ENGL 4853 x10 Eighteenth Century Literature
Women & the Age of Anne
Undergraduate Schedule for Reading & Due Dates
Dr. Peter Fields, assoc. professor of English
peter.fields@msutexas.edu
Office: Bea Wood 230 in PY Ph: 940-397-4246
Office Hours: MTWR 11:00 AM to1:30 PM; also, by appointment.
DUE DATES AT A GLANCE & PERCENTAGE VALUE OF SEMESTER GRADE
Note: the DROP BOX will mark the ESSAYS late after 11:59 PM the night of the due date.
D2L Submit ESSAY 1 to DROP BOX 30% Monday October 2
D2L Submit ESSAY 2 to DROP BOX 30% Monday October 30
D2L Submit ESSAY 3 to DROP BOX 40% Monday December 11
D2L THREADS 10% (a thread must have all required essay elements to receive full credit).
LATE WORK: Late essays are penalized 10 points out of 100 even if D2L says they are only late by a minute or less. No late Essays are accepted after 11:59 PM Wednesday December 13 of Finals Week.
Required book: The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century. Second edition. ISBN: 978-1-55481-047-5. You can make the first edition work too. Depending on which edition you have, you are missing something: the new edition is missing THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO while the first is missing Phillis Wheatley. Here is the link for buying a student passcode to the Broadview website that has all the titles: https://broadviewpress.com/product/student-website-passcode-broadview-anthology-british-literature
Course Description: The literature and intellectual currents of the period with emphasis on Pope, Swift, and Johnson. The distinctive feature of ENGL 5853 is a series of essays graduate students will write comparing and contrasting notable female authors of the Age of Anne and after (prior to 1800) including Aphra Behn, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Finch, Mary Astell, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Eliza Haywood, Hester Thrale, and Phillis Wheatley and examining how women are portrayed in notable works of male authors, including not only Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, and Jonathan Swift but also John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, William Wycherley, and Horace Walpole.
OBJECTIVES
· Familiarizing ourselves with the life and times of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, and the period that follows (until 1800); see my NOTES in D2L.
· Familiarizing ourselves with the lives of women in the Age of Anne and after (until 1800).
· Reading the introduction, prefaces, and both long and short titles from the Age of Anne and after in our anthology and website as indicated in our schedule.
· Students can freely cite historical dates, terms, events from the introduction and prefaces in our book and website as well as the webpages and videos I have provided without citing the source; if students utilize verbatim passage they should follow MLA format (see Purdue Owl) for in-body citation and Works Cited references.
· Engaging in a writing process with self-awareness about women in the Age of Anne and after as indicated in our schedule; students follow writing model stipulated in this syllabus.
· Students have the option of sending me their paragraphs prior to a due date in a thread for my input. IMPORTANT: In our course, only I can see what you post and only you can see how I reply—a special arrangement for us in D2L.
ACADEMIC HONESTY & FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS
I am not authorizing use of any literary sources outside of our Broadview anthology and the related Broadview website. Historical sources are a different matter. Students may mention historical facts, names, and dates without citing the source. Of course, verbatim use of an explanatory passage in a historical source (like a Broadview preface) should have quotation marks, utilize “According to†language, and provide a Works Cited reference. But we don’t really have a place for historical quotes.
Students must quote from our required titles in Broadview, which means quotation marks and parenthetical pages for prose pieces and quotation marks and parenthetical line numbers for poetry. Plays require quotation marks and parenthetical act, scene, and line. Purdue Owl is our official online guide for MLA citing, both in-body and in the Works Cited.
I should mention that D2L does alert me to possible plagiarism. We have Turnitin and, most recently, an AI detector. But I do not accuse students of plagiarism, if I can help it. If I feel the plagiarism is overwhelmingly obvious, the grade must unfortunately be a “0’ for the essay (no points). However, the problem most of the time comes down to not following directions, something my rubric can address with a baseline grade of 56 out of 100. Yes, that’s an F—but there’s hope. Perhaps the best option is to show me your work-in-progress as a thread. Our threads are NOT public. They are for my eyes only.
THREAD OPTION: I am the only one who sees your work.
You have the option of getting my input before you submit your best version of an Essay to the drop box. In Content, click on DISCUSSIONS. Then click on the arrow beside the title of the relevant forum. Open View Topic and you will find the text box into which you can type directly or copy and paste from your own document.
IMPORTANT: Our threads are NOT the usual type. We are not doing a discussion board. When you post your thread to me, I am the ONLY person who sees your writing-in-progress. You will be the ONLY person who sees my reply—my suggestions and concerns.
REMEMBER: Getting my input is NOT for grade.
You must still submit the best version of your Essay to the drop box before 11:59 PM of the due date. My reply to your thread is not for credit. The only way your work gets counted, evaluated, and graded is when you submit your document to the drop box.
ESSAYS 1, 2, and 3. Use “I†or “we†– not “you.†Each essay is seven paragraphs.
An essay requires FIVE body paragraphs that have these components:
Body paragraphs begin with a topic idea. Then they address a thought and/or scenario from a relevant long title and then reinforce it with a significant quote from that title. The paragraph does not conclude until it has brought in a relevant thought or scenario from one of our short titles and reinforced it with a significant quote from that title.
CONCLUSION: The essay requires a final paragraph that is not a review of the essay.
Instead, the last paragraph offers a NEW thought or scenario pertaining to a short or long title—a quote is optional. This paragraph concludes with a relevant insight. Our conclusion is more an epilogue or coda.
INTRODUCTION: Paragraph one answers the prompt question in general terms; it then anticipates topic ideas for the body paragraphs and previews scenarios or thoughts specific to the long titles addressed by the body paragraphs; it also anticipates scenarios or thoughts specific to short titles addressed by the body paragraphs; finally, paragraph one refines the answer to the prompt as a thesis statement at the end of the paragraph. This paragraph is substantial—think of it as a mini-essay.
The PROMPT
The prompt question for Essay One and Essay Two is as follows: what are we learning about women in the Age of Anne? The “Age of Anne†is our way of framing the era (late 1600’s through the early 1700’s) that otherwise goes by titles like Age of Enlightenment, Age of Reason, Age of Neoclassicism, and Augustan Age. You are free to bring in information about Anne, Queen of Great Britain, as you find it in supplemental webpages and YouTube videos. If you quote directly, cite the source. If you use your own phrasing, you do NOT have to cite the source. For our purposes, no one person can own an historical term or event. The prompt question for Essay Three is as follows: what are we learning about women AFTER the Age of Anne as we get closer to 1800?