John P Rumrich

E 363  l  Milton-HONORS

Instructor:  Rumrich, J

Unique #:  35139

Semester:  Fall 2019

Cross-lists:  LAH 350.30

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description:  Although this course mainly concerns Milton’s poetry, our orientation will be historical and biographical.  We will trace young Milton’s path to deep involvement in the religious controversies of the early 1640s, controversies that rapidly evolved into a tense political crisis followed by Civil War, Regicide, and the regime of Oliver Cromwell, for which Milton became chief spokesman.

Milton’s decision to participate in the rough and tumble of religious and political controversies came at the cost of continued commitment to his youthful sense of poetic vocation. We will consider Milton’s early poetry, especially Nativity Ode,Comus, and Lycidas,in light of his expressed rationale for that decision.  The remainder of the course will set Milton’s Restoration masterpieces—Paradise Lost,Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes—in the context of his Civil War and interregnum writings (1640-1660). We will consider his ideas concerning the origin and limits of executive power, marriage as a societal institution subject to state regulation, the relation of Church and State, and the epistemological basis of individual autonomy and liberty in what Thomas Jefferson would later call “the pursuit of happiness.”  The very nature of the human subject was in contest in Milton’s era, and the stakes of this contest appear strikingly in his most celebrated prose work, Areopagitica, which makes a comprehensive case against censorship and champions freedom of inquiry.

Assignments for the course will include student presentations on Milton’s political, philosophical, and poetic commitments both as an active instrument of power and as a passive sufferer.  Students will be asked to relate the particulars of Milton’s life and art to ongoing debates over the proper limits of governmental authority, the definition of marriage, freedom of information, and the correspondence of social policy to our understanding of human nature.

Texts:  The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton(Random House, 2007).

Requirements & Grading (tentative): Students will be asked to pursue a research project that identifies an inquiry in Milton studies, make a presentation to the class on that inquiry, and submit a long essay working out their findings (15 pp.); presentation (25%), participation (35%), final paper (40%).

This course will survey Milton's works in the context of his historical situation and introduce various critical perspectives on his writings.

Milton believed that a true poet must himself live a true poem.  With this invitation to ponder the relation between of Milton's life and letters, we will examine the peculiar self-authorship of a poet whose notion of filial obedience led to heresy and regicide.  The course will introduce Milton the propagandist, theologian, linguist, social critic, historian, logician, government official, and self-proclaimed prophet.  We will grapple with the improbability of a puritan poet setting out to justify the ways of God to men while suffering blindness, crushing political defeat, domestic turmoil, imprisonment, public ridicule, and a close brush with a grisly execution.  Our study of Paradise Lost will account for roughly a third of the class, with Milton’s minor poetry and political writings accounting for the other two-thirds.

Students will be responsible for introducing one of Milton’s works to the class and initiating the ensuing discussion.  Most of our secondary reading, especially during the first half of the course, will concern conventional biographical accounts of Milton’s life.  Student introductions to specific works of Milton will be expected to take account of these readings. As essay of 15-20 pages will be due at the end of term.

Text:  The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton (Modern Library, 2007).  ISBN: 0679642536

Instructor:  Rumrich, J

Unique #:  35455

Semester:  Spring 2019

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer Instruction: No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: We will read six or seven of Shakespeare’s plays and some non-dramatic poetry (especially the sonnets), concentrating on ethical and leadership-related themes established early in Shakespeare's career (1592-99), when Elizabeth was entering her final decade on the throne and the triumph over the Spanish Armada (1588) was a recent memory.  We will also seek insight into Shakespeare’s development as a playwright by reading two plays composed by rival playwrights (Robert Greene and Christopher Marlowe).  Our readings include moments that reflect on dramatic or theatrical fiction while also being part of a fiction, and we will consider their implications.  Discussions along this line will be pushed toward greater awareness of the conditions under which the plays were performed--during daylight, on a relatively unadorned, thrust stage, with a repertory company of limited size, composed entirely of males.  We will identify dramatic models and idioms with which Shakespeare worked, his choices of historical moments to represent on stage, and the pertinence of these choices in the waning years of Elizabeth's reign.  We will work to become familiar with Shakespeare’s language by way of short student performances of speeches and segments of scenes.  For the Spring of 2019, this course will be coordinated for part of the semester with a counterpart Shakespeare course being taught at Université Paul Valery in Montpellier, France.  There will be on-line meetings between the two classes and shared assignments in which UT students will work in collaboration with UPV students.  These assignments will seek student assessment of the perspectives on ethics and leadership afforded by the plays as well as shared efforts aimed at the interpreting passages from scenes that will be selected for their bearing on the themes of leadership and ethics.

Texts: (tentative)Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay,pdf;I Henry 4, Pelican paperback; Midsummer Night’s Dream, Pelican paperback;Jew of Malta, on line text (Perseus-Tufts);Merchant of Venice, Pelican paperback;Julius Caesar,Pelican paperback;King Lear, Pelican paperback;Macbeth, Pelican paperback;Tempest, Pelican paperback.  Texts will be available at the Co-op.

Requirements & Grading: 

Quizzes (30%):  There will be six scheduled quizzes with no makeups permitted.  This rule in effect constitutes an attendance policy.  If a student misses class on the day of a quiz, the student receives a zero for that quiz.  The margin for error is small; only the lowest grade will be dropped.

Presentations (25%):  Students will be responsible for developing in-class presentations concerning the plays we read.  These presentations are in part intended to involve students in pertinent discussion of themes of leadership and ethics evoked by the plays on the syllabus, and to practice making arguments for or against certain ethical practices especially in relation to the exercise of political leadership.

Participation (20%): Discussion queries related to the scheduled readings will be distributed each week, and students will be responsible for preparing responses to them. These responses will be noted and assessed as a basis for the participation grade.

Instructor:  Rumrich, J

Unique #: 35625

Semester:  Spring 2019

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer instruction: No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: The course begins by tracing young man Milton’s path to the religious controversies of the early 1640s, controversies that rapidly evolved into a tense political crisis followed by Civil War, Regicide, and the regime of Oliver Cromwell, for which Milton was chief spokesman.

Milton’s neglect of poetry during the prime of his life to enter instead into the rough and tumble of religious and political controversies is the major biographical instance of ethics and leadership addressed in this course.  During the late 1630s Milton’s sense of a divinely inspired poetic vocation came into conflict with his classically informed belief in a citizen’s ethical obligation to participate in public affairs.  The primary poetic text for this part of the course is Comus, supplemented by brief excerpts from Milton’s anti-clerical prose tracts.  The course will also set Milton’s Restoration masterpieces (post-1660)—Paradise Lost,Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes—in the context of his Civil War and interregnum writings (1640-1660). We will consider his ideas concerning the origin and limits of executive power, marriage as a societal institution subject to state regulation, and most fundamentally, the epistemological basis of individual autonomy and liberty in what Jefferson called “the pursuit of happiness.”  The very nature of the human subject was in contest during Milton’s era and the stakes of this contest appear strikingly in his most celebrated prose work, Areopagitica, which makes a comprehensive case against censorship and champions freedom of inquiry.

