Course Description: This seminar will focus on the intertextual fabric that assimilates psycho-social factors and textual evidence for a culture obsessed with melancholy in nineteenth-century Britain. We will consider the ways in which theories about melancholia have been influenced by Romantic and Victorian thinking about this affect, and the reasons why melancholy is still associated today with a certain posturing or performative force to which we ascribe artistic genius. Perhaps most importantly we will analyze the differences between male and female melancholy in Victorian literature, and ask how gender inflects the use of melancholy as an expressive response to the question of individual will.

Book List:

Trilling & Bloom, Victorian Prose and Poetry (Oxford)

George Eliot, Mill on the Floss (any press)

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (any press)

Peter Gay, The Bourgeois Experience Vol I: Education of the Senses, (Oxford)

John Lechte, Julia Kristeva (Routledge)

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass (any press)

Xerox Packet: (It will be your responsibility to obtain the master copy from me to xerox.

Haight, George Eliot, ch. 4

Freud, "Mourning and Melancholia," "Transference Love"

Lacan, "The Mirror Stage"

Kristeva, Tales of Love, ch. 1 & 3, Black Sun, ch. 1, "On the Melancholic Imaginary"

Additional poetry by both Rossettis, Browning and Barrett Browning, "Cassandra" by Nightingale, and "Of Queens Gardens" by Ruskin.

Requirements:

(a) Discussion participation--you must come prepared to discuss the assigned reading. Oral reports will be followed by class discussion; class members will read the necessary material for the report and completed a journal entry before class.

(b) Journal--the journal will be collected at least twice during the semester. You will be required to write at least 3-5 pp. each week before class; entries should be thought of as reading responses and rough notes for a long paper--that is, as summary thoughts about readings, responses to prior class discussions, ideas about specific poems. The journal will be your best source of ideas for the final term paper.

(c) Oral Reports--these may be, but need not be, preparatory for the term paper. Each oral report will have a primary and a secondary presenter. The primary reporter researches the topic while the secondary presenter relates the material to the assigned texts: this means teamwork prior to class--do not work independently of each other. Both of you will be responsible for initiating and directing a class discussion; class members should be prepared to discuss the texts from their own reading in order to participate. The intent is to gradually develop a cultural nexus which literary texts both prescribed and inscribed. You may want to use handouts or other visuals--we can sign out VCRs and slide projectors.

(d) **You must hand in a copy of an informal (typed if possible)version of your notes and presentation on the day of your report (keep the original). Each presenter will be graded independently, but good teamwork will enhance your grade.

(e) **Each class member must do a primary and a secondary report.

(f) Short Paper--a 5 pg. intense reading of a short lyric. Details will be given 2/19

(g) Term Paper--a 15 pp. paper due the last day of class. It should grow out of your journal entries, and/or your oral reports. It should involve library research, and original readings of texts. You will need to include notes and bibliography, and adhere to either the MLA or Chicago style manual. Prospectus due 4/9

Office hours: Office hours will be available for study groups, work with oral report preparation, discussion of thesis topics, etc.

Grading: Your grade will be the product of the following percentages

• Participation 20 % (includes 5% for endurance)
• Oral Reports 25 %
• Short Paper 10 %
• Journals 20 %
• Final Paper 25 %

Syllabus:

( = no oral report due)

DATE	TOPICS	ASSIGNED READINGS
2/5	Intro: Victorianism and Melancholy
2/12	The melancholic hero	Peter Gay pp. 3-16, 45-68, Carlyle, "The Hero as Poet," Tennyson, "The Lotos Easters," "St. Simeon Stylites," "Tithonus"
2/19	Social possibilities for Women (oral reports begin)	Tennyson, "Lady of Shalott," "Mariana," "Maud"; E.B. Browning, "The Poet's Vow," "Mother and Poet," "Lay of the Brown Rosary"
2/26	Empire, the Raj, Crimea	Nightingale, "Cassandra"; Ruskin, "Of Queen's Gardens"; Lear, "Courtship of the Y-BB"; Tennyson, "Ulysses"; R.Browning, "Caliban..."; E.B. Browning , "Runaway Slave at PP"
3/5	Melancholy (short paper due)	Kristeva, Black Sun ch.1; "On the Melancholic Imaginary"; C. Rossetti, "Apple Gathering," "Portrait," "Endurance," "F...Antique," "Listening," "Lowest Place," "Sleeping..." "Better Resurrection"; Arnold, "Dover Beach"; Lechte, ch. 6
3/12	History and Historicizing (archaeology, antiquaries, museums, folklore, linguistics, societies for. . .)	Carlyle, Past & Present (bits), R. Browning, "My Last Duchess," "Bishop Orders..." "Andrea del Sarto"; C. Rossetti, "Monna Innominata"; E.B. Browning, "Romaunt of the Page"; Pater, "Renaissance"
3/19	Spring Break	(start reading Dickens!!)
3/26	Socialism and social (Bentham, Carlyle, Marx, Engels, Ruskin, Morris, Gaskell/Dissenters)	Carlyle, Sartar Resartus (bits) Arnold, "Function of Criticism"; Ruskin, "Roots of Honour"; Newman, "Idea of a Univ."(bits)
4/2	Social Economy (James & Harriet Martineau, Darwin, Malthus)	Tennyson, In Memoriam (bits); Swinburne ,"Ave Atque Vale," "Forsaken Garden"; Gay, ch.3 (226-77)
4/9	PreRaphaelite Brotherhood and Arts & Crafts Movement (**Prospectus for term)	D.G. Rossetti (all); Morris, "Beauty of Life" (essay), "Haystack in the Floods," "Near Avalon," "Riding..."; C. Rossetti, "Prince's P," "In an Artist's Studio"
4/16	Transference Love	Freud, "Transference Love"; Lacan, "Mirror Stage"; Carroll, Through the L-G; Lechte, ch.2
4/23	Bifurcation and Sexual Power	Gay, pp.144-68; Dickens, David Copperfield (first half)
4/30	con't. (Mill & Taylor)	Dickens, David Copperfield (second half)
5/7	Victorian Love	Kristeva, Tales of Love (ch.1,3); Lechte, ch.5; Eliot, Mill on the Floss (first third)
5/14	Industry and the Trade in Women (*** Journals due; Term paper due)	Haight (xerox); Eliot,Mill on the Floss (to end)