English 143: The Age of Elizabeth
Professor Adrienne L. Eastwood Spring 2008
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 3:00 – 4:15 p.m., Sweeney Hall 238.
Office Hours and Location: Faculty Office Building, Room 116
Hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., Wednesdays, 12:00-1:30 I am also available by appointment.
Phone #: 924-4509
Email: eastwood@email.sjsu.edu
Web page: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/eastwood/
Course Description: Elizabeth I had an enormous impact on early modern English culture. Although she proved herself a capable, efficient, and politically shrewd monarch, Elizabeth’s reign was fraught with struggles and tensions due to her status as unmarried (and therefore heirless), female ruler in an emergently patriarchal culture. This course offers students an opportunity to explore representations of this fascinating and controversial figure in a variety of early modern texts. Students will examine and discuss the deft manner in which the Virgin Queen represented herself to her people in her speeches, portraits, and court entertainments, analyzing the ways in which she tried to use her culture’s assumptions about gender to her advantage (or was unable to do so as was sometimes the case). We will also explore the more complex ways in which Elizabeth I was represented by the major poets and playwrights of her day including Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and William Shakespeare.
Course Objectives: The primary goal of this course is to give you the opportunity to read, study, and discuss a number of canonical and non-canonical texts from the Elizabethan era. We will also explore the complexities surrounding sixteenth-century ideologies about gender, authority, and the construction of a national identity.
Required Texts:
Course Reader (available from Maple Press)
Haigh, Christopher. Elizabeth I. Second Edition. Longman, 1998.
Edmund Spenser’s Poetry. Norton Critical Edition, 3rd Edition. Ed. Hugh Maclean and Anne Lake Prescott.
Shakespeare. Love’s Labour’s Lost. Oxford World’s Classics.*
Shakespeare. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Oxford World’s Classics.*
Sidney, Philip. The Old Arcadia. Oxford World’s Classics
John Lyly’s Endimion. Available on line: Books.google.com
*Any scholarly version of Shakespeare’s playtexts will do
Note: A paperback of a current fictional text dealing with this era will also be required. We will determine which one to read as a class.
Important: I did not order these books through the bookstore, so I suggest that you order them from Amazon.com or a comparable online store. If you go with Amazon, please use the url below.
Amazon (cut & paste into your browser)
Other Materials: Film and television representations of Elizabeth including:
Elizabeth I, Dir. Kapur, starring Cate Blanchett (1998); Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)
Elizabeth R. Masterpiece Theatre, starring Glenda Jackson
Elizabeth I, HBO Miniseries, starring Helen Mirrin (2005).
The Virgin Queen, BBC Miniseries, starring Anne Marie Duff (2005).
The Black Adder
Grading Breakdown:
Essay 1: 10%
Essay 2: 15%
Essay 3: 20%
Midterm: 20%
Final: 25%
Class Participation: 10%
Course Requirements:
Participation: Because a large portion of this course involves discussion, regular attendance and active participation are imperative. Students will be expected to discuss the materials in detail, and to deliver and evaluate a variety of texts.
Written Work: You will be asked to write three essays for this class (1,500 words each). Suggested topics for the essays will be distributed in advance. If you wish to write on a topic of your own devising, you should discuss the project with me well in advance. These critical/analytical papers should clearly demonstrate your own engagement with the texts and the issues raised by them rather than your paraphrase of what others have written about them. The final of the three essays will include a research component. All assignments must be typed, double-spaced, with 1” margins all around. Please use a 12 point font. General guidelines for papers will be discussed in class. Your success on these papers will be directly proportional to your knowledge and understanding of the texts.
Late Papers: Turning in assignments late is unfair to the other students; therefore, I will lower your grade one full letter for each day the paper is late. In the case of emergencies, please see me.
I will not accept emailed assignments.
Exams: There will be an in-class midterm scheduled week 7 and a cumulative final exam on Mahy 19th 2:45-5:00 p.m. Bring blue books for each test.
Participation: A portion (10%) of your grade will be based on your participation in class. If for some reason you are unable to attend class, it is your responsibility to find out what information and/or assignments you missed. If you miss an in-class quiz or a writing assignment, you will receive a zero. There will be no opportunities for making up missed work.
In order to receive an A or a B in participation, you must do more than just attend class. You must also demonstrate to me that you have been keeping up with the readings and thinking about the questions raised by the lectures. I expect each of you to engage in the class discussions, participate in group activities, and come to class with the relevant materials.