Assignments for the course include student led presentations on Milton’s historical and poetic enactment of ethical crises in relation to leadership, both as an active instrument of power and as a passive sufferer. Students will be asked to relate the particulars of Milton’s life and art to ongoing debates over the proper limits of governmental authority, the definition of marriage, freedom of information, and the correspondence of social policy to our understanding of human nature.

Texts: The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton(Random House, 2007).

Requirements & Grading (tentative): quizzes (30%), presentation (25%), participation (20%), comprehensive final (25%).

Instructor:  Rumrich, J

Unique #:  35705

Semester:  Fall 2018

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites:  Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description:  In 1660, after a bitter and bloody Civil War between Parliamentary and Royalist factions that led ultimately to the execution of King Charles I and the regime of Oliver Cromwell, the English monarchy was restored in 1660 in the person of King Charles II.  The literary culture that ensued over the next century and more reverberated with the trauma of these tumultuous events.  In this course, beginning with John Milton’s epic Paradise Lost, we will weigh what T. S. Eliot meant by claiming that “the Civil War is not ended.  I question whether any serious civil war ever does end.”  The reading list will include representative narrative and lyric poetry, drama, and prose works.

Texts:  John Milton, Paradise Lost (Modern Library), The Broadview Anthology of British Literature Vol. 3: The Restoration and The Eighteenth Century, and at least one novel (TBA).  Additional readings will be supplied either as photocopies or digital attachments via canvas.

Requirements & Grading:  Each student will be asked to formulate a response to one or more of the assigned readings.  These short (1-2 pages) papers will be presented in class and should be designed to spark lively discussion (20%).  The rest of the grade will be based on a midterm (30%) and comprehensive final exam (50%).

Instructor:  Rumrich, J

Unique #:  35905

Semester:  Fall 2018

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites:  Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description:  The classic fictional British detective created by Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, typically solves cases by applying superior intellectual skills, logic, and encyclopedic knowledge.  Dashiell Hammett’s laconic American detectives, though savvy enough in their way, tend to solve crimes by mixing it up in the underworld, becoming involved and implicated in the action.  The distinction between these two kinds of methodology (not always that sharp in practice) will be a central concern of this course, but we will also consider a classical, dramatic paradigm of the modern detective (Oedipus Rex), a novel by Raymond Chandler, and a science fiction variation on the detective theme.  The class will also consider cinematic and other visually oriented versions of stories by Doyle, Hammett, Chandler, and Philip K. Dick.

CourseObjectives:  The instructor is particularly interested in Hammett’s historically specific (almost a century-old), American deviation—hard-boiled detective fiction—from the late-nineteenth-century British model primarily identified with Doyle.  After reading a few Holmes stories, we will turn to Hammett, beginning with the short stories he sold to magazines in the 1920s and then turning to the novels he published into the 1930s.  We will then consider novels by Chandler and Dick that seem influenced by Hammett.

Requirements & Grading:  Assignments will be designed to improve student skills in readers, pursuing independent inquiry, in collaborating on a presentation, and in writing and revising.  In lieu of an explicit attendance policy, several unannounced quizzes on the reading will account for 15% of the grade.  Early in the semester a short diagnostic writing assignment (1-2 pages; 10 %) with a peer review component will be assigned.  The second, slightly longer, writing assignment (2-3 pages; 20%) will ask for a comparison of short stories by Doyle and Hammett.  The third writing assignment forms part of a small group presentation project (3 students per panel, one that should deploy a presentation application like PowerPoint, keynote, or Prezi and focus on a rendition of one or more of the stories or novels on the syllabus produced in visually oriented media, including film, television, graphic novels (25%).  The final paper, about 5 pages in length (30%), will require the use and citation of independent research into a recent works of literature, cinema, or series television that significantly influenced or shaped by one or more of Hammett’s stories or novels.

Instructor:  Rumrich, J

Unique #:  81270

Semester:  Summer 2018, first session

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer instruction:  No

Prerequisites:  Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description:  The course begins by tracing young man Milton’s path to the religious controversies of the early 1640s, controversies that rapidly evolved into a tense political crisis followed by Civil War, Regicide, and the regime of Oliver Cromwell, for which Milton was chief spokesman.

Milton’s neglect of poetry during the prime of his life to enter instead into the rough and tumble of religious and political controversies is the major biographical instance of ethics and leadership addressed in this course.  During the late 1630s Milton’s sense of a divinely inspired poetic vocation came into conflict with his classically informed belief in a citizen’s ethical obligation to participate in public affairs.  The primary poetic text for this part of the course is Comus, supplemented by brief excerpts from Milton’s anti-clerical prose tracts.  The course will also set Milton’s Restoration masterpieces (post-1660)—Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes—in the context of his Civil War and interregnum writings (1640-1660).  We will consider his ideas concerning the origin and limits of executive power, marriage as a societal institution subject to state regulation, and most fundamentally, the epistemological basis of individual autonomy and liberty in what Jefferson called “the pursuit of happiness.”  The very nature of the human subject was in contest during Milton’s era and the stakes of this contest appear strikingly in his most celebrated prose work, Areopagitica, which makes a comprehensive case against censorship and champions freedom of inquiry.

Assignments for the course include student led presentations on Milton’s historical and poetic enactment of ethical crises in relation to leadership, both as an active instrument of power and as a passive sufferer.  Students will be asked to relate the particulars of Milton’s life and art to ongoing debates over the proper limits of governmental authority, the definition of marriage, freedom of information, and the correspondence of social policy to our understanding of human nature.

Texts:  The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton (Random House, 2007).

Requirements & Grading (tentative):  Midterm and final examinations; unannounced quizzes; memorization assignment.

