Syllabus HU 3540 – Major British Authors Fall 2014.doc

HU 3540 – Major British Authors: William Wordsworth and Percy Bysshe Shelley Fall 2014 Final: TBA Wordsworth? (disputed subject, artist unknown; c. 1803-1810); Portrait of Shelley by Alfred Clint (1819); Portrait of William Wordsworth by Benjamin Robert Haydon (National Portrait Gallery) Instructor: Dana Van Kooy Office: Walker 343 Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday, 1.00-2.30pm By Appointment Email: drvankoo@ Meeting Room: Walker 0134 Meeting Time: MWF: 12.05-12.55pm MTU Learning Goals: /assessment/program/university-learning-goals/ Focused learning goal for this course – Critical and Creative Thinking: Link to PDF or Canvas link Course Description: In this course we will be reading selections from the works of William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). Both writers lived and wrote during what we now refer to as the Romantic period. In fact, their works in many ways define this era, which is marked by the French Revolution, global warfare, Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the contest between conservative and radical politics and a powerful reform movement. While Wordsworth’s poetry is often associated with dancing daffodils, country walks, and the imaginative life of the mind, his writing also reflects a profound cultural anxiety and represents a critical voice that responds to this tempestuous era that is a gateway to our contemporary sense of modernity. Wordsworth and his contemporaries renovated English poetry, experimenting with its formal conventions and employing it to engage in philosophical and political debates. Wordsworth’s work in particular registers a struggle with a prevalent cultural despair and a hopelessness with the increasing commodification of material objects and peoples that accompanied Britain’s expanding empire. Wordsworth lived a full life, was a well-known poet, and waited to publish his magnum opus, The Prelude, posthumously in 1850, so that his