English 4073 / 5213 – Studies in Sixteenth-century Literature:
New Criticism and the Verbal Icon vs. New Historicism and the Poetics of Culture
Fall 2006

Professor: Dr. Richard Cunningham
Office: BAC 431          Office Hours:

Telephone: 585-1345

 

Course Description:

In this course students will become conversant in the vocabularies of New Criticism, through the works of Cleanth Brooks, E. M. W. Tillyard, and others, and New Historicism, through the works of Stephen Greenblatt, Louis Montrose, Don Wayne, and others.  To facilitate understanding of these two paradigms of critical engagement, students will read from the literature that inspired both: the poetry, drama, and prose of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.  While being encouraged to understand the shortcomings of each approach, students will also be encouraged to explore how each can inform their own, and our communal, understanding and appreciation of early modern literature.  Finally, students will be invited to speculate about the peculiar fecundity of the English Renaissance for the critics who have developed, to paraphrase Richard Levin’s title, “new readings of old texts.”

 

Course Requirements and Grading:

 

A: Keeping up with the weekly reading assignments

(10%)

B: An annotated bibliography of all course reading—assigned and research

(30%)

C1: Scholarly presentation and paper

(30%)

C2: Teaching preparation, class, & response

(20%)

D: Reading response to CDRom & online editions of Foxe's Book of Martyrs

(10%)

E: Plagiarism

(-100%)

 

 

A: I will administer sporadic reading tests throughout the term.  If discussion seems to be particularly uninformed during any given class I may interrupt the class to administer a reading test.
 

(20%)

B: Your annotated bibliography will be graded against the expectations described on the Cornell University Library website, at <http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/research/skill28.htm>. Specifically, I will be looking for work that conforms to the description of an annotation found there, viz. “The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited. . . . Annotations are descriptive and critical; they expose the author’s point of view, clarity and appropriateness of expression, and authority.”

Due November 27.
 

(20%)

C1: Once during the course of the term you will be required to present a 15 – 20 minute paper that sparks discussion and improves everyone’s understanding of the essay on which your presentation is based, and that enables you to lead the class in discussion of a poem of your selection from The Oxford Book of Sixteenth-Century Verse.  For this assignment, envision yourself as a scholar speaking to scholars with a similar but not an identical background.  The discussion of the poem may enter into your paper presentation, but I expect the focus of the presentation to be on the essay assigned as reading for the day.  Leading class discussion on the poem should mostly follow your presentation; it should not constitute your presentation.

    The presentation / paper split will be roughly 50 / 50, but in the event you do a very good job of one and only a marginal job of the other I reserve the right to weight more heavily the side you excelled on.  However, the decision will be mine, so do not make the mistake of thinking you can write a weak paper and make up for it with a stellar presentation, or vice versa.  I may decide to let you hoist yourself on your own petard, so I recommend you put your best effort into every aspect of the course.

     In the presentation you will be graded not only on your ability to clarify difficult aspects of what we will all have read, but also on your ability to raise questions and concerns, and your ability to investigate (or at least consider) the implications of what we have read for the study of c16th literature and for our own critical practice.  You will be graded on your ability to present a clearly articulated paper within 15 – 20 minutes.  If you run over 20 minutes, your grade will suffer a great deal.

Written submission is due the day you speak to the class.

 

(30%)

C2: Once during the course of the term you will be required to teach one of the essays that is required reading for that day’s class.  You should approach this task differently than you approach the presentation described above.  For this assignment I expect you to fully adopt the role of teacher in an institutional setting; i.e. envision yourself as the professor and the rest of us as your class.  You have assigned this essay to be read, and now your task is to come into the classroom and make sure everyone grasps the essay’s thesis, the way it makes its argument (what does it assume, what approach does it seem to have implicitly adopted, how self-reflexive is it, what political position does it assume, does it openly advocate this position, is it even aware of it, does it suffer from any internal contradictions, etc.?), the validity or invalidity of its conclusions, the way it fits into the course as a whole, its implications for c16th (or other) literature or for other critical discourses, etc.  In addition to a copy of the notes you work from in order to teach the essay, you are required to submit a two page self-assessment of “your class”; what did you learn, how well did the rest of us learn from you, what will you do differently in future, etc.? 