Instructor:  Rumrich, J

Unique #:  34915

Semester:  Spring 2018

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites:  Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description:  We will read six or seven of Shakespeare’s plays and some non-dramatic poetry (especially the sonnets), concentrating on ethical and leadership-related themes established early in Shakespeare's career (1592-99), when Elizabeth was entering her final decade on the throne and the triumph over the Spanish Armada (1588) was a recent memory.  We will also seek insight into Shakespeare’s development as a playwright by reading two plays composed by rival playwrights (Robert Greene and Christopher Marlowe). Our readings include moments that reflect on dramatic or theatrical fiction while also being part of a fiction, and we will consider their implications.  Discussions along this line will be pushed toward greater awareness of the conditions under which the plays were performed--during daylight, on a relatively unadorned, thrust stage, with a repertory company of limited size, composed entirely of males.  We will identify dramatic models and idioms with which Shakespeare worked, his choices of historical moments to represent on stage, and the pertinence of these choices in the waning years of Elizabeth's reign.  We will work to become familiar with Shakespeare’s language by way of short student performances of speeches and segments of scenes.  For the Spring of 2018, this course will be coordinated for most of the semester with a counterpart Shakespeare course being taught at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China.  There will be on-line meetings between the two classes and shared assignments in which UT students will work in collaboration with ZJU students.  These assignments will seek student assessment of the perspectives on ethics and leadership afforded by the plays as well as shared efforts aimed at the performance of passages from scenes that will be selected for their bearing on the themes of leadership and ethics.

Texts: (tentative) Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay,pdf; I Henry 4, Pelican paperback; Midsummer Night’s Dream, Pelican paperback; Jew of Malta, on line text (Perseus-Tufts); Merchant of Venice, Pelican paperback; Julius Caesar, Pelican paperback; King Lear, Pelican paperback; Macbeth, Pelican paperback; Tempest, Pelican paperback.  Texts will be available at the Co-op.

Requirements & Grading:  

Quizzes (25%):  There will be six short quizzes on the readings with no makeups permitted.  This rule in effect constitutes an attendance policy.  If a student misses class on the day of a quiz, the student receives a zero for that quiz.  The margin for error is small; I will drop only the lowest grade.

Presentations (25%):  Students will be responsible for developing in-class presentations concerning the plays we read.  These presentations are in part intended to involve students in pertinent discussion of themes of leadership and ethics evoked by the plays on the syllabus, and to practice making arguments for or against certain ethical practices especially in relation to the exercise of political leadership.

Journals (25%): Journals are to include entries that 1) make observations on the readings and class lectures/discussions (especially early in the term); 2) describe presentation preparation and outline ethical debate; 3) record interactions with other students, in Austin and Hangzhou, concerning leadership and political authority (beginning in February); and 4) detail the challenges and insights tied to work on performance (especially late in the term).  Students are expected to write, on average, two journal entries per week during the semester and each entry should represent at least a half hour’s effort in composition.

Performance (25%):  Student groups will offer end of term performances in combination with students at ZJU.  The major portion of the grade will be based simply on the accuracy of student memorization of lines (not on acting ability) but we also look for evidence of authentic effort at group collaboration.

Instructor:  Rumrich, J

Unique #:  35525

Semester:  Spring 2017

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer instruction:  No

Prerequisites:  Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description:  The course begins by tracing young man Milton’s path to the religious controversies of the early 1640s, controversies that rapidly evolved into a tense political crisis followed by Civil War, Regicide, and the regime of Oliver Cromwell, for which Milton was chief spokesman.

Milton’s neglect of poetry during the prime of his life to enter instead into the rough and tumble of religious and political controversies is the major biographical instance of ethics and leadership addressed in this course.  During the late 1630s Milton’s sense of a divinely inspired poetic vocation came into conflict with his classically informed belief in a citizen’s ethical obligation to participate in public affairs.  The primary poetic text for this part of the course is Comus, supplemented by brief excerpts from Milton’s anti-clerical prose tracts.  The course will also set Milton’s Restoration masterpieces (post-1660)—Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes—in the context of his Civil War and interregnum writings (1640-1660).  We will consider his ideas concerning the origin and limits of executive power, marriage as a societal institution subject to state regulation, and most fundamentally, the epistemological basis of individual autonomy and liberty in what Jefferson called “the pursuit of happiness.”  The very nature of the human subject was in contest during Milton’s era and the stakes of this contest appear strikingly in his most celebrated prose work, Areopagitica, which makes a comprehensive case against censorship and champions freedom of inquiry.

Assignments for the course include student led presentations on Milton’s historical and poetic enactment of ethical crises in relation to leadership, both as an active instrument of power and as a passive sufferer.  Students will be asked to relate the particulars of Milton’s life and art to ongoing debates over the proper limits of governmental authority, the definition of marriage, freedom of information, and the correspondence of social policy to our understanding of human nature.

Texts:  The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton (Random House, 2007).

Requirements & Grading (tentative):  Midterm and final examinations; unannounced quizzes; memorization assignment.

Description:  Mystery and Identity– the genre of detective fiction is generally deemed a relatively recent innovation, usually traced to certain stories by Edgar Allen Poe.  But the broader themes of mystery, detection, and fitting a perpetrator to a crime are age old.  We will begin the first semester with classic dramas of world literature that suggest a similar perspective on the detection of crime—Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. After this broad introduction, we will turn to Arthur Conan Doyle and the archetypal detective, Sherlock Holmes.  Then we will pay sustained notice to Dashiell Hammett, who according to Raymond Chandler, “took murder out of the drawing room and put it back in the gutter where it belonged.”  Hammett’s lean, vivid prose style sets an example of clarity and economy for us to emulate in our own writing, which we will practice consistently in this course.  In the second semester, our scrutiny of mystery, identity, and criminal detection will develop into a broader exploration of what it has meant to be a human subject in modern Western Culture since the time of the Black Plague.  Major texts will include Boccaccio’s Decameron, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Shelley’s Frankenstein. 

Texts/Readings (subject to revision and expansion):

Boccaccio, Decameron

Doyle, Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Hammett, The Big Knockover; Red Harvest

Milton, Paradise Lost

Shakespeare, Hamlet

Shelley, Frankenstein

Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

Assignments:

Reading quizzes; several short essays (2-3 pages), one longer essay (each semester); peer editing; in-class presentations

About the Professor: 
John Rumrich teaches early modern British literature, especially the works of Shakespeare and Milton. An NEH fellow (1990-91) and editor of Texas Studies in Literature and Language (1992-2007), he was in 2014 named Honored Scholar of the Milton Society of America.  He has taught as a visiting professor in China, France, Ireland, New Zealand, and South Africa.  Supported by grants from the Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services (2005-8), he helped design a book-based audio-text interface that has become a standard instructional resource at UT. 

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

E f321  l  Shakespeare: Selected Plays

Instructor:  Rumrich, J

Unique #:  81905

Semester:  Summer 2016, first session

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites:  Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description:  We will read seven of Shakespeare’s plays and his sonnets, concentrating on ethical and leadership-related themes established early in Shakespeare's career, when Elizabeth was entering her final decade on the throne and the triumph over the Spanish Armada was a recent memory.  Aside from seeking insight into Shakespeare’s development as a playwright, we will focus on those moments in his plays that reflect on dramatic or theatrical fiction while being part of a fiction.  Discussions along this line will be pushed toward greater awareness of the historical conditions of Renaissance drama and particularly the conditions under which these plays were performed--during daylight, on a relatively unadorned, thrust stage, with a repertory company of limited size, composed entirely of males.  We will identify dramatic models and idioms with which Shakespeare worked, his choices of historical moments to represent on stage, and the pertinence of these choices in the waning years of Elizabeth's reign.

