State University of New York - College at Cortland
English Department
ENG 438 Seventeenth Century Poetry and Prose:
Sex, Death, and Salvation
Credit hours: 3
Professor Noralyn Masselink
Fall 2007
Phone: 2068
Location: SW133
Office: 111D Old Main
Office hours: MW 9:30-2:30
Email: masselinkn@cortland.edu
Texts: Packet of Readings (To be purchased from me before the second class meeting)
Edson, Margaret. W;t. NY: Faber and Faber, 1999.
Catalog Description: Literature of the late Renaissance, 1590-1660, selected works of metaphysical (Donne, Herbert, Vaughan) and/or cavalier (Jonson, Herrick, Marvell) writers and their contemporaries
Course Attendance Policy: Attendance in this class is mandatory. Part of the educational experience is your bodily presence in the classroom, and your being here is a sign that you are interested in learning. Your final grade will be lowered one-third for every class hour missed beginning with the third class you miss. Absences are meant to cover illnesses, appointments, job interviews, child care responsibilities, transportation problems, personal matters, and so forth. Extended absences must be reported to your dean. Students who miss more than six classes will automatically fail the course.
Tardy students show a lack of respect for themselves, their fellow students, and their instructor, as do students who come to class unprepared. Repeated instances of coming to class late or unprepared will be treated as absences. If you come to class without your textbook more than once, you will also be marked as absent.
Evaluation of Student Performance:
Midterm Test 20%
Class participation/written responses 15%
OED Work 15%
Writing Project/Critical Questions 30%
Final exam 20%
Course Objectives:
1. We will be reading selections written in a range of genres between 1580 and 1670, addressing the three identified topics (sex, death, and/or salvation). Our focal point will be the poetry and prose of John Donne who wrote on all three topics sometimes in the same work. Consideration will also be given, however, to the writings of Donne's contemporaries who seemed, at times, to be equally preoccupied with these themes.
2. As we read the poetry and prose, we will try to discover links to the literary past as well as ways in which these writers were breaking with tradition both in form and content. We will practice critical reading and writing skills, and students completing this course should have a better understanding of the Christian beliefs underlying the devotional literature of the seventeenth century. In the first part of the course, we will try out feminist, deconstructionist, and reader-response readings of the poetry. Sprinkled throughout your packet, you will also find contemporary commentaries on the subjects of the seventeenth-century works, and we will make explicit connections to contemporary culture through a comparative reading of the "Meditations" from John Donne's Devotions and literature of AIDS.
3. I expect regular, frequent oral participation on the part of everyone enrolled in this class. I won't be looking for "correct" responses, but rather for ideas that we can work with as we attempt to interpret the readings. You can ask questions, respond to other people's ideas, suggest alternate views, even just wonder aloud. You will receive a grade (A-E) based on the frequency and depth of your participation both in class discussions, but also via the written responses due after the midterm. To earn a C, you must participate on average at least once per class.
4. To facilitate class discussions, approximately once a week after the midterm, you will come to class with a minimum of one typed page of response to one or more of the readings. If I don’t direct your response, it may consist of questions or simply a reaction to one or more of the assigned pieces.
5. Because our language has changed significantly in the past four hundred years, some of the vocabulary you will be reading will be unfamiliar, and some words which you think you recognize will have meanings you are unaware of. For this reason, two times early in the semester, you will be responsible for looking up the definitions of a single word from the assigned readings in the Oxford English Dictionary. I’ve suggested some fruitful possibilities, but you might also (obviously) look up words you don't know the meaning of. If your research yields only one or even just two definitions that make sense, move on to a different word for the purpose of this assignment. The OED may be accessed on line via the Library data bases, or in hard copy in the library reference section or in the English Department.
a) Identify the poem and author you are working with. Re-type the entire passage (sentence) in which the target word appears, placing the target word in bold print. Make sure you understand how your target word is functioning (i.e., part of speech).
b) Copy the most obvious definition of the target word first (including the date in which the word came to be used in this way) and paraphrase the passage to provide a literal interpretation. Provide as much of a summary of the rest of poem as you need in order for your paraphrase to make sense in the larger context of the poem.
c) Proceed to provide all definitions of the word which seem like they might have relevance to the work under discussion along with the date at which the word first came to have the definition(s) you’ve listed. Clearly, only those definitions which entered the language prior to about 1620 will have any bearing for us, unless the author in whose work the word appears was the first to use this word in the new way.
d) For each definition you list, be sure to indicate how each one affects or changes our interpretation of the work in which the word appears. Does the variant meaning make the passage more positive or less? Take a special note of definitions that are used in specific fields (law, religion, political realm) and theorize as to why the speaker would choose a word with such connotations? Does the variant definition in any way undermine the original interpretation you provided? Or does it reinforce that interpretation? Pay attention to slight differences. Be clear, specific, and thorough in your explanation.
