Orality, Print Culture and the Literary Marketplace,
1780-1820:
Robert Burns and William Wordsworth
Spring, 2001
Dr. Leith Davis
email: leith@sfu.ca
web site: http://www.sfu.ca/personal/leith
This course will examine the work of the Scottish poet Robert Burns and the English poet William Wordsworth in the light of the changing literary marketplace at the end of the eighteenth century, and, in the case of Wordsworth, the beginning of the nineteenth century. Both Burns and Wordsworth sought to insert their own poetry into the existing market system and also to change the terms of literary exchange and value that constituted that system. Both poets experimented in various ways with using features of oral poetry (ballads and songs) in their published writing. We will consider the consequences of this literary hybridity for the self-construction of each author and for their interventions in the world of belles lettres: Burns experienced a few years of fame, then was relegated to the margins of English literature as an example of failed genius; Wordsworth went on to carve out a place for himself as poet laureate of Britain. At issue throughout the course will be the intersection of the representation of gender and of the nation with the above concerns regarding orality and the literary marketplace.
After an initial consideration of the existing state of ballads, folksongs and the literary market at the end of the eighteenth century, we will turn to an intensive study of Burns's Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786) and his songs and letters. We will also consider the work of his female contemporary, Janet Little, "the Scotch Milkmaid." Then, shifting focus to Wordsworth, the course will feature: Lyrical Ballads (1789), Poems in Two Volumes (1807), and the Two-Part Prelude (1799), as well as his Letter to a Friend of Robert Burns (1814), and some poems and selections from the journal of Dorothy Wordsworth. Because the course is concerned with forms of orality, listening to recordings of ballads, songs and poems will be an important part of our work.
Requirements:
First Essay (8 pages): 30 %
Final Paper (12 pages): 45%
In-Class Seminar:15%
Participation and attendance: 10%
*NOTE
First Essay (8 pages): 30 % Final Paper (12 pages): 45% In-Class Seminar:15% Participation and attendance: 10% *NOTE
Texts:
Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993.
Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993.
Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1999.
Plus material on reserve and on the web.
WEEK ONE: Orality and Print Culture in the Eighteenth Century
Jan. 8: Introduction
Jan. 10:
Reading: Terry Belanger, "Publishers and Writers in Eighteenth-Century England"
Film: Angelou on Burns
WEEK TWO: Literary Influences on Burns and Wordsworth: English and Scottish
Jan. 15
Reading: Alexander Pope, "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot"; Allan Ramsay, "Elegy on Maggie Johnson" and "Familiar Epistles Between Lieutenant William Hamilton and Allan Ramsay"
Jan. 17
Seminar: Robert Fergusson, "The Daft-Days"
WEEK THREE: The Ballad Revival in the Eighteenth Century
Jan. 22:
Reading: Thomas Percy, "On Ancient Minstrels" and "Chevy Chace" from Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
Jan. 24:
Seminar: "Hardyknute"
WEEK FOUR: Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect
Jan. 29:
Reading: "The Twa Dogs," "Scotch Drink," "The Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer," "The Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie," "Poor Mailie's Elegy," "The Cotter's Saturday Night," "On a Scotch Bard Gone to the West Indies," "A Bard's Epitaph"
Jan. 31:
Seminar: "The Vision
WEEK FIVE: Epistles and Religious Satires
Feb. 5
Reading: Burns's Epistles: "Epistle to Davie," "Epistle to John Lapraik, An Old Scotch Bard"; "To the Same"; "To James Smith"; "The Holy Fair," "A Poet's Welcome to His Love-Begotten Daughter."