Texts: (tentative) I Henry 4, Pelican paperback; Merchant of Venice, Pelican paperback; Romeo and Juliet, Pelican paperback; Julius Caesar, Pelican paperback; Hamlet, Pelican paperback; Macbeth, Pelican paperback; Tempest, Pelican paperback.  Texts will be available at the Co-op.

Requirements & Grading:  

Quizzes (50%):  There will be weekly quizzes and no makeups.  This rule in effect constitutes an attendance policy.  If a student misses class on the day of a quiz, the student receives a zero for that quiz.  The margin for error is small; I will drop only the lowest grade.

Presentation (20%):  Students will be responsible for developing discussion panels (2 to 3 students per panel) concerning each play on the syllabus.  The panels are intended to involve students in pertinent discussion of themes of leadership and ethics that are evoked by the plays on the syllabus.

Performance Review (30%):  Each student will be responsible for attending or watching a performance of one of Shakespeare’s plays on stage or screen and writing a review (about 1000 words).

E 363  l  Milton

Instructor:  Rumrich, J

Unique #:  34685

Semester:  Spring 2016

Cross-lists:  n/a

Restrictions:  n/a

Computer instruction:  No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: The course begins by tracing young man Milton’s path to the religious controversies of the early 1640s, controversies that rapidly evolved into a tense political crisis followed by Civil War, Regicide, and the regime of Oliver Cromwell, for which Milton was chief spokesman.

Milton’s neglect of poetry during the prime of his life to enter instead into the rough and tumble of religious and political controversies is the major biographical instance of ethics and leadership addressed in this course. During the late 1630s Milton’s sense of a divinely inspired poetic vocation came into conflict with his classically informed belief in a citizen’s ethical obligation to participate in public affairs. The primary poetic text for this part of the course is Comus, supplemented by brief excerpts from Milton’s anti-clerical prose tracts. The course will also set Milton’s Restoration masterpieces (post-1660)—Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes—in the context of his Civil War and interregnum writings (1640-1660). We will consider his ideas concerning the origin and limits of executive power, marriage as a societal institution subject to state regulation, and most fundamentally, the epistemological basis of individual autonomy and liberty in what Jefferson called “the pursuit of happiness.” The very nature of the human subject was in contest during Milton’s era and the stakes of this contest appear strikingly in his most celebrated prose work, Areopagitica, which makes a comprehensive case against censorship and champions freedom of inquiry.

Assignments for the course include student led presentations on Milton’s historical and poetic enactment of ethical crises in relation to leadership, both as an active instrument of power and as a passive sufferer. Students will be asked to relate the particulars of Milton’s life and art to ongoing debates over the proper limits of governmental authority, the definition of marriage, freedom of information, and the correspondence of social policy to our understanding of human nature.

Texts: The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton (Random House, 2007).

Requirements & Grading: (tentative) Midterm and final examinations; unannounced quizzes; memorization assignment.

Description:

Private Investigations – the genre of detective fiction is generally deemed a relatively recent innovation, usually traced to certain stories by Edgar Allen Poe.  But the broader themes of mystery, detection, and fitting a perpetrator to a crime are age old.  This course is based on the premise that such stories are well suited to improving our skills as readers and investigators of literary meaning.  We will begin with an anthology of short narrative classics of the genre.  After this broad introduction, we will pay sustained notice to Dashiell Hammett, who according to Raymond Chandler, “took murder out of the drawing room and put it back in the gutter where it belonged.” Where the classic British fictional detective Sherlock Holmes had solved cases through superior intellectual skills and the application of encyclopedic scientific knowledge, Hammett’s laconic American detectives, though savvy enough in their way, solved crimes by mixing it up in the criminal underworld, becoming involved in the action. His stories, and particularly his version of the implicated, hardboiled hero, set a precedent to which contemporary American culture is deeply indebted.  His lean, vivid prose style, furthermore, sets an example of clarity and economy for us to emulate in our own writing.  Having studied Hammett’s stories as a refreshed model for representing the course of human events, we will finish the semester with dramatic classics of world literature that share a similar perspective on crime and punishment—Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Texts/Readings (subject to revision and expansion):

Peter Washington, ed. Detective Stories

Dashiell Hammett, The Big Knockover; The Maltese Falcon

Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

Shakespeare, Hamlet

Assignments:

Quizzes on the readings; three short essays (2-3 pages), two of them peer-edited; a final essay (5-7 pages); class presentations. 

About the Professor:

John Rumrich regularly teaches the works of Shakespeare and Milton, and early modern British literature generally. An NEH fellow (1990-91) and editor of Texas Studies in Literature and Language (1992-2007), he was in 2014 named Honored Scholar by the Milton Society of America.  He has taught as a visiting professor in China, France, Ireland, New Zealand, and South Africa.  Supported by grants from the Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services (2005-8), he helped design a book-based audiotext interface that has become a standard instructional resource at UT.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

E s321  l  Shakespeare: Selected Plays-Great Britain

Instructor:  Rumrich, J

Unique #:  82755

Semester:  Summer 2015, second session

Cross-lists:  n/a

Flags:  Global cultures

Restrictions:  Oxford Summer Program participants

Computer Instruction:  No

E 379M (Topic 3: Shakespeare in Performance) may not also be counted.

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: Shakespeare offers perhaps the most direct and entertaining route to the heart of English culture. This course will afford students a rare opportunity not only to read Shakespeare's works but also to watch them performed on stage by fine professional actors. Our syllabus will correspond to the scheduled performances of Shakespeare's plays in Stratford and London. Discussion and lecture will reflect on these present-day renditions of Shakespeare's plays by detailing the conditions under which renaissance drama was originally presented--during daylight, on a relatively unadorned, thrust stage, by a repertory company of limited size, composed entirely of males. Especially during our visits to the Globe we will attempt to recognize how Shakespeare and his company might turn these apparent liabilities to their advantage. The classic example is Shakespeare's fondness for disguise plots in which young women dress up as young men, encouraging questions about sex roles and the constitution of gender. Every chance to understand the specific conditions of present-day performance such as those at Stratford upon Avon will also be taken.

Texts: Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, two other Shakespeare plays as yet to be determined and, for purposes of comparison, Ben Jonson’s Volpone and George Farquhar’s Beaux Stratagem. Where possible, we will be using the Pelican Shakespeare series of paperback editions.