6. Writing Requirement: This is a Writing Intensive course. By the end of the course, you will have written well over fifteen typed pages and will have been given a chance to do serious revision in response to my comments. For your major writing project, you will respond to a series of critical questions about a work you choose (from a list I provide). You will have the choice of working on this project all along, or turning in a completed project at the end of the semester.
7. Academic Dishonesty: You are in school to develop your own ability to think. Academic integrity is of the utmost importance. Any type of academic dishonesty, including plagiarism, will be immediately reported to the Provost's office in accordance with the procedure outlined in Chapter 340 of the College Handbook. You will also be handing in all articles referred to in your paper, so you will need to refresh your paraphrasing skills to avoid plagiarism.
If you are a student with a disability and wish to request accommodations, please contact the Office of Student Disability Services located in B-40 Van Hoesen Hall or call (607) 753-2066 for an appointment. Information regarding your disability will be treated in a confidential manner. Because many accommodations require early planning, requests for accommodations should be made as early as possible.
ENG 438 Syllabus Bracketed numbers in the left hand margin refer to meditations by Thomas Traherne found at the back of your packet beginning on p. 142. You will also find contemporary “meditations” throughout the packet. On days they are assigned, we will begin class with a brief discussion of the day's meditation. Feel free to respond to the meditations as well as the other assigned works. Numbers in parenthesis below correspond to page numbers in your packet.
T 8/28 Introductions / Biographical information on John Donne
SEX (Death and Salvation)
R 8/30 Roots of Anti-feminist Tradition and “Against Marrying”
Donne: Elegy XVII "Variety" (10)
T 9/4 Donne:"Communitie" (15)
[2:66] "Confined Love" OED work
Lovelace: "The Scrutiny"
Possible words: communitie, confined, scrutiny, ill, prove, fancy, bent, rests, use, betrays, last, waste, devours, meat, kernel, false, weak, know, jointures, ship, deal, possess, fond, tedious, dote, sated
[2:68] R 9/6 Clay Hunt's essay on Elegy 19 (16) /Donne: Elegy XIX, "To His Mistress Going to Bed" (24)
T 9/11 Donne: "The Good Morrow" (25)
"The Sunne Rising" OED work
"The Canonization"
Possible words: country, get, plain, rest, declining, fool, motions, pedantic, rags, mine, lie, play, alchemy, contracted, palsy, fly, tapers, eagle, dove, phoenix, neutral, mysterious, hearse, legend, chronicle, sonnet, hymn, approve, rage, pattern
R 9/13 Suckling: Sonnets I & II (26)
Herrick: "Delight in Disorder"/"Upon Julia's Clothes"/"The Vine" (27-28)
Lovelace: "To Amarantha" (26)
T 9/18 Matthew 25:1-3 “The Parable of the Ten Virgins”(29)
Herrick: "Corinna's Going A-Maying" OED work
"To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time"
Marvell: "To His Coy Mistress"
Possible words: A-maying, profanation, beads, ark, tabernacle, sin, sloth, liberty, coy, rosebuds, tarry, spent, succeed, prime, fable, shade, delight, drowned, serves, vegetable, state, deserts, worms, quaint, transpires, fires, sport, devour, languish, strife
R 9/20 MIDTERM TEST Before you take the test, hand in your first, second, and third choice of literary work for Critical Questions project
DEATH (Salvation and Sex)
[1:8,9] T 9/25 Written response due: Minimum of one page typed in response to questions on Death (31). Normally your written responses will be due on Thursdays, but to start us off on the Death portion of the course, we’ll write for Tuesday. Just this one time, please write before you read the assignment.
Bacon: "Of Death" (33)
Notes on Donne’s Sermons (35)
“Expounding Riddles” / “The Inescapable Way of Death: The Hard Antithesis”
Donne: Sermon XV (38)
[1:19] R 9/27 Meditations: ”Why Would Anyone Believe in the Soul?” (54) / “Donne’s Black Soul”/“Donne and the Return Home”/
Donne: Sonnets “Oh my black Soule!” (57)
“Thou hast made me, and shall Thy work decay?”
