Professor Leah Price Spring 2002 Barker Ctr 103 [PLEASE NOTE ROOM CHANGE!] Country and city, realism and melodrama, anonymity and notoriety, modernity and nostalgia, the structure of narrative and the shape of society. For the sake of variety – and pacing – the longer fiction (The Mill on the Floss, David Copperfield, Middlemarch and Our Mutual Friend) will be interspersed with speeches, essays, reviews, letters, ghost stories and newspaper articles by and about these very different novelists.

This is a small seminar with emphasis on class discussion; preference is given to concentrators in English, History and Literature, Literature, History, and Women's Studies, but freshmen and non-concentrators with an interest in the subject may also be admitted.

Syllabus

4 Feb. Introduction
11 Feb. The Mill on the Floss (1860), Books 1-3
    *from George Eliot, Adam Bede, chapter 17
    *Dickens, “The Household Narrative,” Household Words, 30 March 1850
18 Feb. PRESIDENT'S DAY; The Mill on the Floss (complete)
     **SEMINAR DINNER AT PROFESSOR PRICE'S HOUSE (6:30).**
 RESPONSE DUE
25 Feb. David Copperfield (1850), chapters 1-18
4  Mar. NO CLASS [continue reading David Copperfield]
11 Mar.David Copperfield, complete
    *Mrs. [Sarah] Ellis, The Daughters of England.  Their Position in Society, Character and Responsibilities (1842), Chapter 4
    *S.T. Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, chapter 11 (1817)
 RESPONSE DUE
18 Mar.Middlemarch (1872), Books 1-3
     *From prospectus inserted in Part 6 Dombey and Son (March 1847)
     *"Charles Dickens and David Copperfield," Fraser's 42 (Dec. 1850)
SPRING BREAK
1 Apr. Middlemarch,  Books 4-6
     *Eliot, "Notes on Form in Art"
 RESPONSE DUE
8 Apr. Middlemarch, complete
15 Apr.Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (1865), Books 1-2
     *Samuel Smiles, from Self-Help (1859) (pp. 21-27)
 RESPONSE DUE
22 Apr. Our Mutual Friend, complete
     *Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (1857), 3-32
29 Apr. Eliot, The Lifted Veil
     *Dickens, Speech to the Newsvendors' Benevolent Association (9 May 1865)

* denotes a reading in the coursepack, available from Gnomon Copy

**To make up for the class missed on Mar. 4, there will be one extra class meeting at Professor Price's house (either on President's Day or another day of that week) for dinner and discussion of The Mill on the Floss.  This is provisionally scheduled for Monday 18 Feb. but may be moved if necessary to fit with seminar members' schedules.

Requirements: active participation in class discussion; four 2-pp. response papers to be posted on the seminar listserv; an 8-10-pp. final paper due by noon on May 13. Texts on order at the Coop:
The Mill on the Floss (Penguin)
David Copperfield (Penguin)
Middlemarch (Bantam)
Our Mutual Friend (Penguin)
The Lifted Veil (Oxford)

REQUIREMENTS:
--Active and informed contribution to class discussion: as a seminar, this class depends on members' commitment to keeping up with the (voluminous) reading.
–Four 2-pp. position papers due via email by 6:00 the Sunday evening before class; these will be posted on the class listserv (details to be circulated on Feb. 11).  The response papers are designed to spark discussion and may explore an aspect of the text that strikes you as interesting or puzzling, draw connections between the current week's reading and a text read earlier in the semester, or raise questions that you would like to develop in a final paper or to ask your classmates to address.  In order to give all members of the seminar the time to read each others' papers in preparation for discussion, the Sunday night deadline is absolute (no extensions under any circumstances). Response papers will not be individually graded, but will contribute to your grade for class discussion.
–Final paper: 8-10-pp., due by noon on May 13.

My office hours are Mondays 2-3 and Wednesdays 4-5 in Barker 067; no appointment is needed.  All members of the seminar are encouraged to come to my office hours at least once in the semester, either to discuss paper ideas, to follow up on questions raised in class, or just to talk more about any other aspect of the novels that interests them.  If you can't make my scheduled office hours, please email me to set up an appointment.  I'm also happy to meet more informally for lunch or dinner at your House; feel free to get in touch if you'd like to talk over a meal.