Feb. 7
Seminar: "Holy Willy's Prayer"
WEEK SIX: Burns and the Song Tradition
Feb. 12:
Reading: "Tam O'Shanter"; "Beyond Yon Hills"; "Mary Morison"; "It was upon a Lammas night"; "Song Composed in August"; "Green Grow the Rashes"; "John Barleycorn"; "Auld lang syne"; "Afton Water"; "Ay Waukin, O"; "The Banks o' Doon"; "Ae Fond Kiss"; "O for Ane and Twenty Tam"; "Lady Mary Anne"; "Logan Water"; "Scots Wha Hae"; "A Red, red Rose"; "Is there for honest poverty";
Feb. 14:
Seminar: "Love and Liberty: A Cantata"
WEEK SEVEN: Janet Little
Feb. 19:
Reading: "On a Visit to Mr. Burns"( 111); "Given to a Lady who asked me to write a Poem" (113); "Epistle to Nell, wrote from Loudoun Castle" (117); "Nell's Answer" (120); "Another Epistle to Nell" (122); "An Epistle to Mr. Robert Burns" (160); "To my Aunty"(164
Feb. 21:
***First essay due today***
Film: The Lake Poets
WEEK EIGHT: William Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads
Feb. 26:
Reading: "Lines Left Upon a Seat in a Yew Tree,""The Female Vagrant," "Simon Lee," "We Are Seven," "Lines Written in Early Spring," "The Thorn," "The Idiot Boy," "Expostulation and Reply," "The Tables Turned"
Feb. 28:
Seminar: "Tintern Abbey"
WEEK NINE: Poems in Two Volumes
March 5:
Reading: Wordsworth, Poems in Two Volumes
March 7:
Seminar: "Resolution and Independence"
WEEK TEN: Two-part Prelude
March. 12:
Reading: Two-part Prelude; Parts I and II
March 14:
Seminar: Fourteen-Book Prelude of 1850, lines 1-269
WEEK ELEVEN: Wordsworth on Burns and Copyright
March 19:
Reading: Letter to a Friend of Robert Burns
March 21:
Seminar: Wordsworth on Copyright
Film: "William and Dorothy"
WEEK TWELVE: Dorothy Wordsworth
March 26:
Reading: Dorothy Wordsworth: Journal
March 28:
Essay Workshop: Bring essay in current form to class. You need AT LEAST a thesis.
WEEK THIRTEEN: Conclusions
April 2: Seminar: Dorothy Wordsworth: poems
April 4: Burns and Wordsworth in the Critical Canon
***Final Essays Due***
Seminars:
Seminars are intended to encourage students to develop critical and oral presentation skills. Students will work together in pairs or small groups. Each group will present the text for that day to the class and facilitate discussion of that text. The formal part of the presentation should take no more than twenty minutes, allowing plenty of time for discussion. The entire seminar is designed to occupy the first hour of the class.
Directions:
You will receive informal peer reviews on your presentation and a mark from me based on:
English 325 Bibliography:
The following books are recommended as particularly suited to help you with the essay topics for this course, although there are, of course, many others which are not listed here. Check out the MLA Bibliography Database in the library to find more references.
(books marked with an * are on reserve in the library)
Nationalism
*Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism. London: Verso, 1986; rpt. 1992.
Hobsbawn, E.J. Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Hobsbawm, Eric and Hugh Trevor-Roper, eds. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Nairn, Tom. The Break-up of Britain. London: Verso, 1977.
Scotland: History and Culture
Crawford, Robert. The Scottish Invention of English Literature. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Daiches, David. The Paradox of Scottish Culture: The Eighteenth-Century Experience.
London: Oxford University Press, 1964.
*Davis, Leith. Acts of Union: Scotland and the Literary Negotiation of the British
Nation, 1707-1830. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.
*Harvie, Christopher. Scotland and Nationalism: Scottish Society and Politics 1707-
1994. Rev. ed. London: Routledge, 1994.
Pittock, Murray. The Invention of Scotland. The Stuart Myth and the Scottish Identity.
London: Routledge, 1991.
---. Poetry and Jacobite Politics in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Alexander Pope
Deutsch, Helen. "The 'Truest Copies' and the 'Mean Original': Pope, Deformity, and the
Poetics of Self-Exposure." Eighteenth Century Studies. 27:1 (Fall 1993): 1-26.
*Griffin, Robert J. Wordsworth's Pope: A Study in Literary Historiography. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Allan Ramsay
Kinghorn, A. M. "Watson's Choice, Ramsay's Voice and a Flash of Fergusson." Scottish-
Literary-Journal. 19:2 (1992 Nov): 5-23.
Law, Alexander M. Kinghorn; Alexander. "Allan Ramsay and Literary Life in the First
Half of the Eighteenth-Century." The History of Scottish Literature, II: 1660-1800.
Eds. Hook, Andrew; Cairns Craig. Aberdeen: Aberdeen UP, 1987.
MacLaine, Allan H. Allan Ramsay. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1985.
McGuirk, Carol. "Augustan Influences on Allan Ramsay." Studies-in-Scottish-Literature.
16 (1981): 97-109.
Ballads (including Percy)
Bold, Alan. The Ballad. London: Methuen, 1979.
Donaldson, William. The Jacobite Song. Political Myth and National Identity. Aberdeen:
Aberdeen University Press, 1988.
Dugaw, Dianne. Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650-1850. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Friedman, Albert. The Ballad Revival. Studies in the Influence of Popular on
Sophisticated Poetry. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1969.