    Your grade for this assignment will weigh more heavily in favour of what happens in the classroom, but the written component is also important and I will expect to see an orderly, coherent, and detailed class outline, and a thoughtful, self-reflexive assessment.

Written submission is due two class days after you teach.

 

(20%)

D: Acadia's Vaughan Memorial Library has a facsimile on CDRom of the 1583 edition of John Foxe's Book of Martyrs.  The Humanities Research Institute at the University of Sheffield hosts an online Variorum edition.  My own research focuses on the experience of reading, especially in electronic environments.  Thus, I am acutely interested in your experience of reading this important c16th text in two of its first c21st manifestations.  To this end, I will have you sign a form agreeing, should you agree, to allow me to use your written observations in my own work (you will be invited to indicate whether you want me to use your name or not should I decide to use your words).  Even if you deny me permission to refer to your work you are still required to complete and submit this assignment in order to earn a grade for this course.

Please download and complete the form to which this link will take you as you read David Newcombe & Michael Pidd's electronic edition of the Book of Martyrs, and the online Variorum edition hosted at the University of Sheffield.  Return the form to me via email no later than December 4.

Because Acadia owns only one copy of the CDRom Book of Martyrs, the library limits borrowing privileges for this item to only one day.  Therefore, I am going to circulate a sign-up sheet which I will post on-line so that we can all see at a glance who should have the disk, and when.

Due December 4.

 

 

E: If I catch you in any plagiarism, you will fail the course with a grade of 0.  The potential punishment far outweighs any potential gain, so do not plagiarize.

(-100%)

 

English 4073 / 5213 – Fall 2006

 

Sept. 6: Introductions, quiz, discussion

Sept. 11: Introduction to New Criticism (Presented by: Cunningham) ; Thomas Lord Vaux's "The Pleasures of Thinking" (79)& the anonymously penned "The lowest trees have tops" (188)

Sept. 13: Introduction to New Historicism & Cultural Materialism (Presented by: Cunningham)

Sept. 18: Eagleton, Terry.  “Introduction: What is Literature?” Literary Theory: An Introduction.  Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983: 1 – 16. (Presented by: ) ; and Ransom, John Crowe.  “Criticism, Inc.”  Twentieth-century Literary Criticism: A Reader.  Ed. David Lodge.  New York: Longman, 1972 : 228 - 39. (Presented by: )

Sept. 20: Eagleton, Terry.  “The Rise of English.”  Literary Theory: An Introduction.  Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983: 17 – 53. (Presented by: )

Sept. 25: Gallagher, Catherine.  “The History of Literary Criticism.”  Daedalus  126.1 (Winter 1997): 133 – 53. (Presented by: ) ; and Dollimore, Jonathan.  “Introduction: Shakespeare, cultural materialism and the new historicism.”  Political Shakespeare.  2nd ed. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994: 2 – 17. (Presented by: )

Sept. 27: Levin, Richard.  “Readings and Approaches.”  New Readings vs. Old Texts.  Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1979. (Presented by: ) ; and Booker, M. Keith.  “The New Criticism.”  A Practical Introduction to Literary Theory and Criticism.  NY: Longman, 1996: 13 – 25. (Presented by: )

Oct. 2: Cain, William.  “The Institutionalization of the New Criticism.”  MLN 97.5 (Dec. 1982): 1100 - 20. (Presented by: ) ; and Arnold, Matthew.  “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time.”  Ed. A. Dwight Culler.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961: 237 – 58.  (Presented by: )

Oct. 4: Wellek, Renι.  “The Attack on Literature.”  The Attack on Literature and Other Essays.  Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1982: 3 – 18. (Presented by: ) ; and Wellek, Renι.  “Literature, Fiction, and Literariness.”  The Attack on Literature and Other Essays.  Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1982: 19 – 32. (Presented by: )

Oct. 9: Thanksgiving

Oct. 11: No class

Oct. 16: Althusser, Louis.  “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.”  Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays.  Trans. Ben Brewster.  New York: Monthly Review P, 1971: 127 - 86.  (Presented by: )

