Texts:

    Austen--Mansfield Park 

    Dickens--Hard Times

    Morris--News from Nowhere 

    Wells--Tono-Bungay

    Forster--Howards End  

    Waugh--A Handful of Dust

    Du Maurier--Rebecca  

    Stoppard--Arcadia

    Ishiguro--The Remains of the Day

Course Requirements and Evaluation:

    1. Regular, informed participation in class activities, including background reports

    2. Cyberjournals

3. Major project (roughly 15 pages or the equivalent)

            Each component must be worth at least 25% of the total grade, but each student will choose the percentages for his or her own grade.

Schedule of Readings and Topics (subject to revision):

    27 Aug...--Introduction to the course

    3 Sept.-- The country-house tradition (Poetry handout). Background: Neoclassicism in architecture; Gothicism in architecture

    10.-- Arcadia. Background: the Arcadian motif; Capability Browne and Humphrey Repton

    17--Mansfield Park., Books I-II. Background: The picturesque. Short paper #1 due.

    24--Mansfield Park., Book III. Background: Servants in the country house; Utilitarianism

    1 Oct.--Hard Times Background: Technology in the country house; Economic aspects of the country house

    8--News from Nowhere Background: English socialism (and Morris); The Arts and Crafts Movement (and Morris)

    15.—No class meeting

    22-- Howards End: Background: Gertrude Jekyll and Sir Edward Lutyens; Country Life Magazine

    29-- Tono-Bungay: Background: The National Trust

    Nov. 5-- Handful of Dust

    Nov. 12.--Rebecca

    Thanksgiving Break

    26---- Remains of the Day

    Dec. 3—Arcadia revisited

    Dec. 10—Summing up

Class Participation: 

There are several components to class participation: (1) involvement in classroom discussion of the works, (2) e-mail discussion outside of class, (3) preparation of a brief (c. 500-word) background report and bibliography on one of the topics listed on the syllabus. These background reports should be distributed via the class e-mail list not later than the Sunday before the topic’s appearance on the syllabus. You should also be prepared to make some brief remarks on the background report in class and answer questions on it.

Cyberournals Each Tuesday, I’ll post two or three questions related to the text we’ll be reading for the following Monday. Prior to our class meeting on Monday, you’ll send me an informal e-mail response to one of those questions.

Major Project: Choose a subject of particular interest for a substantial research paper of some 15 pages or (if you prefer, and the project calls for it, and you have the necessary computer skills) a hypertext or other major enterprise. These projects may, but need not necessarily, derive from the short background reports. You are free to focus on literary works or, if you wish, on historical events, political, intellectual, or aesthetic movements, architecture, gardens, technology, interior design, specific country houses, and so forth. A few of many possibilities appear below. See me early in the term for suggestions and guidance toward materials.

        Neoclassicism Gothicism The picturesque

        Capability Brown Humphrey Repton Salvator Rosa

        Utilitarianism Landscape gardens Morris as political thinker

        Morris as designer Arts and Crafts Movement Kelmscott

        Vita Sackville-West Gertrude Jekyll Sir Edward Lutyens

        Fabian socialism Servants Country-house technology

        Inheritance law Interior design Ruskin as aesthetician

        Pugin Country Life magazine The National Trust

        Castle Howard Strawberry Hill Penshurst

        Film adaptations of country-house fiction

Any country-house fiction or poetry not assigned in class (some good examples: Brideshead Revisited by Waugh, Crome Yellow by Huxley, Orlando by Woolf, The Shooting Party by Colgate, the Green Knowe novels by Boston)

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