Groom, Nick. The Making of Percy's Reliques. Oxford: Clarendon, 1999.
Johnson, David. Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in the Eighteenth-Century.
London: Oxford University Press, 1972.
McCarthy, William Bernard. The Ballad Matrix. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana
University Press, 1990.
Symonds, Deborah. Weep Not for Me: Women, Ballads, and Infanticide in Early Modern
Scotland. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.
Robert Burns
*Crawford, Robert. Burns and Cultural Authority. Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 1997.
*---. Devolving English Literature. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
*Crawford, Thomas. Burns: A Study of the Poems and Songs. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1960.
Davis, Leith. "James Currie's Works of Robert Burns: The Politics of Hypochondriasis"
Studies in Romanticism 36 (Summer 1997): 43-60.
*Kinsley, James. Poems and Songs of Robert Burns. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1968.
Low, Donald. Robert Burns: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge, 1974.
McGuirk, Carol. Robert Burns and the Sentimental Tradition. Athens, GA: University
of Georgia Press, 1985.
McIntyre, Ian. Dirt and Deity: A Life of Robert Burns. London: Harper Collins, 1995.
*Murphy, Peter. Poetry as an Occupation and as an Art in Britain 1760-1830. Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Roy, G. Ross, ed. Letters of Robert Burns. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985.
*Simpson, Kenneth. The Protean Scot. The Crisis of Identity in Eighteenth-Century
Scottish Literature. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1988.
---, ed. Burns Now. Edinburgh: Canongate, 1994.
---, ed. Love and Liberty: Robert Burns: A Bicentennial Celebration. East Linton:
Tuckwell, 1997.
Janet Little
Davis, Leith. "Gender and the Nation in the Work of Robert Burns and Janet Little."
SEL: Studies-in-English-Literature,-1500-1900. 38:4 (1998 Autumn): 621-45.
Ferguson, Moira. "Janet Little and Robert Burns." Studies-on-Voltaire-and-the-
Eighteenth-Century. 305 (1992): 1779-81.
Ferguson, Moira. "Janet Little and Robert Burns: The Politics of the Heart."
Romantic Women Writers: Voices and Countervoices. Feldman-Paula-R. and Kelley-
Theresa-M. (eds.). Hanover, NH: UP of New England, 1995. 207-19.
---. "Janet Little and Robert Burns: An Alliance with Reservations."
Studies- in-Eighteenth-Century-Culture. 24 (1995): 155-74.
*---. Eighteenth-century women poets: nation, class, and gender.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995.
Little, Janet. The poetical works of Janet Little, the Scotch milkmaid. Air,: Printed by J.
& P. Wilson, 1792.
William Wordsworth
Becker-Lechrone, Megan. "'Sole Author I, Sole Cause': Wordsworth and the Poetics of
Importance." MLN. 113:5 (Dec 1998): 993-1021.
Bromwich, David. Disowned by Memory: Wordworth's Poetry of the 1790s. Chicago:
University of Chicago, 1998.
Bygrave, Stephen. "Reading The Prelude." Romantic Writings. Ed. Stephen
Bygrave. London: Routledge, with Open University, 1996. 115-37.
Collins, David. Wordsworthian Errancies: the Poetics of Cultural Dismemberment.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
*Harrison, Gary. Wordsworth's Vagrant Muse: Poetry, Poverty and Power. Detroit: Wayne
State University Press, 1994.
Heffernan, James A.W. "Wordsworth's 'Leveling' Muse in 1798." The Year of The
Lyrical Ballads. Ed. Richard Cronin. Basingstoke: Macmillan University Press,
1998. 239-253.
*Jacobus, Mary. Tradition and Experiment in Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads (1798).
Oxford: Clarendon, 1976.
Langan, Celeste. Romantic Vagrancy: Wordsworth and the Simulation of Freedom.
Cambridge and NY: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
*Levinson, Marjorie. Wordsworth's Great Period Poems: Four Essays. Cambridge and
NY: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Matlak, Richard. E. "Classical Argument and Romantic Persuasion in 'Tintern Abbey'."
Studies in Romanticism. 25, (Spring 1986): 97-129.
Miall, David S. "Wordsworth and The Prelude: The Problematics of Feeling." Studies
in Romanticism. 31:2 (Summer 1992): 233-53.
Quinney, Laura. "'Tintern Abbey', Sensibility, and the Self-Disenchanted Self." ELH.
64:1 (Spring 1997): 131-156.
Randal, Fred. "The Betrayals of 'Tintern Abbey'." Studies in Romanticism. 32 (Fall
1992): 379-397.