Requirements & Grading: Students will be asked to review two of the performances in 3-4 page essays (750-1000 words) (40%) and make a presentation to the class summarizing and reviewing a play seen independently during the session (25%. There will also be a memorization assignment, including formal analysis of the verses memorized (35%).

E 350M  l  Paradise Lost and Episodes in its Reception-HONORS

Instructor:  Rumrich, J

Unique #:  34800

Semester:  Spring 2015

Cross-lists:  LAH 350

Restrictions:  English Honors; Plan I Honors

Computer Instruction:  No

Flags: Writing

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

The majority of the course will be devoted to careful reading of Milton’s late poetry, primarily Paradise Lost. The rest of the course will consider telling moments in Milton’s literary afterlife, with attention to Milton’s impact on women and African-American writers during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Among the works to be considered will be Phyllis Wheatley’s poetry and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Requirements & Grading: Students will be asked to pursue a research project that identifies an episode in Milton’s reception, make a presentation to the class on that episode, and submit a long essay working out their findings (15 pp.).

Description:

Origin stories - We will begin with narratives from the Greco-Roman tradition translated by major early modern English poets and selections from Hebrew and Christian scripture.  As a way of defining and assessing the significance of genre in literary accounts of human life, we will also regularly read and discuss selected lyric poems written in English and attend carefully to the varieties of poetic form. 

Texts/Readings:

Homer, The Iliad (Pope's translation)

Vergil, The Aeneid (Dryden's Translation)

Ovid, Pharsalia (Marlowe's translation of Book 1)

Selections from Hebrew and Christian scriptures

Milton, Paradise Lost

Poems by various hands

Assignments:

A reading journal (two entries per week); four short essays (2-3 pages), two of them peer-edited; a final essay (5-7 pages); class presentations.

About the Professor:

John Rumrich regularly teaches Shakespeare's plays, the works of John Milton, and early modern British literary culture. An NEH fellow (1990-91) and editor of Texas Studies in Literature and Language (1992-2007), he was in 2014 named Honored Scholar by the Milton Society of America.  He has taught as a visiting professor in China, France, Ireland, New Zealand, and South Africa.  Supported by grants from the Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services (2005-8), he helped design a book-based audiotext interface that has become a standard instructional resource. 

Instructor:  Rumrich, J

Unique #:  35900

Semester:  Fall 2014

Cross-lists:  n/a

Flags:  Ethics and Leadership

Computer instruction:  No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: The course begins with young man Milton on the brink of plunging into the religious controversies of the early 1640s, controversies that rapidly evolved into a tense political crisis followed by Civil War, Regicide, and the regime of Oliver Cromwell, for which Milton was chief spokesman. 

Milton’s neglect of poetry during the prime of his life to enter instead into the rough and tumble of religious and political controversies is the biographical instance of ethics and leadership initially addressed in this course.   During the late 1630s Milton’s sense of a divinely inspired poetic vocation came into conflict with his classically informed belief in a citizen’s ethical obligation to participate in public affairs.  The primary poetic text for this part of the course is Comus, supplemented by brief excerpts from Milton’s anti-clerical prose tracts.  The course then proceeds by setting Milton’s Restoration masterpieces (post-1660)—Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes—in the context of his Civil War and interregnum writings (1640-1660): on the origin and limits of executive power, on marriage as a societal institution subject to state regulation, and most fundamentally on the epistemological basis of individual autonomy and liberty in what Jefferson called “the pursuit of happiness.”  The very nature of the human subject was in contest during Milton’s era and the stakes of this contest appear strikingly in his most celebrated prose work, Areopagitica, which makes a comprehensive case against censorship and champions freedom of inquiry.

Assignments for the course include a series of student led presentations concerning Milton’s historical and poetic enactment of ethical crises in relation to leadership, both as an active instrument of power and as a passive sufferer.  Students will be asked to relate the particulars of Milton’s life and art to ongoing debates over the proper limits of governmental authority, the definition of marriage, freedom of information, and the correspondence of social policy to our understanding of human nature.

Texts: The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton (Random House, 2007).

Requirements & Grading: (tentative) Midterm and final examinations; unannounced quizzes; memorization assignment.

Instructor:  Rumrich, J

Unique #:  35820

Semester:  Spring 2014

Cross-lists:  n/a

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: We will read eight plays and various sonnets, concentrating on themes established early in Shakespeare's career, when Elizabeth was on the throne. Aside from seeking insight into Shakespeare’s development as a playwright, we will focus on those moments in his plays that reflect on dramatic or theatrical fiction while nevertheless being a part of such a fiction. Discussions along this line will be pushed toward greater awareness of the historical conditions of Renaissance drama and particularly the conditions under which these plays were performed--during daylight, on a relatively unadorned, thrust stage, with a repertory company of limited size, composed entirely of males. Also of interest are the various dramatic models and idioms with which Shakespeare played, his choices of historical moments to represent on stage, and the pertinence of such play and such choices in the waning years of Elizabeth's reign and the early years of James’s.

Texts: To be announced.

Requirements & Grading: Quizzes: There will be at least five or six unannounced quizzes on the reading. There are no makeups. This rule constitutes the de facto attendance policy.

Memorization:  Students will be asked to memorize and recite excerpts from works on the syllabus (as much as 80 lines total).

Midterm and Final: These exams will consist of memorization, formal analysis, identification questions, and short answer essays. The two exams will be the same format and length.

Journal: Make two good entries per week; each should take about 30 minutes to write. This is a pass-fail assignment.

Quizzes 20%; Memorization 20%; Midterm 30%; Final 30%.

Instructor:  Rumrich, J

Unique #:  36130

Semester:  Spring 2014

Cross-lists:  n/a

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: We will read most of Milton's major poetry and selections from his prose. Approximately a third of the course will be devoted to Paradise Lost. The goal of the course is to inform students about John Milton in his historical circumstances, primarily through study of his poetry and certain of his prose works.

Milton believed that in order to write great poetry, the artist must live a "true poem." Taking Milton at his word, we will pay considerable attention to the extraordinary life and times of this obedient son, who was also a regicidal revolutionary, propagandist, divorcer, heretical theologian, historian, linguist, political philosopher, self-proclaimed prophet, and poet. Given the breadth and variety of Milton’s "true poem," it is a struggle to find coherence in either his life or work. Rather than force an agreement among the various versions of Milton proposed by modern scholarship, we will seek simply to ask key questions and recognize possible solutions.

One question we will certainly consider is what moved Milton to write an epic in defense of God's ways after he had suffered blindness, utter political defeat, imprisonment, a close brush with a grisly public execution, widespread ridicule, and domestic turmoil, not to mention the gout.

