Time Schedule:
Fang Li
ENGL 111
Seattle Campus
Study and practice of good writing; topics derived from reading and discussing stories, poems, essays, and plays.
Class description
Mid-century England was not one nation but two—the rich and the poor. Strikes were countered with starvation, and starvation led (as we shall see) to acts of terrorism. We pursue the course outcomes by discussing novels and articles related to the social conflicts between these two nations, the masters and workers, during the industrialization of nineteenth century England.
Our line of pursuit will focus on women’s responses to social problems in the novel. We will learn to read novels for and even as arguments: as alternating turns in a sometimes heated conversation. By conversation, I mean that novels can be read as answers to each other. Over the quarter, you will be asked to read Mary Barton, Shirley, and North and South as a continuing dialogue/debate between two masters of the nineteenth century novel, viz. Elizabeth Gaskell and Charlotte Bronte. In the first half of the quarter, you will notice that the two writers are speaking from different class points of views, consequently each is focusing on a different class as protagonist. Yet Charlotte Bronte listens to Elizabeth Gaskell and makes her reply in Shirley accordingly. Gaskell does the same thing in North and South as you shall see in the second half the quarter.
North and South is commonly acknowledged in some sense a rewriting of Mary Barton. I would like you to consider if North and South can also be read as a rewrite of Shirley. If this book is a book winding up the argument of the previous two books, is it a political concession to Shirley or a true synthesis and resolution?
Some critics praised Charlotte Bronte as a true feminist heroine patronized “Mrs.?Gaskell as a homemaking amateur full of sentiment and devoid of ideas. Lately other critics have come up with precisely the opposite conclusion, portraying Bronte as a romantic idealist and Gaskell as someone steeped in the great ideas of her time: evolution, rationalism, and even Marxism. Our main task in this class is to read the writers themselves and make up our own minds. Is the writing too emotional? What is the role of rationalism and realism? What do you think of the statement that fiction is a lie that tells the truth? Above all, is the novel an effective mode of argumentation?
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Be prepared to read more than 1000 pages in 8 weeks and write 4 to 6 short papers (2-3 pages each) and 2 longer papers (5-7 pages each).
Class assignments and grading
