English 23C, 19th-Century British Literature
Course Syllabus

The following is a syllabus for a class offered at the University of California, Riverside

Instructor : P. Aaron Potter
Office Hours : Required office meetings will be announced in class.  Additional office hours by appointment.

In addition to class time and office hours, I can be reached through my mailbox in the English department, or through my e-mail.

Course Description :
What is “Romanticism” about?  Love Poetry?  Romans?  What comes to mind when you hear the word “Victorian?”  High tea?  Jack the Ripper?  Upscale lingerie?
Among many other things, the “Romantic” and “Victorian” are the two major movements in nineteenth-century English literature.  In this class we will read some of the literature produced in England during this period, and we’ll encounter and debate several definitions of those two key terms.  However, this course is not just about an historic era and its literature – it is also a course about concerns and questions which are very real for us today.  Nineteenth century literature reflects the vast social tensions which arose in the wake of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment: tensions between the individual and society, between the desires for liberty and security, between nature and the man-made world, between a growing superpower and an international community, and between the mind and heart.  If any of this is sounding familiar, it’s because these are tensions we have yet to resolve.  As the inheritors of that culture, we are not only interested in this material because of the ways it illuminates history, but the ways in which nineteenth-century authors can illuminate our own cultural moment, and our own lives.

Required Textbooks :

Course Requirements :
Students are responsible for arriving in class on-time and prepared, which includes responsibility for all assigned readings on the dates indicated in the schedule. All papers and drafts of papers are due at the beginning of class on the due date indicated. In addition, occasional in-class exercises and quizzes will be assigned, and are factored into the final grade as indicated below. It should be noted that showing up for class on time and prepared is considered *minimally* adequate behavior for a college-level class, and thus merits a *C* grade. Active participation in classroom discussion is essential to earning a higher grade in the participation category.

Grading : (numbers in parentheses indicate minimum page-length requirements)

Class Policies:

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