Professor Nancy West
220 Tate Hall
WestN@missouri.edu
Office hours: MW 2-3:00 p.m., 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 we wish you to somehow leave aside your own
interests, background, and knowledge; what we 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. John Keats may have lived a reclusive life during his
long illness, but he wrote poetry erotic enough to make even Danielle
Steele blush.
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, we 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.
