ENGL 405

Age of Sensibility

 

Professor David Kaufmann              459 Robinson Hall

(703) 993-2766                                   Office Hrs: M 1:30-3:00 by appt

dkaufman@gmu.edu                           

 

What, in your opinion, is the meaning of the word sentimental, so much in vogue among the polite... Every thing clever and agreeable is comprehended in that word...I am frequently astonished to hear such a one is a sentimental man; we were a sentimental party; I have been taking a sentimental walk. Lady Bradshaigh to Richardson (1749)

 

Lets face it, the Age of Sensibility is a strange name for a period whose literature is marked by fountains of emotion and by thrills of terror. So, sensibility is not sensible, at least not in our understanding of the word. Sensible for the late 18th century meant capable of delicate or tender feeling as well as level-headed and rational, and in this course we will be watching how these two definitions play off each other.  The second half of the eighteenth century was marked by all sorts of excitement: revolutions, empires lost and won, the consolidation of commercial capitalism and, for the first time, the writing of English novels of truly European importance. In this course, we will be looking at these novels and tracing the imprint of those other things on the texts we will be reading. But mostly, we will be talking about vice, liars, sex and death.  We will spend time worrying about what characters mean when they argue about honour and virtue. By the end of the semester, you will be familiar with some of the most important novels of the period and you will have improved both your writing and your interpretive skills.

 

Methods and Approaches: We will be emphasizing CLOSE reading and a constant concentration on the beginnings and the endings of the works well be reading. Well even be paying attention to dashes.We will have occasion to consult the Oxford English Dictionary (see the definitions at the end of the syllabus).  These novels tend to be longer than you are used to (although we are reading either abridged ones or the shorter ones) and so we will have to consider how one should read them and what kinds of reading they seem to demand.

 

Texts to buy: While there are a number of editions of at least some of the books on this list, it actually makes sense to try to lay your hands on the editions I have ordered—it will make it easier to follow the class. This is especially true of the abridged CLARISSA.

Richardson, CLARISSA (Signet)

Burney, EVELINA

Goldsmith, THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD

Sterne SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

Lewis, THE MONK

Austen, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 

 

Class Schedule

 

Jan 23                                                     Intro

Jan 28-30                                                                  Clarissa 1-111

Feb 4-6                                                                         Clarissa  112-345   1st Paper due

Feb 11-13                                                                  Clarissa 345-519

Supplements from Clarissa (online)

Feb 18-20                                                                 Evelina                         1-148

Feb 25-27                                                         Evelina                         149-301

 March 3-5                                                 Evelina                         302-450  2nd Paper Due

 

March 10-16                                                        Spring Break

March 17-19, 24-6                                       The Vicar of Wakefield                        

                                                                                                The Deserted Village (online)

March 31-April 2                                          Ignatius Sancho to Sterne (online)

                                                                                                A Sentimental Journey

April 7-9                                                                     The Monk                1-192         3rd Paper Due

April 14-16                                                            The Monk                193-377

April 21-3                                                                 NO CLASS APRIL 21

                                                                                                Pride and Prejudice           3-232

April 28-30                                                             Pride and Prejudice           234-367

May 5                                                                             Wrap                                                       Final Paper Due
 

 

 

Requirements

  1. A working GMU email account: Your paper prompts will be sent by email. I also might need to reach you quickly or need to advise you about some quirk or change in the syllabus.
  2. Attendance: You should do the reading before the first class of the week, so you will need to budget your time carefully. THESE ARE VERY LONG BOOKS AND IT WILL BE NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE TO CRAM FOR THIS COURSE. Now the bad news: this reading does not substitute for the work that occurs in the class itself.  You should therefore make sure that you attend class. If you are going to miss class, please email me beforehand.
  3. Papers : Your papers are all due in the Weds class where applicable. Unless you have made a prior arrangement with me, I will not accept papers that are emailed to me or shoved into my mailbox. My minimal expectations for your essays are quite simple: 1/you should write in competent English with no more than two grammatical errors per paper; 2/you should display a solid knowledge of the texts they discuss by citing ample evidence for your argument; 3/you are able to present their arguments clearly. Beware of the web as a source for your ideas and papers: it is notoriously unreliable and it makes plagiarism too easy.  I will not accept papers that are based solely on my lectures and that only footnote the classes, not the texts. The papers are designed to show your knowledge of the texts in question, not your ability to parrot my wit and repartee.
  4. There are certain errors that are so unnecessary that they drive me crazy. You should avoid them as if your very life depended on it:

