If you cannot make the courthouse visit, watch this documentary in lieu of class and write a one-page reflection

“Literary theory” or “literary criticism” can be understood as the  way that one’s interpretation of a text occurs within a framework of  intellectual assumptions.

“Theory,” from the Greek “theoria”: indicates a view or perspective of the Greek stage. Note that means that each literary theory gives a partial view of the text. Many literary critics defend their approach as the most significant or the most revelatory, but in fact a variety of  insightful, careful critical approaches does justice to a work of  literary art.

FEMINISM: challenges male assumptions and analyzes literature from the perspective of women, whose perspectives and even human rights have been traditionally suppressed

CRITICAL RACE THEORY: examines literature in light of categorizations of race, law, and power

ECO-CRITICISM: explores the treatment and descriptions of the natural world within literature

FORMALISM: ignores the context, culture, authorship, and other “outside” factors and focuses on the language, modes, and “forms” of the text.

MARXISM/CULTURAL MATERIALISM: what are the roles of class conflict, wealth, and power in the text?

POSTCOLONIALISM: the role of exploitation within texts

PSYCHOANALYTICAL: the role of the characters’ and readers’ conscious and unconscious responses

QUEER THEORY: criticizes the roles of gender identity in the text

Interdisciplinary essay

An Interesting Narrative (chapters 1-3)

Signifying Monkey, chapter 3: “The Talking Book”

“Would men but generously snap our chains, and be content with rational fellowship instead of slavish obedience, they would find us more observant daughters, more affectionate sisters, more faithful wives, more reasonable mothers—in a word, better citizens.”

John Cleese, “Albatross,” 1970 (Monty Python)

“Mont Blanc was before us, but it was covered with cloud; its base, furrowed with dreadful gaps, was seen above. Pinnacles of snow intolerably bright, part of the chain connected with Mont Blanc, shone through the clouds at intervals on high. I never knew—I never imagined what mountains were before. The immensity of these serial summits excited, when they suddenly burst upon the sight, a sentiment of extatic wonder, not unallied to madness.” Mary and Percy Shelley

John Keats

December, 1817 letter:

“Brown and Dilke walked with me and back from the Christmas pantomime. I had not a dispute but a disquisition, with Dilke on various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously — I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason — Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.

Keats and Insomnia
Keats and metaphors of depression

The Chimney Sweeper: When my mother died I was very young

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

When my mother died I was very young,

And my father sold me while yet my tongue

Could scarcely cry ” ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep!”

So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head

That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved, so I said,

“Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare,

You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.”

And so he was quiet, & that very night,

As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight!

That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack,

Were all of them locked up in coffins of black;

And by came an Angel who had a bright key,

And he opened the coffins & set them all free;

Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run,

And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.

Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,

They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.

And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,

He’d have God for his father & never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark

And got with our bags & our brushes to work.

Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;

So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

Keats: Negative Capability

I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half knowledge. This pursued through Volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.

Sarah Higinbotham

English 256: British Literature since 1660

English 256 revised, revised schedule (April 8, 2020)

John Keats

The Chimney Sweeper: When my mother died I was very young