R U S S 4 3 0 : M A J O R W R I T E R S O F R U S S I A N R O M A N T I C I S M
Regular office hours this quarter will be:
- Monday, 12:30 - 1:20
- Thursday, 1:30-2:30
Please feel free to email or telephone me for appointments at other times, or to continue discussions from class. Classes, meetings and library work take me out of my office for a large part of every day, and the department can't afford voice mail for faculty, so email is a more reliable channel than the telephone.
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Papers: A midterm paper (6 - 8 pages, 30% of course grade) is due on Tuesday 7 February, and a final paper (8 - 10 pages, 40% of grade) on Thursday 15 March. You can turn in your papers (double-spaced, 12-pt Times New Roman, 1" margins) as email attachments by midnight on the due day, with a hard copy under my office door the following morning. We'll develop paper topics during class discussions.
Tests: There will be two tests of your familiarity with the books and images discussed in class, the first on Tuesday 7 February, the second on Thursday 8 March. Each test counts for 10% of the course grade.
Participation in class discussion counts for the remaining 10% of the course grade.
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R e a d i n g m a t e r i a l s
The literary texts we will be studying are:
- N. M. Karamzin, The Island of Bornholm.
- V. F. Odoevsky, The Salamander and The Live Corpse.
- N. V. Gogol, Viy, and Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka.
- M. N. Zagoskin, Kuzma Roshchin.
- M. Yu. Lermontov, Mtsyri, The Demon and A Hero of Our Time.
- A. S. Pushkin, Prisoner of the Caucasus, The Captain's Daughter and Eugene Onegin.
We'll be considering the European Romantic models for Russian literature of this period, which makes better sense if you have some familiarity with:
- Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto and The Mysterious Mother
- The stories of E. T. A. Hoffmann.
- The Romantic historical novels of Walter Scott, esp. The Heart of Midlothian.
- The narrative poems of Lord Byron, esp. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Giaour.
- The narrative poems of Ossian, the most influential poet who never lived!
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, La Nouvelle Héloïse.
Some of these will be distributed as photocopies, others may be borrowed from the UW Libraries, or purchased through Amazon.com. If you have any difficulty finding them, please let me know.
The following secondary works are available in the UW Libraries or through Amazon, and you should read the relevant parts of them all by the end of the quarter:
- James Billington, The Icon and the Axe.
- D. S. Mirsky, A History of Russian Literature (Any edition).
I'll be making more suggestions for background reading in the course of the quarter, partly in reponse to your thoughts on paper topics.
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1
Romanticism as a Phenomenon |
Wed 3 Jan. |
- Introduction to the course: organization, assignments, grading and expectations. - Lecture/Discussion: The competing literary '-isms'.
NeoClassicism, Sentimentalism and Romanticism: visual keys.
Note: the reading for this discussion includes an English poem that had an enormous influence in early 19th-century Russia. You can access it as a Word file by clicking on its title below. |
Reading: Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. |
The Pinnacle of Russian Romantic Prose? |
Mon 5 Mar |
Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time |
Wed 7 Mar |
A Hero of Our Time (contd).
Second recognition test |
Reading: A Hero of Our Time |
Fri 16 Mar |
Final paper due. |
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What makes a good paper? If you have any doubts about any aspect of your paper, or just want to try out ideas before you commit the time and effort to developing them at length, please feel free to come by and talk about it. Here are the guidelines that will be the basis for grading your term papers.
4.0 - 3.6 The paper shows maturity: thoughtful analysis clearly expressed.
- The title reflects a clear and non-trivial topic, and the organization is logical and coherent: questions are raised, suggested answers are presented through well-connected arguments based on detailed evidence, and conclusions do not overreach either the evidence or the arguments.
- Evidence from the relevant primary texts is not outweighed by opinions drawn from secondary sources, and there are some original insights.
- The writing is good: no grammatical problems, spelling mistakes or sloppy punctuation; sentences are neither too short (leads to repetition of many basic sentence elements, weak connection between ideas and difficulty in constructing an argument) nor too long (points get lost, arguments are hard to follow); vocabulary and style are appropriate for the context.
3.5 - 3.0 The paper is less mature, and doesn't meet the 'A' criteria consistently.
- The title could be fuller or clearer, organization could be tighter, questions clearer, argument more detailed, conclusions more specific.
- Too much reliance on opinions expressed in secondary works, too little direct evidence from the primary texts, few personal insights.
- Some minor problems with grammar, spelling and punctuation, and style, e.g. inappropriate use of slang expressions.
2.9 - 2.5 The basics are there, but there's a lot of room for improvement.
- Topic not clear, organization weak, argument thin or hard to follow, conclusions sweeping, not well supported or not directly relevant to the topic.
- Paper is based on others' opinions (secondary works, class notes or websites), with no analysis of the primary texts and no personal insights.
- Serious writing problems: sentences are poorly constructed and linked, vocabulary is often inappropriate for the context, or gratuitously colloquial.
2.4 - 2.0 The paper reflects very little thought or effort, and is difficult to read.
- Topic poorly defined, and not much clearer by the end of the paper. Organization very weak, and statement takes the place of argument. The paper may be too short, and consist of more 'padding' than substance.
- Little reference to the primary texts, possibly because of difficulty in understanding them, and secondary sources are used to compensate for this.
- Writing is bad enough to make attendance at a writing workshop advisable.
1.9 - 0.7 Writing problems obscure the content of the paper, even if there is one.
- Topic trivial, makes little sense, or is of limited relevance to the course materials. Little or no organization, too little content for there to be a structure.
- Little evidence that the primary texts have been read and understood, and use of secondary sources is paraphrase bordering on plagiarism.
- Writing is bad enough to require remediation at the Freshman Composition level.
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