E-201/301: ‘Evil Be My Good’: Aesthetic Presentations of Evil in British Literature, 1600-1819

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INSTRUCTORS:
Førsteamanuensis Stephen Wolfe and amanuensis Brita Strand Rangnes

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course is a historical survey of the presentation of evil from Christopher Marlowe to Mary Shelley. The course aims to extend the student’s knowledge of literature in English by the close examination of the ways in which literary texts present ethical, political, and religious controversies about evil. The course will examine such literary questions as characterization, the development of genre, the creation of the demonic hero/villain, the female gothic, and the use of myth to construct literary and ethical themes. We will also examine some of the social constructions of literature as "evil" by various religious and social groups within the period.

We will begin our investigation with two plays: Christopher Marlowe´s play Dr. Faustus, and William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth. Hovedfag students will read Ben Jonson´sVolpone. We will then read a selection of John Milton´s Paradise Lost, and George Gordon Byron’s Manfred. Additionally there will be two novels William Godwin’s Things As They are or The Adventures of Caleb Williams; and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Hovedfag students will read Anne Radcliff’s The Italian.

Hovedfag and Mellomfag students will take the course in the same lecture/discussion groups throughout the semester except when we discuss Volpone and The Italian. This means that mellomfag students will receive 12 weeks of instruction and the hovedfag students will receive 15 weeks of instruction. All mellomfag students are welcome to attend all lectures and discussion groups.

Students taking the course will be expected to participate in the English Department’s project on continual assessment. This means that grades will be calculated partly on the basis of two short papers written during the term (3-5 pages for mellomfag students and 5-7 pages for hovedfag students), each counting 20 per cent of the final grade and an oral presentation counting 10 per cent of the final grade, all evaluated by both teachers of this course. One of the short papers will be a close textual reading of a passage in one of the first two texts on the reading list for mellomfag students and one of the first three texts on the reading list for hovedfag students. A term paper of approximately 12-15 pages for mellomfag and 15-20 pages for hovedfag will count for the remaining 50 per cent of the final grade. The teachers in conjunction with an external examiner will evaluate this paper.

This course has continuous assessment as one of its goals, and therefore we will need to spend the first part of the course meeting discussing the processes of assessment as well as the methods of assessment for each of the writing projects and oral presentations outlined above.

SCHEDULE:

	MONDAY	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY	THURSDAY	FRIDAY
09.15 - 10.00
10.15 - 11.00	E-201: Evil Be My Good. Room E-1004		E-201: Evil Be My Good. Room E-1004
11.15 - 12.00
12.15 - 13.00
13.15 - 14.00
14.15 - 15.00
15.15 - 16.00

SYLLABUS:

M.H. Abrams et al, ed., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, volume I, 7. utg. ISBN 0-393-97487-1

M.H. Abrams et al, ed.,The Norton Anthology of English Literature, volume II, 7. utg. ISBN 0-393-97491-X

All material for the course is to be found in the two texts above except the following:

Shakespeare, Macbeth, The New Cambridge Shakespeare, edited by A.R. Braunmuller, ISBN 0521-29455-X

William Godwin, Things as They Are or The Adventures of Caleb Williams, Penguin ISBN 0140432566

Anne Radcliff, The Italian, Penguin, ISBN 0140437541

Secondary readings list:

For Doctor Faustus:

Simkin, Stevie: "Of Gods and Men". Chapter 4 (pp. 99-132) in A Preface to Marlowe, Harlow, 2000.

For Macbeth:

Greenblatt, Stephen: "Shakespeare Bewitched". Pp. 108-135 in Cox and Reynolds (eds.): New Historical Literary Study: Essays on Reproducing

Texts, Representing History. Princeton, 1993.

For hovedfag students: La Belle, Jenijoy: "'A Strange Infirmity':

Lady Macbeth's Amenorrhea". Shakespeare Quarterly, Volume 31, Issue 3 (Autumn, 1980), pp. 381-386.

For Volpone (hovedfag students only):

Barish, Jonas: "Puritans and Proteans": Chapter 4 (pp. 80-131) in The Antitheatrical Prejudice. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 1981.

Extract(s) from Renaissance anti-theatrical writings.

Alvin B. Kernan, "Introduction" Volume I, Ben Jonson, Volpone, Yale University Press, 1962.

For Milton:

Carey, John "Milton's Satan". In Danielson, Dennis (ed): The Cambridge Companion to Milton, Cambridge 1989, pp. 131-145.

For Mary Shelley:

Baldick, Chris. In Frankenstein´s Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteeth Century Writing, Clarendon Press, 1987.

Levine and Knoepflmacher, eds. The Endurance of Frankenstein: Essays on Mary Shelley´s Novel, University of California Press, 1979.

There will be a list of books that provide general background material as well as concrete discussions of "evil" in literary texts, in specific cultural and historical time periods, available at the first meeting of the course as well as a course compendium that will be for sale in the bookstore.

Unless otherwise noted all texts will be discussed for four course meetings.