Romantic Era – Course Website

Course Syllabus

• Syllabus

CLASS 1 Resources – David Spurr, teacher

• Rousseau Fifth Walk – English Version 
• Rousseau Fifth Walk – French Version

CLASS 2 – Michele Lettiere, teacher

INTRODUCTION TO BRITISH ROMANTICISM

Class PowerPoint

POETRY MANIFESTOES

Wordsworth:  “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” (1800)

• key excerpts from the “Preface”

• key excerpts from “A Defence” 

POETRY OF THE ERA

• Poetry by Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats

CLASS 3 – John Haile, teacher

No specific assignments, however, students may wish to explore the following two links:

• The Walt Whitman Archive (whitmanarchive.org)
• Houghton Library Dickinson Collection (library.harvard.edu/collections/emily-dickinson-collection)
• Link to powerpoint of class:
  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1PcySnoFsNWyZ-gMoXpokcppehtzvZPPEPYOhsNCpUvc/edit?usp=sharing

CLASS 4 Reading – William VanderWolk, teacher

• Preface to Cromwell 

CLASS 6  – Morton Achter, teacher

Today we will consider several types of orchestral music from the Romantic Era, and how they reflect or reinforce the various ongoing themes of this course.  Be prepared to listen carefully to a number of musical examples.  No advance reading is required.

CLASS 7 Reading – Laurie Spurr, teacher

• Our discussion of Jane Austen on April 24 will touch on several of her novels, with a number of brief passages for us to examine together. However, in order for us to have a common point of reference, I encourage you to read Pride and Prejudice in advance of the class. Any complete edition will do, but I will be using the Oxford World’s Classics edition.

• As a point of departure, here is a passage from Northanger Abbey in which Austen rises to the defense of the novel as an art form. From Northanger Abbey, ch. 5

CLASS 8 Reading – David Spurr, teacher

• • Our final class on May 1 will treat the extraordinary events of 1816 which surrounded the conception and composition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In preparation for that class I recommend that you read the novel in any convenient edition, such as that of the Oxford World’s Classics.The foillowing link is to two prefaces to the novel: the first written but unsigned by Percy Shelley for the 1818 edition, and the second written by the author herself for the 1831 edition.

    Frankenstein Prefaces