ENGLISH 400/425/545

Critical Theory and Romantic Poetics:

The Cases of Blake and Shelley

Offered by Professor Mark Lussier

  1. Essential Information
    1. Class Hours = Wednesday, 6:05 – 8:55 PM
    2. Class Space = Social Science 303
    3. Line Numbers: 400 = 30420; 425 = 65363; 545 =19994
    4. Office Hours = Wednesday, 3:00 – 5:00 PM and by Appointment
    5. Web Site = www.public.asu.edu/~idmsl

II. Textbooks

    1. William Blake, The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake (abbreviated as WB)
    2. Percy B. Shelley, Shelley’s Poetry and Prose (abbreviated as PBS)
    3. David Richter, The Critical Tradition (abbreviated as CT)
    4. Various works on reserve and/or accessible via web site

III. Description of the Course

This course will provide an introduction to crucial critical concepts from the classical period through our contemporary critical scene. Primarily, the course emphasizes the historical development of varied critical approaches, although a secondary emphasis will be placed upon poetics (especially in the English Literary Tradition). Then, as students begin to master these different modes of criticism, students will apply these theoretical models to analyze the works of two highly complex and heavily theoretical poets from the Romantic period: William Blake and Percy Bysshe Shelley. The reading pace will be brisk but fair, and students should emerge from the course with a broad understanding of the historical development of critical discourse and a more specific understanding of how different critical modes can be mustered to read the works of two difficult poets.

IV. Course Requirements

This is both a reading- and writing-intensive course designed to provide students with ample opportunities to explore the play of critical discourse across the spectrum of classical and contemporary concerns. Course requirements include both discursive presentations and the production of critical research. Students will be required to make a presentation on critical author during the course of the semester, and these presentations are meant to provide class peers with a heightened understanding of a given critic or critical school. Writing requirements for the class include a 250-word explication of a discrete poem, a book review, which will be copied and disseminated to class peers, and a full-scale research paper (20-25 pages). There will be both mid-term and final examinations. Since the class will likely be small, additional emphasis will be placed on in-class performance and participation.

The grade will be calculated as follows:

1. In-Class Presentation 100 points
2. Book Review 100 points
3. Explication 100 points
4. Research Paper 200 points
5. Mid-term exam 200 points
6. Final exam 200 points
7. Participation 100 points

V. Class Rules and Regulations

Since the class meets in a seminar atmosphere (once per week), attendance is crucial to a thorough understanding of the material. Students will be allowed one unexcused (i.e. unexplained) absence without impacting the grade for the course. Subsequent absences will result in a grade reduction. Students should arrive with all assigned work completed on the due date established below and should be ready to discuss assigned reading for that date. Students are requested to arrive to the classroom on time, since excessive tardiness disrupts class discussion.

VI. Reading Schedule

Aug 25.
Introduction to the Course
Discussion of Syllabus and Requirements
Fetterley, The Resisting Reader (CT 991-8)

Classical Approaches to Literary Dynamics

Sep 01
Richter, "Introduction," (CT 1-14);
Plato, "Republic" and "Ion" (CT 17-37)
Aristotle, "Poetics" (CT 38-64)
Blake, "On Homer’s Poetry" and "On Virgil" (WB 269-70)

Sep 08
Horace, "The Art of Poetry" (CT 68-79)
Plotinus, "On Intellectual Beauty" (CT 110-9)
Dante, "Letter to Can Grande della Scala" (CT 119-23)
Shelley, "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" (PBS 93-6)

Sep 15
Longinus, "On the Sublime" (CT 81-107)
Kant, From Critique of Judgment" (CT 253-80)
Burke & Monk, selections (reserve room or web site)
Blake, "Auguries of Innocence" (WB 490-6)

Critical Traditions & English Poetics

Sep 22
Sidney, An Apology for Poetry (CT 134-60
Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (CT 206-18)
David Hume, Of the Standard of Taste (CT 239-52)

Sep 29
Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads (CT 300-15)
Coleridge, From Biographia Literaria (CT 315-8, 321-32)
Keats, letters (CT 333-7)
Blake’s Annotations to Wordsworth (WB 665-7)
Shelley, "To Wordsworth" (PBS 88)
Foucault, "What Is an Author" (CT 889-900)

Oct 6
Blake, "A Vision of the Last Judgment" and "The Laoco` n" (WB 552-67, 273-6)
Shelley, "A Defense of Poetry" (CT 337-56 or PBS 478-510)
Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of Art (CT 357-72)
Nietzsche, From The Birth of Tragedy (CT 417-34)
Schneidau, Introduction to Sacred Discontent (reserve or web site)

Romantic Prophetics: Poets & Their Discontents

Oct 13
Blake, "All Religions are One," "There is No Natural Religion [a] & [b]," The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (33-45), and "The Mental Traveller" (33-45, 483-6)
Freud, "Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming" (CT 481-8)
Brooks, "Freud’s Masterplot" (CT 1033-44)
Lacan, "The Agency of the Letter." (CT 1044-65)

Oct 20
Blake, The Book of Thel, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, and Visions of the Daughters of Albion (WB 3-32, 45-51)
Cixous, "The Laugh of the Medusa" (CT 1453-65)
`Irigaray, "This Sex Which Is Not One" (CT 1466-71)
Foucault, From The History of Sexuality (CT 1472-81)

Oct 27
Shelley, Queen Mab and Alastor (PBS 69-86)
Marx, Consciousness Derived from Material Conditions (CT 385-92)
Eagleton, Categories for a Materialist Criticism (CT 1141-53)
Fredric Jameson, From The Political Unconscious (CT 1188-1203)

Nov 3
Shelley, "Mont Blanc," "Julian and Maddalo," and "The Mask of Anarchy" and (PBS 89-93, 112-26, 301-11)
Shklovsky, "Art as Technique" (716-27)
Crane, "Toward a More Adequate Criticism" (765-86)

Romantic Epic: Visionary Forms Dramatic

Nov 10
Blake, America, A Prophecy, Europe, A Prophecy, The Book of Urizen, and The Book of Ahania (51-67, 84-90)
Jung, All Selections (504-27)
Levi-Strauss, The Structural Study of Myth (CT 835-44)
Derrida, "Structure, Sign, and Play" (CT 877-89)

Nov 17
Blake, Milton and selected letters, 1800-1803 (WB 95-129, 704-738))
Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent (CT 495-504)
Burke, "Literature as Equipment for Living"
Lussier, "Blake’s Vortex: The Quantum Bridge in Milton" (on web site)

Nov 24
Blake, Jerusalem (WB 144-59)
Eco, "The Myth of Superman" (CT 865-77)
|Saussure, "Nature of the Linguistic Sign" (CT 832-35)
Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (CT 1105-22)

Dec 01
Shelley, Prometheus Unbound, "On Love" and "On Life" (PBS, 473-8)
Wasseman, "Shelley’s Use of Myth" (PBS 524-30)
Abrams, "Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound" (PBS 596-603)
Hughes, "Potentiality in Prometheus Unbound" (PBS 603-20)

Dec 08
Shelley, The Cenci (PBS 239-301)
Gadamer, "The Elevation of the Historicality" (CT 668-89)
Jauss, From Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory (CT 934-55)
White, "The Politics of Historical Interpretation" (CT 1297-1316)

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