Eighteenth-Century Love

Optional Critical Readings

Don Quixote — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:38:42 +0000

I left critical readings off the syllabus for the last two novels, expecting that you would be too busy at this moment and would welcome a slight break in the reading load. However, I have been asked to post some readings that you can choose to do and to write about for your critical responses.

So, here is an optional critical reading for A Simple Story.

Haggerty, George E.: Female abjection in Inchbald’s A Simple Story.
Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, 36:3 1996

and another for Persuasion
“‘Unbecoming Conjunctions’: Mourning the Loss of Landscape and Love in Persuasion”
by Jill Heydt-Stevenson, in Eighteenth-Century Fiction 8:1 (October 1995)

Casanova: Love selections

Don Quixote — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 01:48:47 +0000

There is a very nice etext of Casanova’s complete Memoirs. It is perfect for finding intriguing bits left out by our editors.This is the first full English translation from the late 19c; it is not as complete and definitive as the Trask translation from the 1960s.

I will post some key selections that were left out of our edition dealing directly with love.

the first: Christine, who Casanova considers marrying. This is Chapter 19 of the 1st volume.

the second: Henriette, who Casanova has a very long relationship with, spanning Ch 23 of Vol 1, and Ch 1-3 of vol 2. I am linking 1:23 and 2:1 here.

The third: C. C., from 2:12. This one also continues in the following chapter.

Fourth: Madamoiselle XCV

Fifth: Veronique (and Annette)

Last: Pauline

Critical Reading: Emery on “Queer Casanova” (4/17)

Don Quixote — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:07:36 +0000

Emery’s “Queer Casanova” essay for 4/17

Arhh, The link is down.
Link removed. Contact me if you need it.

The Luhmann Reading (Theory reading for 4/10)

Don Quixote — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:50:14 +0000

NB: I wound up with separate files for the readings and notes–and a strangely giant notes file–due to circumstances beyond my control.

Links to readings removed. Contact me if you need them.

The “theory” reading for Th, 4/10 is by Niklas Luhmann. He is a German sociological theorist, whose central foci are systems theory and communication theory–which means that he approaches things very differently from the French (philosophical-literary) theorists and Anglo-American historians and critics we in English studies are used to. I have hewed the pdf of readings from his book so as to emphasize his historical commentary/argument, but I warn you that I am doing this against the grain of Luhmann’s own approach and intentions. So much should be obvious, perhaps, from the discontinuous page numbers. These come because he regularly moves between historical musings and sociological theorizing in a broader mode. Wikipedia has a seemingly trustworthy intellectual bio of Luhmann.

Luhmann’s book, Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy is (luckily) available and searchable from google books and also from amazon.com. But both allow only limited usage.

Be warned that your usage of the book on either site is in a very limited preview mode. The best way to use this is to search for something specific, such as a phrase that Luhmann may have previously explained or defined which has you flummoxed. If one locks you out, try the other. Both, I believe, let you look through the index freely.

The Harvard UP and Stanford UP press web sites each list the book with useful blurbs and summaries. Harvard is more worthwhile because their blurb tries to give an overview of the book.

Further critical readings (suggested)

Don Quixote — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:48:44 +0000

A few critical readings I wanted to add in somewhere, but couldn’t. Park is on sentimentalism and fetishizing body parts; Budd is on the context of Richardson’s unpopular decision to have a tragic ending without “poetic justice.”

Julie Park, “‘I Shall Enter Her Heart’: Fetishizing Feeling in Clarissa,” Studies in the Novel 37:4 (2005)

LION link

and Adam Budd, “Why Clarissa Must Die: Richardson’s Tragedy and Editorial Heroism,” Eighteenth-Century Life 31:3 (2007): 1-28

http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.siu.edu/journals/eighteenth-century_life/v031/31.3budd.html

EDIT: the Park link has been fixed.

Tennenhouse: Critical Reading for 4/3

Don Quixote — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:25:18 +0000

The critical reading for Th 4/3 provides the link between Clarissa and The Coquette, if somewhat obliquely.

Leonard Tennenhouse, “The Americanization of Clarissa,” Yale Journal of Criticism 11:1 (1998): 177-96.

http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.siu.edu/journals/yale_journal_of_criticism/v011/11.1tennenhouse.html

(should work from campus computers or prompt you to log in)

That Ninetheenth-Century Painting

Don Quixote — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 19:35:22 +0000

Maybe this time the image will be visible? I can only hope. A reminder: this is a speculative and not particularly well sourced imaginative reconstruction of the falling out between Lady Mary and Pope as her sexual rejection of him. It’s entitled The Rejected Poet, and was painted by William Powell Frith in 1863. The Bridgeman Art scan of it is far better looking, but will not link.

Cleaning up: Arthur Gray

Don Quixote — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 19:20:07 +0000

Here’s an attempt at a link to Isobel Grundy’s take on Arthur Gray. I mentioned her interpretation in class. It’s from google books, so who knows if it will work, but if you find the Blackwell Companion to Eighteenth-Century Poetry, edited by Christine Gerrard (2006), and then search for Arthur Gray, that will work. Or use the library!

And here is the account of Arthur Gray from the Newgate Calender, of which the highlight is the conclusion:

The single reflection arising from this story is, that illicit pleasure leads to disgrace: there is no doubt but there was some foundation for this prosecution. If Gray had been previously too intimate with the lady, she was punished by the exposure of a public trial; if otherwise, he was punished for the attempt, in the ignominy of a public conviction. Hence let it be learnt that chastity is a virtue which cannot be prized at too high a rate.

I should have remembered this, but he was in fact tried for burglary, not rape or attempted rape.

Critical Reading for Th 3/20

Don Quixote — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 23:18:00 +0000

Katherine Binhammer “Knowing Love: The Epistemology of Clarissa” ELH 74.4, Winter 2007: 859-79.

NB: You will need to be on an SIUC computer or logged in to access this.

http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.siu.edu/journals/elh/v074/74.4binhammer.html

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/elh/toc/elh74.4.html

Course Archive

Don Quixote — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 23:05:00 +0000

Syllabus

Dryden, All for Love: in All for Love and The Spanish Fryar, ed. William Strunk. 1911
http://books.google.com/books?id=ELc6AAAAMAAJ
(note: you need to click through to the book itself, which you can then download for free)

Rowe Fair Penitent: Sophie Chantal Hart 1907 edition
http://books.google.com/books?id=O0NMAAAAMAAJ&dq=fair+penitent&as_brr=1

Note there is an unreadable scan also avail. in google books; use this one!

Sanchez, Melissa E. Libertinism Article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/eighteenth-century_studies/v038/38.3sanchez.html
(note: you need to be logged in to your SIUC account or working from an on-campus computer for the link to work.)

From off campus: click this link, log in, then enter “Sanchez, Melissa” in the search box.
http://proxy.lib.siu.edu/login?url=http://muse.jhu.edu/search/search.cgi