a.           an apostrophe signals either possession (Richardsons book) or a contraction (its for it is.)  Now, its is a contraction, not a sign of possession. So, if you write its book for its book I will fuss and fume.

b.           Just adding an s to a noun does not signal possession. The s tells me that you are referring to a plural. The Athenians book does not make any sense. The Athenians book does.

c.           Sentences require a subject and a verb. If you want to string together several sentences, use the correct punctuation--a colon or a semi-colon (or a dash) or a proper connective.  Do not use a comma. Sentences that string together independent clauses without paying heed to punctuation or the use of simple ands are called run-on sentences.

 

 

Plagiarism: I shouldnt have to talk about plagiarism, but it seems I must. If you present work as your own which was actually written by someone else (whether another student or a professional scholar), you are cheating. If you say something in a paper that you would not have said if you had not read Smith, even if you do not quote Smith word for word, then you need to footnote Smith (this includes sources from the Internet, by the way).  Be sure to familiarize youself with proper modes of documentation. [1]

 

ANYONE WHO CITES, RELIES ON OR OTHERWISE REFERS TO THE WORK OF SOMEONE ELSE WITHOUT ACKNOWLEDGING THIS FACT IN A FOOTNOTE WILL BE REFERRED TO THE HONOR COMMITTEE. ANYONE FOUND CHEATING ON AN IN CLASS EXAM OR QUIZ WILL BE REFERRED TO THE HONOR COMMITTEE.

 

 

Grading : The papers and in-class work count for no less than 85 % of the grade. Class participation (which should be vigorous, if not impassioned) will count for the rest of your grade. Remember: You are responsible for your ignorance. If you have a question, ask it.  If youre scared to ask it in class, email me. 

 

 

Some Helpful (Historical) Definitions

From the OED

Honour

a. OF. onor, -ur, honor, -ur (11th c.), AF. (h)onour, mod.F. honneur (= It. onore, Sp., Pg. honor):L. honr-em repute, esteem, official dignity, honorary gift, ornament, grace, beauty.  

 1. a
. High respect, esteem, or reverence, accorded to exalted worth or rank; deferential admiration or approbation.    

b. As rendered or shown: The expression of high estimation.

 c. As received, gained, held, or enjoyed: Glory, renown, fame; credit, reputation, good name. The opposite of dishonour, disgrace.

 2. a. Personal title to high respect or esteem; honourableness; elevation of character; nobleness of mind, scorn of meanness, magnanimity (J.); a fine sense of and strict allegiance to what is due or right (also, to what is due according to some conventional or fashionable standard of conduct).

    b. A statement or promise made on one's honour; word of honour. arch.

    3. a. (Of a woman) Chastity, purity, as a virtue of the highest consideration; reputation for this virtue, good name.

    4. a. Exalted rank or position; dignity, distinction.

Sensibility

ad. L. sensibilits (-ttem), f. sensibilis: see SENSIBLE a. and -ITY. Cf. F. sensibilit (1314 in Hatz.-Darm.), Pr. sensibilitee, Sp. sensibilidad, Pg. sensibilidade, It. sensibilit, sensibilitade, -tate. 
  Rare until the middle of the 18th century. 

 2. a. Power of sensation or perception; the specific function of any of the organs of sense (obs.). Now often, the (greater or less) readiness of an organ or tissue to respond to sensory stimuli; sensitiveness.

    b. Philos. Power or faculty of feeling, capacity of sensation and emotion as distinguished from cognition and will.