“This is my play’s last scene”
“Death be not proud”
Prose on "Death" (selections from Donne’s sermons) (57)
[1:15] T 10/2 Elizabeth Brackley: “On my Boy Henry” (60)
Jane Cheyne: On the death of my Deare Sister”
Jonson: "On My First Daughter"
"On My First Son"
Katherine Philips: "On the Death of My First and Dearest Child, Hector Philips"
Mary Carey: Three poems
Meditations “Full Pantries Empty Hearts” / “Inescapable Way of Death: On a Day Yet to Be”
[1:18] R 10/4Taylor: The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying, Ch. 1-3 (67-73a) No written response will be due; instead choose a passage from the reading which you find particularly meaningful or provocative, and respond to it in writing. Be prepared to read your passage aloud in class and to share your response with your classmates (2-3 minute each).
*Hand in initial answer to Critical Questions #1 and #2 (initial explication) (typed) along with bibliographic information for and/or copies of two shorter outside sources*
[1:22] T 10/9 Herbert: “Time” (75)
“Death”
“Life”
In class: Overview of Christian world view
SALVATION (Sex and Death)
[1:2] R 10/11 Written response: tackle the questions on Moral Absolutes/Cultural Relativity (76)
Donne: “Wretched Man” (77)
“Sin”
“If poisonous minerals, and if that tree”
Meditations “Questions Asked: Cultural Relativism” / “Manson’s Motto” (80-83)
Pick up handout “Evolution Explains Life” in class today
[1:27, 28, 29] T 10/16 Note: this week again, your written response will be due on Tuesday. The questions for response directly precede “Scientific Background for Donne’s Sermon” in your packet on p. 48.
Except for “Evolution Explains Life,” today’s readings are earlier in the packet directly after Donne’s Sermon XV on death. Please read the “Sermon” and other Donne selections last even though they precede the other readings in the notebook.
“Evolution Explains Life, So God Isn’t Needed” (handout)
Scientific Background for Donne’s Sermon (49)
Meditations: “Has Science Disproved Religion?”/ “Blessed by Wonder”/ The Atheist’s Crutch”
Donne: Sermon XXIII (42) / God in All Things” (47) / “The Books of God”
R 10/18 Donne: Sonnets: “As due by many titles I resign” (84)
“I am a little world made cunningly”
“Batter my heart, three-person’d God”
"A Hymn to God the Father"
T 10/23 Browne: Religio Medici, from The First Part (85)
Meditations: “Shipwrecked Faith”(91)
No written response due this week
[1:58, 2:6] R 10/25 Donne: “Good Friday, Riding Westward” (92)
Sonnet: “What if this present were the world’s last night?”
Herbert: “The Agony”
“Redemption”
Meditations: “The Beauty of the Cross” (93)
T 10/30 Notes on George Herbert (94)
Herbert: “Love [III]”
“Easter Wings”
“Easter”
“The Dawning”
‘Eliza’: “The Lover”
Meditations on the Resurrection, ending with “He is” (97-100)
Last day to hand in drafts of up to three answers to Critical Questions for feedback. Note: If you think you are going to need individual help with your project at any point before the project is due, you must ask for that assistance before this date.
R 11/1 Kate Frost Article (101)
Donne: Meditations 1, 2, 3, 4 (107-108)
Anonymous: "An Infected Planet" (109)
Written response due
T 11/6 Holleran: “The Fear” (110)
Donne: Meditations 5, 6, 7, 12 (116-117)
“I got out of bed for this?”(115)
R 11/8 Donne: Meditations 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 (118)
“Painful Lessons” (121)
Burrell: “The Scarlet Letter, revisited” (read only up to October 16th entry) (125-129)
“John Donne, Redone" (122)
Written response due
[1:41, 43; 2:66] T 11/13 Burrell: Finish "The Scarlet Letter, revisited" (129-131)
Donne: Meditations 21, 22, 23 (132)
Meditations: “Interpreting Alienation,” / “The Sanctity of Connectedness” / “All You Need is Love?” (135 ff)
R 11/15 Reading on Meditation from Celebration of Discipline (14-141)
Traherne: Centuries of Meditations, “The Second Century,” 7, 67, 81
“The Third Century,” 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16, 17
Meditation: “God’s Pleasure: (147)
No response due
T 11/20 You must hand in or email me completed responses to at least four of the six Critical Questions by this date.
THANKSGIVING BREAK
[2:67, 81] T 11/27 Edson: W;t Answer study questions for written response (138)
In-class: View three TV interviews of leading actress of Broadway Wit; See final study question.
