the whole of each session as well. More than one week’s absence will have a negative impact on your final grade. Of course, this will not apply if you are hospitalized or become seriously ill, in which case I hope you will contact me as soon as you are able to in order to work out an alternate plan to complete the course.
SCHEDULE OF READING ASSIGNMENTS
ENGL 8240: Eighteenth-Century Women Writers
Prof. Devoney Looser
Week One: British Women Writers and Literary Traditions
Wednesday, January 19th
1.Rita Felski, “Introduction,” from Literature After Feminism (pp. 1-22).
2.Margaret Ezell, “The Myth of Judith Shakespeare,” from Writing Women’s Literary History (1993) (pp. 39-55).
3.Table of contents from Norton Anthology of Women’s Literature (2nd edition, 1996).
Week Two: Beginning with the Ending?: Jane Austen and Her Predecessors
Wednesday, January 26th
1.Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey(c.1798/1818) (pp. 1-174).
2.Rita Felski, “Authors,” from Literature After Feminism(pp. 57-94).
3.Selections from “Criticism” in Norton Critical Edition (Read West, Gilbert and Gubar, Spacks, Johnson, Erickson, and Litvak).
Last names I-Z post online responses before 4 p.m .Wednesday. Last names A-H post online responses after class.
Week Three: Aphra Behn and Allegories of Female Authorship
Wednesday, February 2nd
1.Aphra Behn, The Rover (1677) (pp. 55-189).
2.“Introduction” (pp. 9-52).
3.Appendix B (pp. TBA).
4.Janet Todd, “Introduction,” from The Sign of Angellica (1989) (pp. 1-10)
5.Jean Marsden, “Beyond Recovery: Feminism and the Future of Eighteenth-Century Studies” Feminist Studies 28.3 (2002): 657-662. (available through ProQuest in MU Library Databases)
Last names A-H post online responses before 4 p.m .Wednesday. Last names I-Z post online responses after class.
Week Four: Eliza Haywood: The Anti-Austen or Austen’s Progenitor?
Wednesday, February 9th
1.Eliza Haywood, Fantomina (1725) (pp. 41-71).
2.Eliza Haywood, The Tea-Table (1725) (pp. 73-106).
3.Eliza Haywood, Appendix A (pp. 243-257).
4.Rita Felski, “Plots,” from Literature After Feminism (pp. 95-134).
5.Paula Backscheider, “The Story of Eliza Haywood’s Novels” from The Passionate Fictions of Eliza Haywood (2000) (pp. 19-47).
Last names I-Z post online responses before 4 p.m .Wednesday. Last names A-H post online responses after class.
Week Five: Sarah Scott, Female/Feminist Utopias, and Romantic Friendship
Wednesday, February 16th
1.Sarah Scott, Millenium Hall (1762) (pp. 51-249).
2.“Introduction” (pp. 11-49).
3.Sally O’Driscoll,“Lesbian Criticism and Feminist Criticism: Readings of Millenium Hall” from Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 22.1 (2003): 57-80.
Last names A-H post online responses before 4 p.m .Wednesday. Last names I-Z post online responses after class.
Week Six: Anna Laetitia Barbauld: Poet, Editor, Feminist?
Wednesday, February 23rd
1.Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Selected Poetry and Prose:“An Address to the Deity” (pp. 41-44) “The Mouse’s Petition (pp. 69-72), “The Groans of the Tankard” (pp. 83-86), “To A Lady, with Some Painted Flowers” (pp. 94-95); “Verses on Mrs. Rowe” (pp. 96-97); “Epistle to William Wilberforce” (pp. 121-127); “The Rights of Woman” (pp. 130-131); “To the Poor” (pp. 139-140); ”Washing-Day” (pp. 143-147); “Dirge” (pp. 156-157); “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven” (pp. 160-173); “Life” (pp. 174-175); “Against Inconsistency in Our Expectations” (pp. 186-194); “An Enquiry Into those Kinds of Distress . . “ (pp. 195-209); “Fashion: A Vision” (pp. 282-289); “What is Education?” (pp. 321-332); “Thoughts on the Inequality of Conditions” (pp. 345-356); “Letter from Grimalkin to Selina” (pp. 356-360); “On the Origin and Progress of Novel Writing” (pp. 375-417); “On Female Studies” (pp. 474-482)
2.“Introduction” (pp. 11-32).
3.Robin De Rosa, “A Criticism of Contradiction: Anna Leticia Barbauld and the ‘Problem’ of Nineteenth-Century Women’s Writing” from Women as Sites of Culture (2002) (pp. 221-231).