Oct. 18: White, Hayden.  “The Historical Text as Literary Artifact.”  Critical Theory since 1965.  ed. Hazard Adams and Leroy Searle.  Tallahassee: Florida State UP, 1986: 395 – 407. (Presented by: ) ; and Geertz, Clifford.  “Art as a Cultural System.”    MLN  91.6 (December 1976): 1473 – 1499. (Presented by: )

Oct. 23: Brooks, Cleanth.  “The Heresy of Paraphrase.”  The Well-wrought Urn.  192 – 214. (Presented by: ) ; and Brooks, Cleanth.  “The Language of Paradox.”  The Well-wrought Urn.  3 – 21. (Presented by: ) ; and Brooks, Cleanth.  “What Does Poetry Communicate?”  The Well-wrought Urn.  67 – 79. (Presented by: )

Oct. 25: Geertz, Clifford.  “Thick Description.”  The Interpretation of Cultures.  New York: Basic Books, 1973: 3 – 30. (Presented by: ) ; and Greenblatt, Stephen.  “Invisible Bullets.”   Political Shakespeare  Eds. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield.  2nd ed.  Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994: 18 - 47.  (Presented by: )

Oct. 30: Greenblatt, Stephen.  “Towards a Poetics of Culture.”  The New Historicism  ed. H. Aram Veeser.  New York: Routledge, 1989: 1 – 14. (Presented by: ) ; and Hart, Jonathan.  “New Historical Shakespeare: Reading as Political Ventriloquy.”  English: The Journal of the English Association 42.174 (Autumn 1993): 193 – 219. (Presented by: )

Nov. 1: Booker, M. Keith.  “Foucauldian Literary Criticism.”  A Practical Introduction to Literary Theory and Criticism.  NY: Longman, 1996: 119 – 133. (Presented by: )

Nov. 6: Eagleton, Terry.  “Conclusion: Political Criticism.” Literary Theory: An Introduction.  Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983: 194 – 217. (Presented by: ) ; and Sinfield, A.  “Introduction: Reproductions, interventions.”  Political Shakespeare.  Eds. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield.  2nd ed.  Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994: 154 – 7, & Sinfield, Alan.  “Give an account of Shakespeare and Education . . .”  Political Shakespeare. 2nd ed.  Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994: 158 – 81. (Presented by: )

Nov. 8: Wellek, Renι.  “New Criticism Pro et Contra.”  Critical Inquiry  4.4 (Summer, 1978): 611 - 24. (Presented by: ) and Wellek, Renι.  “Poetics, Interpretation, and Criticism.”  The Attack on Literature and Other Essays.  Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1982: 33 - 47. (Presented by: )

Nov. 13: Brown, P.  “’This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine’: The Tempest and the discourse of colonialism.”  Political Shakespeare.  2nd ed. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994: 48 – 71. (Presented by: ) ; and Clausen, Christopher.  “Reading Closely Again.”  Commentary 103.2 (Feb 1997): 54 – 7. (Presented by: )

Nov. 15: Gillies, John.  “The Figure of the New World in The Tempest.”  “The Tempest” and its Travels.  Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2000: 180 - 200.  (Presented by: )

Nov. 20: Montrose, Louis.  “Professing the Renaissance: The Poetics and Politics of Culture.”    The New Historicism  ed. H. Aram Veeser.  New York: Routledge, 1989: 15 – 36. (Presented by: ) ; and Green, Daniel.  “Literature Itself: The New Criticism and Aesthetic Experience.”  Philosophy and Literature 27 (2003): 62 – 79. (Presented by: )

Nov. 22: Tillyard, E. M. W.  “Introductory,” and “Order,” pp. 3 - 17. The Elizabethan World Picture.  New York: Vintage Books, 1959. (Presented by: ) ; Tillyard, E. M. W.  “Sin,” and “The Chain of Being,” pp. 18 - 36. The Elizabethan World Picture.  New York: Vintage Books, 1959. (Presented by: )

Nov. 27:  Sinfield, Alan.  “Royal Shakespeare: . . .”  Political Shakespeare.  Eds. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield.  2nd ed.  Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994: 182 – 205.  (Presented by: )

Nov. 29:  Reading Foxe's Book of Martyrs.  Discussion.

Dec: 4:  Review / Evaluations.

No Exam.


 

Required Reading

Recommended Reading

Althusser, Louis.  “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.”  Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays.  Trans. Ben Brewster.  New York: Monthly Review P, 1971: 127 - 86.

