Monday 1-2, 5-6
Tuesday 11-12

New Romances, New Audiences I
          - Samuel Johnson, Rambler 4 (Broadview 565)
          - Richardson, Pamela

- Polemic and Public Print
          - Defoe, The Shortest Way with Dissenters (Online -- ECCO)
          - from Swift, "Causes of the Wretched Condition of Ireland"
                    (Broadview 422)
          - from Swift, "A Short View of the State of Ireland (Broadview 423)
          - Swift, A Modest Proposal (Broadview 417)

- Sensibility and Sentiment II
          - from Oliver Goldsmith, "An Essay on the Theatre; or, a
                    Comparison between Laughing and Sentimental Comedy"
                    (Broadview 860)
          - Sheridan, The School for Scandal (Broadview 755)

1) A draft of your "thesis statement"; this should be between 40 and 100 words in length.

2) A complete bibliographical reference (in MLA style) to the earliest copy of the text upon which you are writing your essay available in either the Benson Special Collections at D. B. Weldon Library, or online through the database Early English Books Online (EEBO). If you use an online text image from EEBO, please be sure to include both a bibliographical reference to the work itself (as though you were using an actual volume of the text), and a proper citation of the online source (i.e., EEBO).

3) A 200-250 word description of some of the significant differences between the text as originally printed, and the text we are employing in class (e.g., the text as it is found in the Broadview Anthology, or Oxford World Classics, etc.). Please focus on features and differences that might affect your reading and/or understanding of the text, and be imaginative. Some examples of the sorts of questions you might want to ask yourself include:

• What sorts of changes to the text does the modern edition make (as, for example, in format or spelling)?
• Are other texts printed with the work in the original edition, and what sort of effect might these have on your understanding?
• What does the titlepage of the original say that might influence your understanding?
• How does the physical layout of the original affect your experience of the text?
• Does the typography, amount of white space, or layout in any way indicate the intended audience for the work?
  
  
  

1) A poem of approximately 60 to 120 lines in length.

• The poem may be written in any recognizable poetic genre of the Restoration and eighteenth-century period (e.g., ballad, pindaric or horatian ode, elegy, satire, miniature epic, etc.), and in any appropriate form of the period (e.g., heroic couplets, ballad stanzas, "hudibrastics," pindaric verse, etc.). A fairly detailed guide to these can be found in Bysshe's The Art of English Poetry (see below).
  
• The poem may be upon any subject matter (including modern ones, but try to avoid being libellous), but should be couched eighteenth-century language, and employ both themes and poetic devices appropriate to the period being studied in the course.
  
• The poem should be written with reference to and the aid of Edward Bysshe's The Art of English Poetry (1702), which provides a contemporary guide to such matters as poetic form, metre, rhyme, etc., as well as an extensive sampling of passages on a variety of common themes. To access The Art of Poetry, click here.

2) A 1000-1500 word critical "essay" on your own poem, which identifies and comments upon the following features:

• An explication of the poem's theme(s) and the means by which it expresses these.
  
• A discussion of the poem's form, structure, language, etc. with respect to its subject matter and "meaning."
  
• A discussion of the work as, in some sense, "characteristic" of the Restoration and eighteenth-century (subject matter notwithstanding) in terms of its themes, forms, language, etc. You should make reference to Bysshe's The Art of English Poetry to provide the norms against which these features are to be measured.
  
• A list of "Works Consulted," which includes a proper (MLA style) citation of Bysshe's work, as well as any other sources or references you have employed.

Note that these three types of feature should probably not be discussed individually, as they tend to overlap a great deal. This part of the assignment should be in proper essay format, and employ all of the features (i.e., introduction, thesis, conclusion, etc.) associated with a normal university-level essay. This portion of the assignment, in other words, should be written as though you were producing a standard university-level essay on a text studied in class.

1) A draft of your "thesis statement"; this should be between 40 and 100 words in length.

2) A complete bibliographical reference (in MLA style) to the "best" edition of the work you are planning to write on. Provide a one or two sentence explanation of why you think this is the best edition to use. Please note that it is not sufficient to justify your use of an edition merely because it is on the syllabus of this course.

3) Secondary sources – locate and give full bibliographical references (in MLA style) for:

a) One book relevant to your subject which is not specifically on the subject of the author(s) you are writing about.

b) Two articles relevant to your subject, one of which must be from a periodical or journal (i.e., not from a bound collection of essays; this may be an online journal).

c) One online article or source which has not been published in a conventional periodical or journal: You should include one or two sentences describing why you are confident that this is a trustworthy resource.