Texts: The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton (Random House, 2007).

Requirements & Grading: (tentative) Midterm and final examinations; unannounced quizzes; memorization assignment.

Instructor:  Rumrich, J            Areas:  I / E

Unique #:  35905            Flags:  n/a

Semester:  Fall 2013            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: We will read most of Milton's major poetry and selections from his prose. Approximately a third of the course will be devoted to Paradise Lost. The goal of the course is to inform students about John Milton in his historical circumstances, primarily through study of his poetry and certain of his prose works.

Milton believed that in order to write great poetry, the artist must live a "true poem." Taking Milton at his word, we will pay considerable attention to the extraordinary life and times of this obedient son, who was also a regicidal revolutionary, propagandist, divorcer, heretical theologian, historian, linguist, political philosopher, self-proclaimed prophet, and poet. Given the breadth and variety of Milton’s "true poem," it is a struggle to find coherence in either his life or work. Rather than force an agreement among the various Miltons proposed by modern scholarship, we will seek simply to ask key questions and recognize possible solutions.

One question we will certainly consider is what moved Milton to write an epic in defense of God's ways after he had suffered blindness, utter political defeat, imprisonment, a close brush with a grisly public execution, widespread ridicule, and domestic turmoil, not to mention the gout.

Texts: The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton (Random House, 2007).

Requirements & Grading: (tentative) Midterm and final examinations; unannounced quizzes; memorization assignment.

Instructor:  Rumrich, J            Areas:  I / D

Unique #:  35920            Flags:  Global Cultures

Semester:  Fall 2013            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: The goal of the course is to inform students regarding Shakespearean tragic drama in its historical circumstances and to introduce the performance and critical history of the scheduled plays.

Texts: Spanish Tragedy [by Thomas Kyd], New Mermaid paperback; Henry VIII, Pelican paperback; Hamlet, Pelican paperback; King Lear, Pelican paperback; Macbeth, Pelican paperback; Coriolanus, Pelican paperback; Tempest, Pelican paperback.Texts will be available at the Co-op.

Grading & Requirements: Midterm (25%); Final (30%). Exams will test students’ ability to analyze verse and their familiarity with course readings and lectures.

(25%) Five or six unannounced quizzes on the reading will be given. Students are expected to have read the assignments attentively. NO MAKEUPS: This rule is in effect the attendance policy. As a concession to unforeseeable circumstances, the lowest quiz score will be dropped. That is the only concession.

(20%) Students will memorize 80 lines of verse (NOT prose) from the plays on the schedule: 40 by midterm; another 40 before the end of classes.

Journals: Two entries per week. Each should take 30 minutes to write and consist of a blend of summary and commentary. The crucial requirement is to write, continuously if possible, for thirty minutes. Performance as a journal writer cannot hurt a student’s course grade unless the student skimps on entries. The point of the assignment is to practice writing and is about day-to-day discipline rather than inspiration.

Instructor:  Rumrich, J            Areas:  D

Unique #:  83520            Flags:  Global Cultures

Semester:  Summer 2013, first session            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: We will read seven plays composed in the early 1590s as well as Shakespeare’s sonnets in an attempt to identify themes established early in Shakespeare's career, when Elizabeth was entering her final decade on the throne and the triumph over the Spanish Armada was a recent memory. Aside from seeking insight into Shakespeare’s development as a playwright, we will focus on those moments in his plays that reflect on dramatic or theatrical fiction while nevertheless being part of such a fiction. Discussions along this line will be pushed toward greater awareness of the historical conditions of Renaissance drama and particularly the conditions under which these plays were performed--during daylight, on a relatively unadorned, thrust stage, with a repertory company of limited size, composed entirely of males. We will identify the various dramatic models and idioms with which Shakespeare played, his choices of historical moments to represent on stage, and the pertinence of such play and such choices in the waning years of Elizabeth's reign.

Texts: (tentative) Spanish Tragedy [by Thomas Kyd], New Mermaid paperback; Hamlet, Pelican paperback; King Lear, Pelican paperback; Macbeth, Pelican paperback; Coriolanus, Pelican paperback; Tempest, Pelican paperback.  Texts will be available at the Co-op.  We will also be studying Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Requirements & Grading: Quizzes: There will be at least five unannounced quizzes on the reading. There are no makeups. This rule constitutes the de facto attendance policy. If a student misses class on the day of a quiz, the student receives a zero for that quiz. The margin for error is small; I will drop only the lowest grade.

Exams: Our two exams will consist of memorization (80 lines total; 40 for each exam), formal analysis, identification questions, and short answer essays. The two exams will be the same format and length.

Journal: One entry per week reviewing performances of plays on the syllabus; each entry should take about an hour to write. The performances you review can be live or videotaped (there are many such available on-line or in the collection held in the Undergraduate Library.

Quizzes 25%; Exams 50%; Journal 25%.

Instructor:  Rumrich, J            Areas:  I / D

Unique #:  35295            Flags:  Global cultures

Semester:  Spring 2013            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: We will read eight plays and various sonnets, concentrating on themes established early in Shakespeare's career, when Elizabeth was on the throne. Aside from seeking insight into Shakespeare’s development as a playwright, we will focus on those moments in his plays that reflect on dramatic or theatrical fiction while nevertheless being a part of such a fiction. Discussions along this line will be pushed toward greater awareness of the historical conditions of Renaissance drama and particularly the conditions under which these plays were performed--during daylight, on a relatively unadorned, thrust stage, with a repertory company of limited size, composed entirely of males. Also of interest are the various dramatic models and idioms with which Shakespeare played, his choices of historical moments to represent on stage, and the pertinence of such play and such choices in the waning years of Elizabeth's reign and the early years of James’s.

Texts: To be announced.

Requirements & Grading: Quizzes: There will be at least five or six unannounced quizzes on the reading. There are no makeups. This rule constitutes the de facto attendance policy. If a student misses class on the day of a quiz, the student receives a zero for that quiz. The margin for error is small; I will drop only the lowest grade.

Midterm and Final: These exams will consist of memorization, formal analysis, identification questions, and short answer essays. The two exams will be the same format and length. The final will not be cumulative with regard to the reading.

Journal: Make two good entries per week; each should take about 30 minutes to write. This is a pass-fail assignment.

Quizzes 20%; Midterm 40%; Final 40%.

Instructor:  Rumrich, J            Areas:  I / E

Unique #:  35595            Flags:  n/a

Semester:  Spring 2013            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: We will read most of Milton's major poetry and selections from his prose. Approximately a third of the course will be devoted to Paradise Lost. The goal of the course is to inform students about John Milton in his historical circumstances, primarily through study of his poetry and certain of his prose works.