Arnold, Matthew.  “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time.”  Ed. A. Dwight Culler.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961: 237 – 58.

Arnold, Matthew.  “Literature and Science.”  Ed. A. Dwight Culler.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961:  381 -96.

Booker, M. Keith.  “Foucauldian Literary Criticism.”  A Practical Introduction to Literary Theory and Criticism.  NY: Longman, 1996: 119 – 133.

Booker, M. Keith.  “The New Criticism.”  A Practical Introduction to Literary Theory and Criticism.  NY: Longman, 1996: 13 – 25.

Brooks, Cleanth.  “The Heresy of Paraphrase.”  The Well-wrought Urn.  192 – 214.

Brooks, Cleanth.  “The Language of Paradox.”  The Well-wrought Urn.  3 – 21.

Brooks, Cleanth.  “What Does Poetry Communicate?”  The Well-wrought Urn.  67 – 79.

Brown, P.  “’This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine’: The Tempest and the discourse of colonialism.”  Political Shakespeare.  2nd ed. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994: 48 – 71.

Cain, William.  “The Institutionalization of the New Criticism.”  MLN 97.5 (Dec. 1982): 1100 - 20.

Clausen, Christopher.  “Reading Closely Again.”  Commentary 103.2 (Feb 1997): 54 – 7.

Dollimore, Jonathan.  “Introduction: Shakespeare, cultural materialism and the new historicism.”  Political Shakespeare.  2nd ed. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994: 2 – 17.

Eagleton, Terry.  “Conclusion: Political Criticism.” Literary Theory: An Introduction.  Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983: 194 – 217.

Eagleton, Terry.  “Introduction: What is Literature?” Literary Theory: An Introduction.  Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983: 1 – 16.

Eagleton, Terry.  “The Rise of English.”  Literary Theory: An Introduction.  Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983: 17 – 53.

Foxe, John.  Facsimile of John Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1583, Actes and Monuments.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001.  CDRom.

Gallagher, Catherine.  “The History of Literary Criticism.”  Daedalus  126.1 (Winter 1997) : 133 – 53.

Geertz, Clifford.  “Art as a Cultural System.”    MLN  91.6 (December 1976): 1473 – 1499.

Geertz, Clifford.  “Thick Description.”  The Interpretation of Cultures.  New York: Basic Books, 1973: 3 – 30.

Green, Daniel.  “Literature Itself: The New Criticism and Aesthetic Experience.”  Philosophy and Literature 27 (2003): 62 – 79.

Gallagher, Catherine.  “The History of Literary Criticism.”  Daedalus  126.1 (Winter 1997) : 133 – 53.

Barker, Francis.  The Tremulous Private Body: Essays on subjection.  New York: Methuen, 1984.

Belsey, Catherine.  The Subject of Tragedy: Identity and Difference in Renaissance Drama.  New York: Methuen, 1985.

Brooks, Cleanth, and Robert Penn Warren.  Understanding Poetry.  Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1938.  3rd ed. 1960.

Dollimore, Jonathan.  Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology, and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries.  New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1984.

Foucault, Michel.  Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.  Trans. Alan Sheridan.  New York: Vintage Books, 1979.

Foucault, Michel.  Language, Counter-memory, Practice.  Ed. Donald Bouchard.  Trans. Donald Boucahrd & Sherry Simon.  Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1977.

Foucault, Michel.  The Order of Things.  New York: Vintage Books, 1994.  Orig. pub'd as Les mosts et les choses 1966.

Gallagher, Catherine, and Stephen Greenblatt.  “Introduction.”  Practicing New Historicism  Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2000: 1 – 19. 

Greenblatt, Stephen. Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture.  New York: Routledge, 1990.

Greenblatt, Stephen.  Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare.  Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980.

Greenblatt, Stephen.  Shakespearean Negotiations: The circulation of social Energy in Renaissance England.  Berkeley: U of California P, 1988. 

Hoy, David Couzens, ed.  Foucault: A Critical Reader.  Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1986.

Emrys Jones' Introduction to the course text.

Lodge, David, ed.  20th Century Literary Criticism: A Reader.  New York: Longman, 1972.