R 11/29 Begin the video W;t (No written response due) / “Running From God, Part I”
T 12/4 Finish viewing the film; discussion
R 12/6 In-class editing of Critical Questions
F 12/7 No later than 9:00 a.m. in my mailbox or under my door:
• Edited project due with editing level error sheet attached
• Clean copy of project with original assignment sheet attached (for portfolio)
Take Home Exam is Due No later than Tuesday, December 11
Questions to Think About During the Semester
1. Why are any of these seventeenth-century works important to us today?
2. What do these works have to with my life?
3. What can the seventeenth-century works teach us? What might we be able to teach those who lived in the seventeenth-century?
4. How do these works compare to other literature?
5. Why do the works focus so heavily on love, sex, death, religion?
6. Do these writers seem depressed? obsessed?
7. How have religious beliefs changed? Why? Are the changes for the better? Why or why not?
8. How can we know whether or not we’ve interpreted a work correctly?
9. How do we account for the variation in voice (attitudes, tone, subject matter) in Donne’s poems?
Critical Questions
1. Answer the following reader-response prompts: a) What was your first response to the text? What attracted you to it? b) What feelings, memories, or associations did you experience as you read it? (Explain briefly.) c) What specific questions did you want answered regarding the work before you began your outside research? Did you find satisfactory answers to those questions? (6)
2. Provide a sentence-by sentence explication/paraphrase of your poem. Block indent each sentence before you explicate it. Discuss any particularly significant choices in diction along the way, referring to the Oxford English Dictionary to uncover various layers of meaning which might affect the readers’ understanding of the poem. Do not rely on other secondary sources. (15)
3. What non-seventeenth-century work (literary or non-literary, popular or classic) does the piece bring to mind? Why? In what specific ways are the works similar? How do they differ? Discuss at least two of the following elements: form, tone, imagery, outcome. Support your claims with specific references. Attach a copy of the work discussed. (7)
4. Examine three poetic devices (e.g. metaphysical conceit, allusion, paradox, hyperbole, irony, tone, personification, metaphor, simile, imagery, sound patterns–for this last, you would discuss the significance of the rhyme scheme and prominent alliteration, assonance, or consonance, as they have bearing on meaning, etc.) and discuss their significance in relationship to the work as a whole. (9)
5. Read a journal article (obtained from the library or via ILL) and a web-based article about your work or the author’s work in general, and a full-length book which addresses your author, this particular work, and/or seventeenth-century literature in general. Attach copies of the two shorter works you read. Then do/answer the following:
a) Provide full bibliographic information for all three sources using MLA format. (3)
b) For the three critical pieces, summarize each critic’s position or argument. (9)
c) How exactly did reading the secondary sources affect your understanding of your chosen work? Which critical view do you find most helpful? Why? (3)
6 . Share your work to a non-literature major, and then do the following:
a) Tell me a little bit about the person’s background and level of familiarity with poetry in general. b) Describe in detail the steps you took in teaching the poem (background info you provided, study questions, etc.).
c) Describe your “student’s” initial and secondary responses to the poem.
d) Write about what you learned (about the work, about yourself, about teaching, about the other person, etc.) by doing this activity. (10)
Assembling your Answers to the Critical Questions
1. Your first page should be a copy of the work you will be considering, preferably double spaced. Be sure to include the author’s name somewhere on the page as well.
2. Please re-copy in bold each set of questions you are answering. That way you and I will both have a quick way to reference what you are supposed to be addressing in your answer. Be sure to answer each question within the larger categories.
3. Please note that the number of points each section is worth is identified in parenthesis after the question. You will receive points based on the thoroughness and depth of your answer.
4. Be sure to attach copies of all outside works you refer to. You MUST have attachments for questions 3 and 5. You may have additional attachments for number 6. Place the attachments immediately after the answers in which you refer to the works.
5. Please take the in-class editing seriously. I will take off two points for each different type of repeated error after the first three errors of any kind.
7. Number all of your pages.
8. Use standard fonts and pitch (Times New Roman 12, if possible).
9. Attach the assignment sheet and the Editing Level Error sheet to the back of your project.
Note: You have nearly all semester to work on this project, and, frankly, I expect you to do so. If you plan ahead, I will provide you with feedback on your responses to up to three of the Critical Questions ahead of time, so that you can get a sense as to whether you are moving in the right direction. Typed drafts with all necessary attachments may be handed in any time before October 31. .
I am happy to make sure that you are on the right track with your poem, but I will only do so if you plan ahead (see instructions on syllabus for various due dates for feedback). If you wait until the last week or two of the semester to work on the project and then suddenly realize that you don’t know what you are doing, it will be too late at that point for me to help you get back on track.