Milton believed that in order to write great poetry, the artist must live a "true poem." Taking Milton at his word, we will pay considerable attention to the extraordinary life and times of this obedient son, who was also a regicidal revolutionary, propagandist, divorcer, heretical theologian, historian, linguist, political philosopher, self-proclaimed prophet, and poet. Given the breadth and variety of Milton’s "true poem," it is a struggle to find coherence in either his life or work. Rather than force an agreement among the various Miltons proposed by modern scholarship, we will seek simply to ask key questions and recognize possible solutions.

One question we will certainly consider is what moved Milton to write an epic in defense of God's ways after he had suffered blindness, utter political defeat, imprisonment, a close brush with a grisly public execution, widespread ridicule, and domestic turmoil, not to mention the gout.

Texts: The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton (Random House, 2007).

Requirements & Grading: (tentative) Midterm and final examinations; unannounced quizzes; memorization assignment.

Instructor:  Rumrich, J            Areas:  I / D

Unique #:  35310            Flags:  Global cultures

Semester:  Fall 2012            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: We will read eight plays and various sonnets, concentrating on themes established early in Shakespeare's career, when Elizabeth was on the throne. Aside from seeking insight into Shakespeare’s development as a playwright, we will focus on those moments in his plays that reflect on dramatic or theatrical fiction while nevertheless being a part of such a fiction. Discussions along this line will be pushed toward greater awareness of the historical conditions of Renaissance drama and particularly the conditions under which these plays were performed--during daylight, on a relatively unadorned, thrust stage, with a repertory company of limited size, composed entirely of males. Also of interest are the various dramatic models and idioms with which Shakespeare played, his choices of historical moments to represent on stage, and the pertinence of such play and such choices in the waning years of Elizabeth's reign and the early years of James’s.

Texts: To be announced.

Requirements & Grading: Quizzes: There will be at least five or six unannounced quizzes on the reading. There are no makeups. This rule constitutes the de facto attendance policy. If a student misses class on the day of a quiz, the student receives a zero for that quiz. The margin for error is small; I will drop only the lowest grade.

Midterm and Final: These exams will consist of memorization, formal analysis, identification questions, and short answer essays. The two exams will be the same format and length. The final will not be cumulative with regard to the reading.

Journal: Make two good entries per week; each should take about 30 minutes to write. This is a pass-fail assignment.

Quizzes 20%; Midterm 40%; Final 40%.

Instructor:  Rumrich, J            Areas:  I / E

Unique #:  35565            Flags:  n/a

Semester:  Fall 2012            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: We will read most of Milton's major poetry and selections from his prose. Approximately a third of the course will be devoted to Paradise Lost. The goal of the course is to inform students about John Milton in his historical circumstances, primarily through study of his poetry and certain of his prose works.

Milton believed that in order to write great poetry, the artist must live a "true poem." Taking Milton at his word, we will pay considerable attention to the extraordinary life and times of this obedient son, who was also a regicidal revolutionary, propagandist, divorcer, heretical theologian, historian, linguist, political philosopher, self-proclaimed prophet, and poet. Given the breadth and variety of Milton’s "true poem," it is a struggle to find coherence in either his life or work. Rather than force an agreement among the various Miltons proposed by modern scholarship, we will seek simply to ask key questions and recognize possible solutions.

One question we will certainly consider is what moved Milton to write an epic in defense of God's ways after he had suffered blindness, utter political defeat, imprisonment, a close brush with a grisly public execution, widespread ridicule, and domestic turmoil, not to mention the gout.

Texts: The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton (Random House, 2007).

Requirements & Grading: (tentative) Midterm and final examinations; unannounced quizzes; memorization assignment.

Instructor:  Rumrich, J            Areas:  I / D

Unique #:  83840            Flags:  Global Cultures

Semester:  Summer 2012, second session            Restrictions: Oxford Summer Program participants

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

E 379M (Topic 3: Shakespeare in Performance) may not also be counted.

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: Shakespeare offers perhaps the most direct and entertaining route to the heart of English culture. This course will afford students a rare opportunity not only to read Shakespeare's works but also to watch them performed on stage by fine professional actors. Our syllabus will correspond to the scheduled performances of Shakespeare's plays in Stratford and London. Discussion and lecture will reflect on these present-day renditions of Shakespeare's plays by detailing the conditions under which renaissance drama was originally presented--during daylight, on a relatively unadorned, thrust stage, by a repertory company of limited size, composed entirely of males. Especially during our visits to the Globe we will attempt to recognize how Shakespeare and his company might turn these apparent liabilities to their advantage. The classic example is Shakespeare's fondness for disguise plots in which young women dress up as young men, encouraging questions about sex roles and the constitution of gender. Every chance to understand the specific conditions of present-day performance such as those at Stratford upon Avon will also be taken.

Texts:  Richard III, Henry V, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, AYLI or Hamlet (to be determined). We will be using the Pelican Shakespeare series of paperback editions.

Requirements & Grading: Students will be asked to keep a reading and performance journal and to review two of the performances in 3-4 page essays (750-1000 words) (40%). There will also be quizzes on the reading (25%) and a memorization assignment, including formal analysis of the verses memorized (35%).

Instructor:  Rumrich, J            Areas:  I / E

Unique #:  35395            Flags:  Global cultures

Semester:  Spring 2012            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: We will read most of Milton's major poetry and selections from his prose. Approximately a third of the course will be devoted to Paradise Lost. The goal of the course is to inform students about John Milton in his historical circumstances, primarily through study of his poetry and certain of his prose works.

Milton believed that in order to write great poetry, the artist must live a "true poem." Taking Milton at his word, we will pay considerable attention to the extraordinary life and times of this obedient son, who was also a regicidal revolutionary, propagandist, divorcer, heretical theologian, historian, linguist, political philosopher, self-proclaimed prophet, and poet. Given the breadth and variety of Milton’s "true poem," it is a struggle to find coherence in either his life or work. Rather than force an agreement among the various Miltons proposed by modern scholarship, we will seek simply to ask key questions and recognize possible solutions.

One question we will certainly consider is what moved Milton to write an epic in defense of God's ways after he had suffered blindness, utter political defeat, imprisonment, a close brush with a grisly public execution, widespread ridicule, and domestic turmoil, not to mention the gout.

Texts: The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton (Random House, 2007).

Requirements & Grading: (tentative) Midterm and final examinations; unannounced quizzes; memorization assignment.

John Milton in the Restoration and Eighteenth Century

This course will examine Milton’s Restoration writings, primarily his late masterpieces, and certain episodes of his early reception history that bear on his conception and expectation of literary immortality as a psychological incarnation within readers or an invasion of their imaginations:  Bentley’s notorious edition of Paradise Lost, for example; Lauder’s fraudulent accusations of Milton’s plagiarism; the novel approach to Milton taken by Mary Shelley in Frankenstein.

