LIT 2380 Dr. White

INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE BY WOMEN

Week 1

Activities: Introduction to the course; women's roles in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (1-14); the Elizabethan World Picture; poems of Queen Elizabeth I (28-29); Amelia Lanier, excerpt from Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (42-44); diagnostic writing.

First women’s history handout

Assignment: Anne Bradstreet, "The Prologue" (83-84); "The Author to her Book" (88); Mary Rowlandson, "The Third Remove" (106-109).

WEEK 2

Activities: Discussion of women's roles in the 17th and 18th centuries; discussion of the assigned readings. Discussion of topics for the first out-of-class essay, due Week 5.

Assignment: Read Aphra Behn, "On Her Loving Two Equally" (115-116); Phillis Wheatley, "On Being Brought from Africa to America" (247); Mary Wollstonecraft, from A Vindication of the Rights of Women: "Introduction" (258-261); "From Chapter XIII" (273-275).

WEEK 3

Activities: Conclusion of 18th century literature; introduction to the roles of women and literature of the 19th century; discussion of assigned reading.

Assignment: Read Dorothy Wordsworth, "Peaceful our Valley, Fair and Green" (325-327); Sojourner Truth, "Ain't I a Woman?" (370); Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "To George Sand" (both poems, 379-380).

WEEK 4

Activities: Further discussion of women and literature of the 19th century; discussion of assigned readings. Film: Impromptu.

Assignment: Read "The Cry of the Children" (380-384); Emily Bronte, "Alone I Sat" (788-789); "The Night-Wind" (790-791); "Ah, why, because the dazzling sun" (795-796); Frances E. W. Harper (845-851); Christina Rossetti, "Song" (894-895); "Symbols" (895); "Eve" (915-916).

WEEK 5

Activities: Further discussion of women and literature of the 19th century; viewing of film: Wuthering Heights or Enchanted April. Discussion of the assigned readings. First out-of-class essay is due.

Assignment: Read Emily Dickinson, #249, 258, 280, 288, 312, 341, 401, 435, 462, 613, 657, 754, 986, 1732 (858-886).

WEEK 6

Activities: Conclusion of discussion of 19th century literature and women; discussion of the assigned readings. Discussion of topics for the second out-of-class essay, due Week 15.

Assignment: Read Alice James (996-1003); Sarah Orne Jewett, "A White Heron" (1004-1111); Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, "Old Woman Magoun" (1102-1114).

WEEK 7

Activities: Discussion of literature at the turn of the century and women's roles; discussion of the assigned readings, women striking out for their desires, for right or wrong.

Assignment: Read Charlotte Perkins Gilman, poems and "The Yellow Wallpaper" (1132-1144); Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1144-1149); Edith Wharton, "The Angel at the Grave" (1151-1162).

WEEK 8

Activities: Discussion of assigned readings, women as writers; viewing of film: The Yellow Wallpaper.

Assignment: Look over 1214-1242; read Dorothy Richardson, "Death" (1257-1259); Virginia Woolf, "Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights" (1328-1334, 1344). (tentative: Willa Cather's "Coming Aphrodite!").

WEEK 9

Activities: Discussion of the modernist period; discussion of the readings, love and death.

Assignment: Read Susan Glaspell, "Trifles" (1351-1360); Mina Loy, "Feminist Manifesto" (1364-1366); Isak Dinesen, "The Blank Page" (1391-1394).

WEEK 10

Activities: Discussion of readings, women's creative intelligence; viewing of film: Babette's Feast.

Assignment: Read Edith Sitwell, "Serenade: Any Man to Any Woman" (1445-1446); "Song" (1446); Katherine Anne Porter, "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" (1482-1488); Zora Neale Hurston, "How it Feels to be Colored Me" (1498-1501).

WEEK 11

Activities: Discussion of assigned readings, women's responses to their traditional role as homemakers.

Assignment: Read Edna St. Vincent Millay, "First Fig" and "Second Fig" (1502-1503); "I, being born and woman and distressed" (1503); "women have loved before as I love now" (1510); "Apostrophe to Man" (1512); "I too beneath your moon, almighty Sex" (1514).

WEEK 12

Activities: Discussion of assigned readings, women's roles as lovers or spinsters.

Assignment: Read Dorothy Parker, "Resume" (1554-1555); "One Perfect Rose" (1555); "News Item" (1555); "A Pig's Eye View of Literature" (1556-1557); "The Waltz" (1557-1560).

WEEK 13

Activities: Discussion of the contemporary period; discussion of assigned readings, women in rebellion.

Assignment: Read Stevie Smith, "Papa Love Baby" (1618); "This Englishwoman" (1618); "Souvenir de Monsieur Poop" (1620); "How Cruel is the Story of Eve" (1622); Dorothy Livesay, "Eve" (1638-1639); "The Three Emily's (1639); Eudora Welty, "A Worn Path" (1641-1646).

WEEK 14

Activities: Discussion of the assigned readings, love and anger.

Assignment: Read Elizabeth Bishop, "The Fish" (1653-1654); "Pink Dog" (1658-1659); Mary McCarthy, "Memories of a Catholic Girlhood" (1679-1686); May Sarton, "My Sisters, O My Sisters" (1686-1689); Judith Wright, "Eve to Her Daughters" (1741-1742); Flannery O'Connor, "Good Country People" (1880-1893).

WEEK 15

Activities: Discussion of the assigned readings, including varying notions of religious faith. Second out-of-class essay is due.

Assignment: Read Maya Angelou, from "Caged Bird" (1917-1921); Sylvia Plath, "Daddy" (2091-2093); Anne Sexton, "Sylvia's Death" (1913-1915); Margaret Atwood, "This is a Photograph of Me" (2216); Angela Carter, "The Company of Wolves" (2232-2238).

WEEK 16

Activities: Discussion of the assigned readings, surrender, fight or flight; brief commentary on postmodernism.

Assignment: Read "Ballad of Ladies Lost and Found" (2281-2284); Alice Walker, "In Search of our Mothers' Gardens" (2315-2322).