Sentimental
f. prec. + -AL1. 
  The F. sentimental, according to Littr and Hatz.-Darm., is an adoption of the Eng. word as used by Sterne; so also G. sentimental

1. Of persons, their dispositions and actions: Characterized by sentiment. Originally in favourable sense: Characterized by or exhibiting refined and elevated feeling. In later use: Addicted to indulgence in superficial emotion; apt to be swayed by sentiment.

1763 F. BROOKE Hist. Lady J. Mandeville (1820) 34 Your squires are an agreeable race of people, refined, sentimental, formed for the belle passion. 1823 SOUTHEY in Q. Rev. XXVIII. 517 Rousseau addressed himself to the sentimental classes, persons of ardent or morbid sensibility, who believe themselves to be composed of finer elements than the gross multitude.

    

    c. Arising from sentiment or refined sthetic emotion. Obs 

2. Pertaining to sentiment.    a. Arising from or determined by feeling rather than by reason.

    b. That is a matter of sentiment and not of material interests..

    3. Of literary compositions (occas. of music or other art): Appealing to sentiment; expressive of the tender emotions, esp. those of love.

Virtue
[a. AF. and OF. vertu (F. vertu, = It. virt, Sp. virtud, Pg. virtude), ad. L. virtt-, virtus manliness, valour, worth, etc., f. vir man.] 

    I. As a quality of persons.

    1. a. The power or operative influence inherent in a supernatural or divine being. Now arch. or Obs.

    c. An act of superhuman or divine power; a mighty work; a miracle. Obs.

    2. a. Conformity of life and conduct with the principles of morality; voluntary observance of the recognized moral laws or standards of right conduct; abstention on moral grounds from any form of wrong-doing or vice.

     c. spec. Chastity, sexual purity, esp. on the part of women. of easy virtue: see EASY a. 12.

 

 The English Class System Before the Victorian Era

From www.littlecoxwell.com, a site dedicated to the history and genealogy of Little Coxwell in Oxfordshire

 

Society was divided into two main classes:

 

The Nobility - a hereditary class descended from supposedly "noble" blood lines.

Commoners - everyone else.


 

The terms still have relevance today. The British government sits in the House of Commons, whereas the nobility (hereditary peers) and government appointees (life peers) meet in the House of Lords. Ah, me...

 

Commoners were further divided into:

 

The Baronetage - commoners with the hereditary title of Baronet

The Knights - commoners who had been knighted by the monarch

The Gentry - commoners with inherited wealth and no need to work

The Professionals - Lawyers, doctors, and members of the Church of England

The Yeomanry - a rural class who owned their means of production, such as farmers who owned the land they worked, millers who owned their own mills, etc.

Tenant farmers - farmers who leased their land

Tradesmen

Labourers

Of the classes mentioned above three warrant further amplification: the nobility, the gentry, and the professionals.

 

The Nobility

 

Essentially the nobility inhabited a world of their own. To a commoner any member of the nobility was to be addressed as "My Lord" or "My Lady", but within the nobility itself there were levels of rank of which the commoner probably would be oblivious.

 

 

The name following "Lord" is a hereditary title, not a surname. For example, Lord Falmouth. To take the poet Byron. Baron Byron was his full title, Lord Byron was the term used to to refer to or address him, but his name was actually George Gordon. Similarly his wife, Lady Byron, was Anna Milbanke.

 

The Gentry

 

Commoners with inherited wealth and no need to work.

 

Typically the gentry had distant aristocratic connections - Winston Churchill is a good example. In English law, noble titles are passed on to the elder son, younger sons being left in the cold. Without a title they tended to marry into non-aristocratic circles, and within a couple of generations their noble ancestor was only a distant memory. Their male descendants were now considered "gentlemen", members of the gentry class, and addressed as "Mister".

 

The gentry were specifically an English phenomenon. On the continent the law of primogeniture did not apply, and therefore all sons of an aristocratic father inherited the title. Young aristocrats with a small income, but no responsibilities, proliferated. This could well have been responsible for the rise of the Libertines (such as Casanova, the Marquise de Sade, etc.), which was purely an aristocratic cult. In England this was mirrored by the rise of the Dandy movement, but due to the different social structure Dandyism was taken up by young English aristocrats and members of the gentry class alike.

