Eighteenth-Century Readers and Authors
Fall 2012
M 2:00 – 4:50 pm
Course description
This course will bring together the approaches of
traditional literary scholarship and of scholarship on the history of the book
to study eighteenth-century ideas about readers and authors---and how those
ideas shaped and were shaped by the literary texts of the period. The eighteenth
century was a period of enormous changes, including changes in the marketplace
for texts, the dominant means of producing and circulating texts, the costs and
availability of texts, the laws governing copyright, the practice of reviewing,
among many others. All of these changes influenced ideas about who did and
should read as well as what and how they should read and how readers were
affected by what they read. In much the same way, these changes reshaped the
notion of what it meant to be an author: beliefs about who wrote, who should
write, why they wrote, and their relationship to the texts they wrote all
underwent major revisions during the course of the eighteenth century. We will
study these changes by reading eighteenth-century primary texts as well as
modern scholarship on these issues, and we will practice the scholarly methods
of both literary analysis and book history.
Learning Outcomes and Methods of Assessment
Students completing this course should be able to
demonstrate sophisticated understanding of eighteenth-century ideas about
authorship and audience and of critical issues and scholarship on these
subjects. Students should also be able to articulate sophisticated ideas and
interpretations of these texts and issues. Students should also be able to
conduct professional-quality research on the eighteenth-century authors and
readers. These outcomes will be assessed by means of class discussions, a
scholarly presentation, shorter essays, and an article-length seminar paper.
Required Texts
Most texts will be available in
EEBO or in
ECCO; some
will be available via the course website. Be aware that because this course
focuses in part on the material contexts of authors and readers, it is important
that you encounter the primary texts in a form as close to the original as
possible. I am perfectly happy for you to supplement this encounter with modern
scholarly editions of the texts (and when possible the course website will
provide links to online scholarly versions), but you must be prepared to discuss
the texts’ original material form (at least insofar as approximated by
EEBO/ECCO). There will be a few exceptions when texts are not available in ECCO.
Most readings will be available via the online
course
bibliography.
| Participation: You are expected to participate actively in cogent, informed, and intelligent discussions of our primary and secondary readings and of the critical and scholarly ideas they engage. This seminar will not function as lecture but as discussion; you should therefore be prepared to work actively to make the class time engaging and worthwhile. In other words, it is not enough simply to do the readings. You need to demonstrate to me and to your classmate that you have done the reading, thought about it, and formulated ideas and questions to contribute. Ideally, the seminar should be a collaborative exercise in learning, and such an exercise depends on everyone’s full engagement. If you are unprepared for class — either because you did not read or because you did not engage with the readings — your participation grade will suffer. If your classroom behavior does not meet the standards outlined below (under Policies) for participation and professionalism, your participation grade will suffer. | 10% of course
grade
|
| Short paper1 | 15% of course grade |
| Short paper 2 | 15% of course grade |
| Annotated bibliography | 15% of course grade |
| Conference Presentation: You will deliver a 20-minute scholarly (conference-style) presentation derived from your seminar paper. The paper should focus on an issue, author, or text discussed in the course and should present an argument in support of a specific thesis on that topic. The paper should demonstrate not only an understanding of the primary source(s) but also an understanding of the critical debate on the topic and an understanding of how the novels relate to their various contexts—literary, historical, cultural, social, ideological, and the like. You will deliver this presentation at a public mini-conference at the end of the semester. You should be prepared to answer questions at the conclusion of your talk. | 20% of course grade |
| Seminar paper: You will write a 25-30 page seminar paper, due at the end of the semester. The paper should focus on an issue, author, or text discussed in the course and should present an argument in support of a specific thesis on that topic, using at least 10 secondary sources to further your argument. The paper should demonstrate not only an understanding of the primary source(s) but also an understanding of the critical debate on the topic and an understanding of how the novels relate to their various contexts—literary, historical, cultural, social, ideological, and the like. | 25% of course grade |
Policies
Schedule of Readings and Assignments (subject to change)
| M 8/27 | Introduction to the course; Special Collections visit |
| M 9/3 | Labor Day holiday; no class |
| M 9/10 | Manuscript culture: Katherine
Phillips, selections from Poems (1667) Rochester, selections from Poems (1680) Barker, Patch-work Screen for the Ladies (1723); The Lining of the Patch-Work Screen Love, The Culture and Commerce of Texts, ch. 2 Ezell, Social Authorship and the Advent of Print, ch 1 |
| M 9/17 | Patronage: Pope, “On Dedications” Johnson, Letter to Chesterfield Tatler 177 (1709) Leapor, selections from Poems on Several Occasions (1748) Yearsley, selections from Poems on Several Occasions (1785, 1786) Griffin, Literary Patronage in England 1650-1800 chs. 1, 2 |
| M 9/24 | Print: Defoe, Essay on the
Regulation of the Press (1704) Tatler 101 (1709) Watson, preface to The History of Printing (1713) Savage, An Author to Be Lett (1729) Hume, “Of the Liberty of the Press” (1741) The Booksellers: A Poem (1766) The Liberty of the Press (1770?) Rose, Authors and Owners ch. 3 Harris, “Print Culture” |
| M 10/1 | Dryden: Mac Flecknoe, “Ode to Mrs. Anne
Killigrew,” “To the Memory of Mr. Oldham,” “To My Dear Friend Mr.
Congreve . . .,” preface to Fables Ancient and Modern Buckingham, The Rehearsal Hammond, Professional Imaginative Writing in England, ch. 1 Short paper 1 due |
| M 10/8 | Swift: Battle of the Books; “Verses Wrote on a Lady’s Ivory
Table Book”; “The Progress of Poetry”; “Verses on the Death”; “On
Poetry” Darnton, “First Steps toward a History of Reading” |
| M 10/15 | Pope: “On Dedications”; three attacks on Edmund
Curll; Preface to Works; Preface to Shakespeare; “Of
the Poet Laureate”; Essay on Criticism; Epistle to
Arbuthnot Griffin, “The Rise of the Professional Author?” |
| M 10/22 | Early periodicals and essays Tatler: 106, 164, 229, 271 Spectator: 1, 2, 10, 124, 160, 262, 291, 367, 445; 451; 452 Hume, “Of Essay-Writing” (1742), “Of Simplicity and Refinement” (1742) Tierney, “Periodicals and the Trade, 1695-1780” |
| M 10/29 | Manley, The Adventures of Rivella (1714) McDowell, Women and Print, ch. 1 Brewer, “Authors, Readers, and the Making of Literary Culture” Annotated bibliography due |
| M 11/5 | Class canceled due to jury duty |
| M 11/12 | Sterne, Tristram Shandy
(1759-67) Rose, Authors and Owners, ch 7 Donoghue, The Fame Machine, ch. 1 Forster, “Review Journals and the Reading Public” Short paper 2 due |
| M 11/19 | Shandy continued Barker, “The Morphology of the Page” Schellenberg, “The Second Coming of the Book” |
| M 11/26 | Brooke, The Excursion (1777) Wittman, “Was There a Reading Revolution at the End of the Eighteenth Century?” Schellenberg, “Putting Women in Their Place” |
| M 12/3 | Conference presentations and course conclusion |
| M 12/10 | Seminar papers due by 5pm |
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