The course tracks my own research currently underway and will be exploratory and wide ranging.  Students will be expected to lead discussion on a given topic at least once during the semester and to submit a seminar paper (15-20 pages in length) composed as if it were the draft of a scholarly article.

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: We will read seven plays composed in the early 1590s as well as Shakespeare’s sonnets in an attempt to identify themes established early in Shakespeare's career, when Elizabeth was entering her final decade on the throne and the triumph over the Spanish Armada was a recent memory. Aside from seeking insight into Shakespeare’s development as a playwright, we will focus on those moments in his plays that reflect on dramatic or theatrical fiction while nevertheless being part of such a fiction. Discussions along this line will be pushed toward greater awareness of the historical conditions of Renaissance drama and particularly the conditions under which these plays were performed--during daylight, on a relatively unadorned, thrust stage, with a repertory company of limited size, composed entirely of males. We will identify the various dramatic models and idioms with which Shakespeare played, his choices of historical moments to represent on stage, and the pertinence of such play and such choices in the waning years of Elizabeth's reign. 

Texts: (tentative) 3Henry 6, Richard 3, Comedy of Errors, Taming of the Shrew, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Romeo and Juliet, Richard 2, Shakespeare’s Sonnets.  We will be using the Pelican Shakespeare series of paperback editions.

Requirements & Grading: Quizzes: There will be at least five unannounced quizzes on the reading. There are no makeups. This rule constitutes the de facto attendance policy. If a student misses class on the day of a quiz, the student receives a zero for that quiz. The margin for error is small; I will drop only the lowest grade.

Exams: Our two exams will consist of memorization (80 lines total; 40 for each exam), formal analysis, identification questions, and short answer essays. The two exams will be the same format and length.

Performance Journal: One entry per week reviewing performances of the plays we are studying; each entry should take about an hour to write. The performances you review can be live or videotaped (there are many such available on-line or in the collection held in the Undergraduate Library.

Quizzes 25%; Exams 50%; Journal 25%.

E363, The Poetry of Milton, Spring 2010

Prof. Rumrich, Par 108.  Office Hours: Available upon Request.

¤ Course Objectives:

The goal of the course is to inform students about the poetry of John Milton in its historical circumstances and to consider the poet’s lasting pertinence.  To this end we will also read certain of his prose works and assess their historical significance.

¤ Texts:

The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton (Modern Library, 2007) [hereafter, MLM], available at the Co-op.

¤ Exams: 

Midterm (25%); Final (35%).  Exams will test students’ ability to analyze verse and their familiarity with course readings and lectures. Scheduling of the final exam is done by the University approximately four weeks before the semester ends; please consult the Registrar’s page for details: http://registrar.utexas.edu/students/exams/index.html 

¤ Memorization:

 (20%) Students will memorize 80 lines of verse:  40 by midterm; another 40 before the end of classes.  At least half of the lines must come from Paradise Lost. 

¤ Quizzes:

(20%) Five or six unannounced quizzes on the reading will be given.  Students are expected to have read the assignments attentively. 

¤ NO MAKEUPS: 

This rule is in effect the attendance policy.  If you miss classes, your quiz average will likely suffer. This consequence is intended.  As a concession to unforeseeable circumstances, your lowest quiz score will be dropped.  That is the only concession.

¤ Journals:

Make two entries per week.  Each should take 30 minutes to write and consist of a blend of summary and commentary, though some meandering is expected.  The crucial requirement is that you write, continuously if possible, for thirty minutes.  When you are stuck, one thing you might do is look up any words, names, places in the reading that you don’t recognize and write out the definitions or explanations in your journal.  You should consult the OED and the classical dictionaries on the library’s electronic reference site.  For instructional purposes, I may refer to specific journal entries in class, but the identities of those responsible for particular comments will be shielded.  Performance as a journal writer cannot hurt your course grade unless you skimp on entries. The point of the assignment is to practice writing and is more about day-to-day discipline than inspiration.

¤ Scholastic Dishonesty:

Students who violate University rules on scholastic dishonesty may incur disciplinary penalties including failure of the course and dismissal from the university.

Students with disabilities may seek appropriate academic accommodations from the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, Services for Students with Disabilities, 471-6259. 

For more information, please download the full syllabus.

¤ Course Objectives:

The goal of the course is to inform students regarding Shakespearean tragic drama in its historical circumstances and to introduce the performance and critical history of the scheduled plays.

¤ Texts:

Revels Student Edition of Tamburlaine the Great, Parts 1 and 2; Norton Critical Editions of Richard III, Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Othello, Lear, and Macbeth.  Texts are on order at the Co-op.

¤ Exams: 

Midterm (20%); Final (30%).  Exams will test students’ ability to analyze verse and their familiarity with course readings and lectures. Scheduling of the final exam is done by the University approximately four weeks before the semester ends; please consult the Registrar’s page for details: http://registrar.utexas.edu/students/exams/index.html 

¤ Quizzes:

(20%) Five or six unannounced quizzes on the reading will be given.  Students are expected to have read the assignments attentively.  NO MAKEUPS:  This rule is in effect the attendance policy.  If you miss classes, your quiz average will likely suffer. This consequence is intended.  As a concession to unforeseeable circumstances, your lowest quiz score will be dropped.  That is the only concession.

¤ Memorization:

(15%) Students will memorize 80 lines of verse (NOT prose) from the plays on the schedule:  40 by midterm; another 40 before the end of classes.  

¤ Presentation:

(15%) Students in teams of two will offer short (10-15 minute) class presentations based on the history and criticism included in the Norton Critical Editions.

¤ Journals:

Make two entries per week.  Each should take 30 minutes to write and consist of a blend of summary and commentary, though some meandering is expected.  The crucial requirement is that you write, continuously if possible, for thirty minutes.  When you are stuck, one thing you might do is look up any words, names, places in the reading that you don’t recognize and write out the definitions or explanations in your journal.  You should consult the OED and the classical dictionaries on the library’s electronic reference site.  For instructional purposes, I may refer to specific journal entries in class, but the identities of those responsible for particular comments will be shielded.  Performance as a journal writer cannot hurt your course grade unless you skimp on entries. The point of the assignment is to practice writing and is more about day-to-day discipline than inspiration.

¤ Scholastic Dishonesty:

Students who violate University rules on scholastic dishonesty may incur disciplinary penalties including failure of the course and dismissal from the university.

Students with disabilities may seek appropriate academic accommodations from the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, Services for Students with Disabilities, 471-6259. 

For more information, please download the full syllabus.