Luminarium.org 16th century Renaissance English Literature (strongly recommended; browse the entire site; read the Introduction)

Rackin, Phyllis.  Stages of History: Shakespeare's English Chronicles.  Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1990. 

Ransom, John Crowe.  The New Criticism.  Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 1979.  Orig. pub'd 1941.

Richards, I. A.  Practical Criticism.  London : K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1930.

Richards, I. A.  Principles of Literary Criticism.  New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1925.  Rptd. 1985.

Thomas, Brook.  The New Historicism and Other Old-Fashioned Topics.  Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991.

Veeser, H. Aram.  “Introduction.”  The New Historicism  ed. H. Aram Veeser.  New York: Routledge, 1989: ix – xvi.

Williams, Raymond.  Marxism and Literature.  New York: Oxford UP, 1977.

Geertz, Clifford.  “Art as a Cultural System.”    MLN  91.6 (December 1976): 1473 – 1499.

Geertz, Clifford.  “Thick Description.”  The Interpretation of Cultures.  New York: Basic Books, 1973: 3 – 30.

Gillies, John.  “The Figure of the New World in The Tempest.”  “The Tempest” and its Travels.  Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2000: 180 - 200.

Green, Daniel.  “Literature Itself: The New Criticism and Aesthetic Experience.”  Philosophy and Literature 27 (2003): 62 – 79.

Greenblatt, Stephen.  “Invisible Bullets.”   Political Shakespeare  Eds. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield.  2nd ed.  Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994: 18 - 47.

Greenblatt, Stephen.  “Towards a Poetics of Culture.”  The New Historicism  ed. H. Aram Veeser.  New York: Routledge, 1989: 1 – 14.

Hart, Jonathan.  “New Historical Shakespeare: Reading as Political Ventriloquy.”  English: The Journal of the English Association 42.174 (Autumn 1993): 193 – 219.

Levin, Richard.  “Readings and Approaches.”  New Readings vs. Old Texts  Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1979.

Montrose, Louis.  “Professing the Renaissance: The Poetics and Politics of Culture.”    The New Historicism  ed. H. Aram Veeser.  New York: Routledge, 1989: 15 – 36.

Ransom, John Crowe.  “Criticism, Inc.”  Twentieth-century Literary Criticism: A Reader.  Ed. David Lodge.  New York: Longman, 1972 : 228 - 39.

Shakespeare, William.  Henry V.  Victoria: UVic, Internet Shakespeare Edition.

Shakespeare, William.  The Tempest.  Victoria: UVic, Internet Shakespeare Edition.

Sinfield, Alan.  “Give an account of Shakespeare and Education . . .”  Political Shakespeare 2nd ed.  Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994: 158 – 81.

Sinfield, A.  “Introduction: Reproductions, interventions.”  Political Shakespeare  Eds. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield.  2nd ed.  Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994: 154 – 7.

Sinfield, Alan.  “Royal Shakespeare: . . .”  Political Shakespeare  Eds. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield.  2nd ed.  Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994: 182 – 205.

Tillyard, E. M. W.  “The Chain of Being.”  The Elizabethan World Picture.  New York: Vintage Books, 1959: 25 - 36.

Tillyard, E. M. W.  “Introductory.”  The Elizabethan World Picture.  New York: Vintage Books, 1959: 3 - 8.

Tillyard, E. M. W.  “Order.”  The Elizabethan World Picture.  New York: Vintage Books, 1959: 9 - 17.

Tillyard, E. M. W.  “Sin.”  The Elizabethan World Picture.  New York: Vintage Books, 1959: 18 - 24.

Wellek, Renι.  “The Attack on Literature.”  The Attack on Literature and Other Essays  Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1982: 3 – 18.

Wellek, Renι.  “Literature, Fiction, and Literariness.”  The Attack on Literature and Other Essays  Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1982: 19 – 32.

Wellek, Renι.  “New Criticism Pro et Contra.”  Critical Inquiry  4.4 (Summer, 1978): 611 - 24.

Wellek, Renι.  “Poetics, Interpretation, and Criticism.”  The Attack on Literature and Other Essays  Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1982: 33 - 47.

White, Hayden.  “The Historical Text as Literary Artifact.”  Critical Theory since 1965.  ed. Hazard Adams and Leroy Searle.  Tallahassee: Florida State UP, 1986: 395 – 407.