Category: weekend blogging post

Final Clarissa Blogging Assignment

Since we’ll be reading through to the end this weekend, 883-1499, I would like you to take your annotated bibliography topic and write a brief synthetic reflection about it in light of the novel’s progress to the conclusion. It need not be more than 300-500 words. Please have this submitted before classtime.

I’m giving another talk Monday evening, so we’ll be wrapping up early.

Take care, and see you Monday,

DM

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Clarissa, wk 3, p. 410-883

Abduction to Rape

This week we will continue to read the novel to see where it drives–and is driven by–its characters. Read in the manner you find most suitable for this kind of novel and plot, take notes, and be prepared to describe concretely how this portion of the novel affected you.

For the weekend blogging post, I’m asking you to assemble 3-4 key passages from this segment, organized however you think is appropriate. Please create some kind of visualization* of their relations to one another, in terms of plot, character, setting, theme, etc.. Post the image of your visualization to the blog by Monday at classtime, and be prepared to discuss your passages and visualization.

*By visualization I do not mean anything fancy or polished: an Iphone picture of a colored pencil or marker or crayon drawing is fine; so is a photo of a whiteboard set of squiggles and dotted and solid lines; so is a diagram produced by powerpoint or excel or some other app. The idea is simply to get us thinking about these passages differently, and confront one another with a variety of mental maps or relations for discussion.

You are welcome to use my own thematic clusters for your collecting, or revise them or devise your own.

1.  Love, Sexuality, Property

2.  Class, Rank, Legitimacy

3.  Morality, Sensibility, Indifference

4.  Happiness and/or Pleasure

I’m going to hold off assigning more secondary criticism until we get further into the text. I’ll talk about this more in class on Monday, since I do have an assignment focused on the secondary criticism coming up.

See you soon,

DM

Samuel Richardson (1689-1761), Clarissa (1747-8), class 2

Arguments and Abduction (148-410)

We will read from p. 148-410, and focus this week on reading Clarissa and maintaining the reading journal.

As you read this portion of the novel, keep a list of passages related to a particular character, or one of the thematic clusters, or both:

1.  Love, Sexuality, Property

2.  Class, Rank, Legitimacy

3.  Morality, Sensibility, Indifference

4.  Happiness and/or Pleasure

Before Monday’s class, post the most important, most pivotal passage for this character or thematic cluster. We’ll discuss your lists in class.

Take care, and see you Monday on Teams.

DM

From Haywood’s Fantomina to Davys’s Coquet: Amatory Fiction; w/Clarification of Reading Log Post

  1. First of all, thanks for your patience this week. I’m still trying to figure out how to conduct an online grad seminar, and you are helping me do that.
  2. First of all, the reading for the weekend is Davys’s Reform’d Coquet: or, the Memoirs of Amoranda (1724) a year earlier than Haywood’s Fantomina (1725).
  3. You’ll see that they share a few characteristics: a “coquet” heroine who enjoys masculine attention a little too much; plenty of episodes of sexually coded “variety” and freedom permitting her to enjoy fantasy and identity changes (coded as theatrical or via masquerade); a suggestion of sexual danger or threatened rape perceptible to reader if not coquet, if “things go too far”; a conclusion that shuts down the fantasy and freedom and teaches a lesson, if not to the coquet than to her readers.
  4. Brief critical readings: Toni Bowers on sex, lies, invisibility in amatory fiction, Jane Spencer on the “reformed heroine” tradition:
Bowers Amatory Fiction the-columbia-history-of-the-british-novelDownload
spencer-reformed-heroinesDownload

5. Weekend Assignment: Read and process the Haywood, Davys, Bowers, and Spencer texts in your reading log however you feel best. Reread. Take a passage from one of these texts or your notes and try to explain it further. What makes it important? How and why does it resonate with you?

Just do it as a comment to this post.

See you Monday,

DM