Richley, William. "The Politicized Landscape of 'Tintern Abbey'." Studies in
Philology. 95:2 (Spring 1998): 197-219.
Ruoff, Gene W. Wordsworth and Coleridge: the Making of the major Lyrics, 1802-1804.
New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1989.
Steen, Francis F. "'The Time of Unrememberable Being': Wordsworth's Autobiography
of the Imagination." AutoBiography Studies. 13:1 (Spring 1998): 7-38.
Stewart, David. "Historicism and Questions of History, Ideology, and Periodization."
Southern Humanities Review. 30 (Fall 1996): 309-26.
Weele, Michael Vander. "The Contest of Memory in 'Tintern Abbey.'" Nineteenth
Century Literature. 50 (June 1995): 6-26.
Dorothy Wordsworth
Alexander, Meena. Women in romanticism: Mary Wollstonecraft, Dorothy Wordsworth, and Mary Shelley. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes & Noble Books, 1989.
Davis, Robert Con. "The Structure of the Picturesque: Dorothy Wordsworth's Journals." The Wordsworth Circle 9 (1978): 45-49.
Easley, Alexis. "Wandering Women: Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journals and the
Discourse on Female Vagrancy." Women's Writing 3.1 (1996): 63-77.
Ehnenn, Jill. "Writing Against, Writing Through: Subjectivity, Vocation, and Authorship in the Work of Dorothy Wordsworth." South Atlantic Review 64.1 (1999 Winter): 72-90.
Fadem, Richard. "Dorothy Wordsworth: A View from 'Tintern Abbey'." The Wordsworth Circle 9 (1978): 17-32.
Gittings, Robert, and Jo Manton. Dorothy Wordsworth. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985.
Heinzelman, Kurt. "'Household Laws': Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal." A B: AutoBiography Studies 2.4 (1986-1987 Winter): 21-26.
Heinzelman, Kurt. "The Cult of Domesticity: Dorothy and William Wordsworth at Grasmere." Romanticism and Feminism. Ed. Anne K. Mellor. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1988. 52-78.
Homans, Margaret. Women writers and poetic identity: Dorothy Wordsworth, Emily Brontë, and Emily Dickinson. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980.
*Levin, Susan M. Dorothy Wordsworth & romanticism. New Brunswick: Rutgers the State University, 1987.
Liu, Alan. "On the Autobiographical Present: Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journals." Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts 26.2 (1984 Spring): 115-137.
Manley, Seon. Dorothy and William Wordsworth: the heart of a circle of friends.
NY: Vanguard Press, 1974.
*Matlak, Richard E. The poetry of relationship: the Wordsworths and Coleridge, 1797-1800. NY: St. Martin's Press, 1997.
McCormick, Anita Hemphill. "'I Shall Be Beloved - I Want No More': Dorothy Wordsworth's Rhetoric and the Appeal to Feeling in The Grasmere Journals." Philological Quarterly 69.4 (1990 Fall): 471-493.
McGavran, James Holt, Jr. "Dorothy Wordsworth's Journals: Putting Herself Down." The Private Self: Theory and Practice of Women's Autobiographical Writings. Ed. Shari. Benstock. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina Press, 1988. 230-253.
Nabholtz, John R. "Dorothy Wordsworth and the Picturesque." Studies in Romanticism 3 (1964): 118-128.
Soderholm, James. "Dorothy Wordsworth's Return to Tintern Abbey." New Literary History: A Journal of Theory and Interpretation 26.2 (1995 Spring): 309-22.
Vogler, Thomas A. "'A Spirit, Yet a Woman Too!' Dorothy and William Wordsworth." Mothering the Mind: Twelve Studies of Writers and Their Silent Partners. Ed.and Intro. Perry, Ruth; Brownley, Martine Watson. NY: Holmes & Meier, 1984. 238-258.
Wolfson, Susan J. "Individual in Community: Dorothy Wordsworth in Conversation with William." Romanticism and Feminism. Ed. Anne K. Mellor. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1988. 139-66.
Woof, Pamela. "Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journals: Readings in a Familiar Text." The Wordsworth Circle 20.1 (1989 Winter): 37-42.
Woof, Pamela. "Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journals: The Patterns and Pressures of Composition." Romantic Revisions. Ed. Robert Brinkley and Keith Hanley. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992. 169-90.
Woof, Pamela. "Dorothy Wordsworth's Journals and the Engendering of Poetry." Bucknell Review: A Scholarly Journal of Letters, Arts and Sciences 36.1 (1992): 122-55.