Day One

*Preparatory Lecture  — (Suggested: 10-15 Mins)*

1) Course Policy and Procedures: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

2) Introductions: Who am I? Who are you? (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

• Who are you?

• Where are you from?

• What’s one interesting thing about you?

3) Opening Journal Entry: (5-10 minutes)

In a certain sense, the early story of British Literature, British Literature I, is the story of what it means to be “lost.” It is the story of how a language grew up and developed around misplaced, oppressed, confused and oftentimes overwhelmingly desperate people.

The language developed to the point where it became a threat to — and in some senses even defeated — the Christian conceptions of God and the major economic and social systems that thrived under the rule of Latin during the the medieval period.

(Dante: Don’t forget about me, Folks! I started the ball rolling!)

(Chaucer: And don’t forget about me! I gave you someone to pass the ball too! And you married them!)

(Shakespeare: And don’t forget about me! I made sure you and your family were factored into the human equation! Without me, you’d be tending a bunch of freaking cows!)

(Mary Shelly:  And don’t you dare forget me! I did everything those other guys did in ONE BOOK! When I was nineteen! You’re welcome, world.)

However, we are not studying that story here today.

We have a different but no less interesting path before us, and that is the story of what it means to be “found.”

So, for our opening journal entry, I’d like you to write a bit about what it means to be “found.”

What does that word mean to you? What are the word’s physical, emotional, and spiritual connotations?

4) Group Discussion of findings.

5) Class Discussions

3) Opening Lecture:We “find” ourselves in… a “wicked” tough time.

The Romantic Period 1785-1830:  We will be hanging out here for the next five weeks.

Context: The American Revolution: 1776-1783

Yikes! Who are these people!!!  Well — no worry. There aren’t too many of them, they have no money and education. What could they possibly ever become?Haw haw haaaaww.

[Fact, on the day the American Revolution began, the entry in King George III's Diary was this:" July 4, 1776: Nothing important happened today]

Well — that’s another very interesting story — but not the story of this class, though America will show up from time to time.

This is where our story begins…

Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations: 1776 (This is where Capitalism comes from — from England. Not from America. Despite what you may hear on TV. What might this mean? Hummmm.)

Thanks a lot, British Petroleum!

However, even with all that occurred in the US, our more immediate Context is the American Revolution’s sinister twin…the French Revolution.

The French Revolution: 1789 – The Reign of Terror under Robespierre, 1993,94. 1804-1815 Napoleon.England gets shoved around on continental Europe. The Empire is crumbling.

And to make matters even worse!

By 1811 King George III is “legally insane.” This is a big deal — especially if you believe he is a direct connection to God.

Nothing …

Nothing important happened today…

…why are my pants on backwards….?

So — England — Freaks — Out

• Public meetings are banned!

• Habeus Corpus is banned!

• Only Anglican’s are to be educated!

• Slavery — on the verge of being abolished — is instead allowed to continue!

• England, thanks in part to Adam Smith, becomes industrialized!

HOORAY! Everyone gets a job!

All we want for Christmas are our fingers!

[Fact: In Industrial England, children -- not brooms -- were the preferred tool for cleaning out chimneys!] Hey — Money’s money, right?

So, okay — now let’s make matters even worse:

We have all of this AFTER Dante, Chaucer, and Shakespeare,  authors who did nothing less than define the human condition.

Uh,Larry… I think we’re in trouble.

Do you maybe know how to bark?

So where do we turn? What do we do? What is wrong with the world? How can we fix it?

Luckily, there were a few pretty sharp writers who had some pretty keen ideas for addressing the situation.

They knew that the only real hope for England, and, perhaps, the human condition, would require a different kind of revolution: nothing short of a mental Apocalypse.

Over the following decades they would do nothing less than lay out an aesthetic program for overthrowing the mind itself.

Woah!

For our purposes, here’s where that revolution begins:

Homework:

Anna Letitia Barbauld: “The Mouses Petition,” “The Rights of Woman.” “To a Little Invisible Being”

Charlotte Smith: “Written in A Church Yard,” “On Being Cautioned”

Mary Robinson “London’s Summer Morning,” “The Haunted Beach”

Read these poems, select one and write about how it relates to the concept of being “found,” either spiritually, physically, or emotionally.