The following texts are available in the College Store:
Blake, Songs of Innocence, 1789 (ISBN 978-0486227641)
Brown, Wieland, Or The Transformation (ISBN 9780199538775)
Douglass, Narrative (ISBN 9780393265446)
Lonsdale, Eighteenth-Century Women Poets (ISBN 978-0192827753)
Lunsford, ed., St. Martin’s Handbook (7th or 8th edition)
Murphin, ed., Bedford Glossary of Literary Terms (ISBN 978-0312461881)
Rowson, Charlotte Temple (ISBN 978-0195042382)
Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855 (ISBN 9780486456768)
Wordsworth and Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems, 1798 (ISBN 978-1551116006
Leave yourself enough time to read and then re-read texts assigned for discussion on a given day. Some homework and informal assignments will ask you to do specific kinds of work on the reading, but you should also adopt a general habit of marking passages you find significant, compelling, or perhaps puzzling, and then recording your questions and comments about them in your notes.
In addition to the readings listed above, I may assign other reading (e.g., xeroxed articles, books on reserve in the library) relevant to the questions and issues generated in class discussion. Keep your copies of these readings and any other course handouts organized in a folder where you can easily turn to them during class discussion. If you lose something, copies will be available on Moodle.
Because a number of the required texts for this class have long been considered part of the literary canon, you will find them available in a range of editions; however, it is important, that everyone in the class have the same editions so that, during discussion, we can all turn quickly and easily to the same page. In addition, not all available editions are reliable; and some provide better textual notes (“better” for the purposes of our class) than others. I had all of these issues in mind when I selected the books for this course. If you do not buy your books at the college store, please check the ISBN numbers to be sure you purchase the same edition. Wherever you buy your books, be sure you have them in time to fully prepare for class. Remember that the college bookstore returns texts around the middle of the term.
I expect you to bring to every class whatever texts are up for discussion (including handouts and any assigned writing). Should you forget (it happens), be sure to sit next to someone with whom you can look on. (And should you find yourself sitting next to someone who doesn’t have the reading, please offer to share.)