 

The Professionals

 

Before the mid-twentieth century the term was used solely for practitioners in the legal, medical, and ecclesiastic fields. It's origins date from the late-eighteenth / early-nineteenth century when the gentry had to come to terms with the unpleasant fact that lawyers knew all about their financial matters, doctors examined their wives, and vicars examined their souls. Strictly speaking these people worked for a living and therefore were not "gentlemen" - which was an unacceptable situation. As a result the fiction developed that they were "honorary gentlemen" because although they worked for a living, they would still have been "called" to carry out that work even if they were not paid.

 

But it was a one-way traffic. A gentleman could invite the local vicar, lawyer, or doctor to make up a foursome of whist, but it would be a blunder for the invitee to attempt to return the hospitality unless he was very sure of his ground.

 

Unlike most commoners who were simply referred to by their name, the professionals were given the status of titles: the Reverend John Smith, Dr John Smith, or in the case of lawyers, John Smith, Esq.

 

Class Terminology

 

baron - a heriditary title, the 5th and lowest order of the nobility

 

baroness - the wife or widow of a baron, or holding the position in her own right.

 

baronet - a heriditary title. It does not confer membership of the nobility.

 

The rules for terms of address are:

 

 

Self

Sir + first name 

Wife

Lady + surname 

Son  

Mr

Daughter

Miss

 

 

duchess - the wife of a duke. Her full title would be Duchess+of+title, e.g., Duchess of Wellington

 

duke - a heriditary title, the highest order of the nobility

 

earl - a heriditary title, the 3rd highest order of the nobility

 

Esq. - Esquire.

 

Originally denoted a knight's squire. Later it became appended to the name of individuals who had no official class standing, and therefore no formal title, but who had sufficient social stature to be considered a cut above the rest. In the main it was used for lawyers, but later came to be applied more generally.

 

A remnant of this usage is found in the US legal profession today, where lawyers still use the term when writing to each other.

 

gentleman- a male member of the gentry class

 

gentry - commoners who had a private income and had no need to work

 

knight - originally an armed soldier employed by a baron. Later a commoner who has been knighted by the monarch. The title does not confer membership of the nobility.

 

The rules for terms of address are:

 

  

Self

Sir + first name  

Wife

Dame + surname  

Son

Mr.    

Daughter

Miss

 

lady (non-capitalized) - usually denotes a female member of the gentry.

 

Lady (capitalized) - can denote a female member of the nobility or baronetage, or a member of the gentry class with proprietory rights and authority, for example as over a manor.

 

Note: the wife of an aristocrat is referred to by Lady plus her title, e.g., Lady Falmouth, whereas the wife of a baronet is referred to by Lady plus her surname, e.g., Lady Shelley.

 

lord - by itself denotes a male member of the nobility. It is also found in combination, as in Lord Justice when applied to a judge.

 

marquis - a heriditary title, the 2nd highest order of the nobility

 

Miss - an unmarried female

 

Before the mid-Nineteenth Century usually only applied to members of the gentry class. Other unmarried females were simply referred to or addressed by their name.

 

Mr - Mister

 

Mr is not the general term for an adult male as it is today, but in the early Nineteenth Century and before it was an honorific only used for members of the gentry class, i.e., commoners who had a private income and had no need to work. A baptismal entry in the parish records for an ordinary parishioner might give the parents names as "John and Mary Smith", but an entry such as "Mr John Smith and his wife, Mary" would indicate that John Smith was a member of the gentry class. "Mr John Smith and his lady wife, Mary" has the further inference that Mary Smith has some social standing in her own right.

 

Mrs - derived from Mistress, which was applied to any married female in authority, for instance a tavern keeper. Later it became the female equivalent of Mr and denoted a member of the gentry class.

 

Rev'd - Reverend. Denotes a member of the Church of England, usually a vicar or rector.

 

Sir - the form of address for a baronet or a knight

 

viscount - a heriditary title, the 4th highest order of the nobility