Last names I-Z post online responses before 4 p.m .Wednesday. Last names A-H post online responses after class.
Week Seven : Frances Burney: “It is only Cecilia” (Part I)
Wednesday, March 2nd
1.Frances Burney Cecilia(1782) Volumes I & II (pp. 5-320).
2.Mona Scheuermann, “Visions and Revisions: The Feminist Rewriting of the Eighteenth-Century Novel,” Talking Forward, Talking Back: Critical Dialogues with the Enlightenment (pp. 281-317).
Last names A-H post online responses before 4 p.m .Wednesday. Last names I-Z post online responses after class.
Week Eight: Frances Burney: “It is only Cecilia” (Part II)
Wednesday, March 9th
1.Frances Burney Cecilia(1782) Volume III (pp. 321-528).
2.PROPOSAL WORKSHOP #1
Last names I-Z post online responses before 4 p.m .Wednesday. Last names A-H post online responses after class.
Week Nine: Frances Burney: “It is only Cecilia” (Part III)
Wednesday, March 16th
1.Frances Burney Cecilia(1782) Volume IV (pp. 529-714).
2.Rita Felski, “Readers” from Literature After Feminism (pp. 23-56).
Week Ten: Frances Burney: “It is only Cecilia” (Part IV)
Wednesday, March 30th
1. Frances Burney Cecilia(1782) Volume V (pp. 715-941).
2.Betty Schellenberg, “From Propensity to Profession: Female Authorship and the Early Career of Frances Burney,” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 12.4 (2002): 345-370.
Last names A-H post online responses before 4 p.m .Wednesday. Last names I-Z post online responses after class.
CLASS WILL ADJOURN EARLY, FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO ATTEND BELL HOOKS’S LECTURE AT 8 P.M.
Week Eleven: Ann Radcliffe and the Rise of Supernatural Fiction
Wednesday, April 6th
1.Ann Radcliffe A Sicilian Romance (1790) (pp. 1-199).
2.Rita Felski, “Values,” from Literature After Feminism(pp. 135-169).
3.Lauren Fitzgerald, "(In)alienable Rights: Property, Feminism, and the Female Body from Ann Radcliffe to the Alien Films." Romanticism On the Net 21 (February 2001).
4.PROPOSAL WORKSHOP #2
Last names I-Z post online responses before 4 p.m .Wednesday.
Week Twelve: Mary Wollstonecraft, Feminism, and Fiction
Wednesday, April 13th
1.Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary (1788) (pp. 1-68).
2.Mary Wollstonecraft, The Wrongs of Woman (c. 1797) (pp. 70-204).
3.Claudia Johnson, “Mary Wollstonecraft's Novels,” The Cambridge Companion to Mary Wollstonecraft (2002) (pp. 189-208).
4.PROPOSAL DUE
Last names A-H post online responses before 4 p.m .Wednesday.
Week Thirteen: Another Mary: Mary Robinson
Wednesday, April 20th
1.Mary Robinson, Selected Poems (1775-1800) (pp. 144-181; 289-363).
2.“Introduction” (pp. 19-64).
3.Appendix B: Reviews of Robinson’s Poetry (pp. 381-391).
4.Claire Brock, “‘Then smile and know thyself supremely great’: Mary Robinson and the ‘Splendour of a Name’” Women’s Writing 9.1 (2002): 107-124.
5.ROUGH DRAFT WORKSHOP (TURN IN)
Last names I-Z post online responses before 4 p.m .Wednesday.
Week Fourteen: Maria Edgeworth: “It is only Belinda” (Part I)
Wednesday, April 27th
1.Maria Edgeworth, Belinda(1801) (to p. 224).
2.Mitzi Myers, “My Art Belongs to Daddy? Thomas Day, Maria Edgeworth, and the Pre-Texts of Belinda: Women Writers and Patriarchal Authority,” from Revising Women: Eighteenth-Century "Women's Fiction" and Social Engagement (pp. 104-146).
3.PRESENTATIONS
Last names A-H post online responses before 4 p.m .Wednesday.
Week Fifteen: Maria Edgeworth: “It is only Belinda” (Part II)
Wednesday, May 4th
1.Maria Edgeworth, Belinda(1801) (pp. 224-478).
2.Kathryn Kirkpatrick, “The Limits of Liberal Feminism in Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda,” from Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and Their Sisters (2000) (pp. 74-83).
3.PRESENTATIONS
Weds, May 11th, 6 p.m.: PRESENTATIONS AND FINAL PAPERS DUE