Professor Nancy West
316G Tate Hall
WestN@missouri.edu
Office Hours: T,W,Th., 10:00-11:00, and by appointment
This course will provide a survey of British literature, dating
roughly from the French Revolution to the end of World War I. As
a survey course, you might be inclined to think, English 3210 will
study authors and their works in very general terms, moving so quickly
that you will only be able to glean the most basic facts about the
subjects under study. “Survey,” however, implies
much more than a broad perspective; it also means to “explore
the unknown” (as in geologic surveys, for example) and, according
to the Oxford English Dictionary, its primary definition
refers to “the act of viewing, examining, or inspecting in
detail.”
English 3210 will therefore aim at teaching you to look closely
at these works, even as we move quickly. It will also encourage
you to approach those poems, fictional pieces, or works you may know
as if you are, in fact, on a geologic survey, searching for the unknown. This
is not to suggest that I wish you to somehow leave aside your own
interests, background, and knowledge; what I hope instead is that
you leave your presuppositions behind, or better still, that you
reflect on how and why you arrived at those presuppositions in the
first place. William Blake, for example, may have been a visionary,
but when he wasn’t seeing angels, he was busy advocating the
welfare of urban children.
The only definition of survey that will NOT inform this course is “commanding
position,” which suggests authority and thus implies that by
semester’s end, you will have commanded a mastery over these
authors and works. Instead, I hope that English 3210 will leave
you with the sense that you have been carefully introduced to this
material, and hopefully, appreciate much of it.