Academic Integrity:
Presenting the ideas or writings of another as one’s own is plagiarism. Any
act of plagiarism will result in automatic failure on the assignment and
possible failure in the course and dismissal from the university. For this and
every course at SJSU, be familiar with the “Policy on Academic Integrity”
printed in the SJSU Catalog. The policy on academic
integrity can be found at:
http://sa.sjsu.edu/judicial_affairs/index.html.
Accommodations for Students with Disabilities: If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, or if you have emergency medical information to share with me, or if you need to make special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please make an appointment with me as soon as possible, or see me during office hours. Presidential Directive 97-03 requires that students with disabilities register with the Disability Resource Center to establish a record of their disability (924-6000).
Grading Policy:
In English Department courses, instructors will comment on and grade the quality of student writing as well as the quality of ideas being conveyed. All student writing should be distinguished by correct grammar and punctuation, appropriate diction and syntax, and well-organized paragraphs. Grades issued will represent a full range of student performance and will adhere to the following SJSU academic standards of assessment:
The Department of English reaffirms its commitment to the differential grading scale as defined in the SJSU Catalog (“The Grading System”). Grades issued must represent a full range of student performance: A= excellent; B= above average; C= average; D= below average; F= failure. Courses graded according to the A, B, C, No Credit system shall follow the same pattern, except that NC shall replace D or F. In such cases, NC shall also substitute for W (or Withdrawal) because neither grade (NC or W) affects students’ GPA.
Schedule of Readings (Subject to Revision)
Week Zero .
Jan. 24 Introductions
Week 1 Elizabeth I. Life and Times
Jan. 29 Portraits of the Tudor succession
Elizabeth R. Film clips
Jan. 31 “The Queene’s Majestie’s Passage (1559)” Reader, 1-15
Haigh, Intro and Chapter 1 (1-30)
Recommended Viewing: Masterpiece Theatre series Elizabeth R (with Glenda Jackson). On reserve at the Instructional Resources Center, 130.
Week 2 Marriage and Succession
Feb. 5 Elizabeth’s Speeches, Reader, 16-37
Feb. 7 Homilies on Marriage and Obedience (Reader, 38-50)
Foreman’s Dream (Reader, 51)
Haigh (31-89)
Week 3 Sir Philip Sidney: Entertainments and Influence
Feb. 12 The Four Foster Children of Desire
Feb. 14 The Lady of May, Letter to the Queene
Haigh (90-110)
Week 4 Sidney’s Old Arcadia
Feb. 19 Books 1-3
Feb. 21 Books 4-5
Haigh (111-148) Prompts for Essay 1
Week 5 Drama
Feb. 26 Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost
Feb. 28 Love’s Labour’s Lost
Week 6
Mar. 4 A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Mar. 6 A Midsummer Night’s Dream Essay 1 Due
John Lyly, Endimion
Week 7
Mar. 11 MIDTERM
Mar. 13: NO CLASS
Week 8 Edmund Spenser
Mar. 18 Faerie Queene, Book 1
Mar. 20 Faerie Queene, Book 1 Prompts for Essay 2
Week 9 SPRING BREAK
Mar. 25 NO CLASS
Mar. 27 NO CLASS
Week 10 Spenser, Continued.
Apr. 1 Faerie Queene, Book 1
April 3 Faerie Queene, Book 1
Week 11
Apr. 8 Faerie Queene, Excerpts from Book 2
Apr. 10 Faerie Queene, Excerpts from Book 3 Essay 2 Due
Week 12 Spenser (Continued)
Apr. 15 Amoretti and The Epithalamion
Apr. 17 Cardinal Allen’s Admonition (Reader)
Sir Walter Ralegh (Reader) [Essay 3 Prompt]
Haigh, 149-end
Week 13 Contemporary Representations
Apr. 22 Elizabeth and Essex (Bette Davis)
Apr. 24 Elizabeth and Essex (film, cont.)
Week 14 Historical Fiction
Apr. 29 Fiction TBD
May 1 Fiction TBD
Week 15
May 6 Fiction TBD Essay 3 Due
May 8 Small Screen Representations
Final Week
May 13 LAST DAY OF INSTRUCTION
Final Exam: May 19th 2:45-5:00 p.m.