This writing project is due on the last day of class. We will have an in-class editing session on the day the project is due. Attendance at the editing session is mandatory. Students who fail to attend the in-class editing session with a completed, typed draft of their project in hand forfeit the possibility of receiving an A for the project. All edited drafts of the project are due in my mailbox or under my office door WITH THE CHECKLIST AND EDITING LEVEL ERROR SHEET attached by 9:00 a.m. Friday, December 7. Anything handed in after that time will be downgraded one-third. Papers handed in after the 7th will be downgraded a full letter grade for each day they are late. Plan ahead to avoid disaster.
PAPER CHECKLIST
1. Before I offer explication of a passage, I have quoted the passage I’m about to consider.
2. All words I am using as words (i.e., words I’m defining) are placed in quotation marks, and for all OED definitions, I’ve provided the year in which the word was first used in a particular way. I’ve checked to make sure the definition I’ve referenced is for the same part of speech as the word in the literary source I’m working with.
3. The first time I cite an author, I offer a full introduction (full name and title of work). When the context makes clear who the author is, I do not include the author’s name in my parenthetical documentation. End punctuation for quotations follows the parentheses except in the case of block indentation (see #8 below).
4. I’ve worked hard to come up with a catchy introduction and have verified that I have an arguable thesis where required (you can state a clear and arguable counter thesis)!
5. I’ve distinguished between the author (who crafts a poem) and the speaker (who conveys the ideas in a poem).
6. I have introduced every quotation in some way; e.g., “According to Hawthorne’s narrator, `[quotation]’” (42).
7. I have used the MLA parenthetical style to document my sources (no commas between author and page number, no “line” for poems). All evidence is, in fact, documented.
8. I have block indented quotations of poems that are longer than three lines (and prose quotations of longer than four lines) and have dropped the quotation marks. End punctuation is placed BEFORE the parenthetical documentation for all block indentation. For short quotations of poetry that are not block indented, I have indicated line endings with a slash (/) mark.
9. Any time that I have a comma or period and a quotation mark next to each other, the comma or period come INSIDE the quotation marks (e.g., [,”] and [.”]).
10. I have not committed plagiarism or any type of academic dishonesty.
11. I have included a Works Cited page in proper MLA format (hang indent entries).
12. I have used literary present text for any literary analysis.
13. Where I have used dashes, I have used two—rather than one, which would indicate a hyphenated word, rather than a dash.
14. I have underlined or italicized book titles and enclosed chapter, poem, and essay titles in quotation marks. Movie, television series, and magazine titles are also underlined or italicized.
15. I have followed the word “this” with a noun and have eliminated expletive constructions (there is, there are, it is, etc.).
16. I have run my paper through a spell check program.
17. I have numbered my pages in the top right-hand corner with the exception of the first page and the Works Cited page.
18. I have placed my name, course number, and date on the upper left-hand side of my paper and have kept a copy of my paper.
19. I have secured my paper with a staple or paperclip and have attached this sheet, the grading sheet, and the editing level error sheet.
20. I HAVE PROOFREAD MY PAPER!
NOTE: No matter how brilliant your ideas are, if they are poorly packaged, I cannot appreciate them. In a final draft, HOW you package what you say counts just as much as WHAT you say. I wouldn’t listen to a CD with skips in it, no matter how great the music was. I won’t read your paper (and will give it a failing grade), if five or more of the above items are not addressed. These requirements are not difficult. You simply have to care enough to address them.
ATTACH THIS PAGE TO YOUR CRITICAL QUESTIONS PROJECT!!
Editing Level Errors - Masselink
Pronoun Reference (Ch. 10)
Subject-Verb Agreement (Ch. 11)
Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement (Ch. 11)
Sentence Fragments (Ch. 13)
Fused Sentences, Comma Splices (Ch. 14)
Wordiness, Expletive Constructions (Ch. 16)
Diction
Spelling / Homonyms
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Commas (Ch. 14)
a) with coordinating conjunctions in compound sentences
b) after introductory words, phrases, and clauses
c) between items in series
d) with coordinate adjectives
e) setting off extra information or transition words
f) setting off quoted words
g) with dates, names, addresses
h) unnecessary commas
Semi-Colons (Ch. 25)
Colons (Ch. 26)
Apostrophes (Ch. 27)
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Capitalization (Ch. 30)
Dangling and Misplaced Modifiers (Ch. 15)
Parallelism (Ch. 18)
Hyphenation / Dashes (Ch. 22, 29)
Mechanics (Spacing, numbers, typos)
Quotation Marks / Italics / Underlining (Ch. 28b, 30f)
Verb Usage / Tense
Pronoun Case (Ch. 9)