TEXTBOOKS:
Sarah Lawall, et al., ed., The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, 7th ed., Volume 1 (ISBN 0393972895).
Virgil, The Aeneid, trans. Robert Fitzgerald (ISBN 0679729526).
Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Rolfe Humphries (ISBN 0253200016).
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron:  A Norton Critical Edition, trans. and ed. Mark Musa and Peter E. Bondanella (ISBN 0393091325).

COURSE DESCRIPTION.  A broad consideration of masterpieces of world literature written before 1800 by authors such as Homer, Virgil, Marie de France, Boccaccio, Rabelais, and Cervantes.  This course meets the “PLW” requirements in the General Education curriculum.  This particular section of the course will focus on “Dead White Men:  A European Tradition.”  In the course, we will examine both dead white men who wrote much of Europe’s “classic” literature and dead white men who feature prominently as characters in that “classic” literature.

GOALS.  As my goals in this course,

1. I want you to enjoy the freshness, vitality, and strangeness of early European literature and to become comfortable and confident as a reader of it;
2. I want you to expand your “cultural literacy” by learning some of the important and influential details of the “classic” European literary past;
3. I want you to ponder why we tell and retell certain stories as part of our cultural heritage;
4. I want you to reconstruct and ponder the values of the past cultures that produced our “classic” literature;
5. I want you to question and critique those values in terms of how they have formed our own cultural values, good and bad, today; and
6. I want you to experience some of the ways in which even very old literature can relate to our contemporary experience and provide much-needed perspective on that experience.

1. nine response papers (1-2 typewritten pages each),
2. one short paper (5 typewritten pages), and
3. a comprehensive final exam.

The short paper will be worth 280 points; the response papers will be worth 50 points each; and the final exam will be worth 270 points.  Your final grade will therefore be based on a 1000-point scale (280 + 450 + 270 = 1000):  A = 930-1000 points, A- = 900-929, B+ = 870-899, B = 830-869, B- = 800-829, C+ = 770-799, C = 730-769, C- = 700-729, D+ = 670-699, D = 600-669, and F = below 600.

ATTENDANCE.  Regular attendance is a virtual necessity for successful completion of this class.  Class discussion constitutes important, useful preparation for the course’s graded assignments.  If you miss a class, you will essentially lose out on that day’s contribution to your preparation, since it is never really possible to recapture the dynamics and flow of discussion for a missed class meeting (even if you get notes from someone).  In addition, you may not submit a response paper for a class meeting that you miss.  If you positively must miss class, I expect you to find out what you missed and to come fully prepared -- without excuses -- to the next class meeting.

OFFICE HOURS.  My office is Bliss 216.  My office hours this term will be 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. on Mondays through Thursdays.  If you cannot see me at this time, please, feel free as needed to call my office (771-2106) or to talk to me before or after class to arrange an appointment at another time.  You may also contact me by e-mail (gsteinbe@tcnj.edu), or you may leave a message for me in my box at the English department offices in Bliss 124.  E-mail is generally the fastest way to contact me in an emergency.

ELECTRONIC RESOURCES.  An e-mail discussion list has been created for this course.  To subscribe, give me your e-mail address or send an e-mail message to listproc@list.TCNJ.EDU with “subscribe LIT-L your name” in the body of the message (without the quotation marks).  After you have subscribed to the list, you may circulate messages to all members of class simply by sending what you want to circulate to LIT-L@list.TCNJ.EDU.  This is a good way to contact your classmates in order to form study groups, share ideas, or prepare for class.  In addition, I may on occasion post important information about class to the list.  So, check your e-mail regularly.

RESPONSE PAPERS.  In the course of the term, you are required to write nine short, informal papers (1-2 pages) about the readings for class.  I will post questions about each day’s reading assignment for you to consider as the basis of your response.

Response papers will be graded Pass/Fail.  I ask you to type them (so that they are easier for me to read), but they need not be a perfect, polished product.  Rather, response papers should be just what their name says -- a response.  Think about the question(s) that I ask you to consider; then, write a response.  Don’t worry about typos or comma splices or organization.  Don’t worry about answering every question I ask in the assignment.  Just be as specific as you can and get down as much as you can as quickly as you can.  Treat response papers more as a journal entry than as a formal paper.  I don’t want a thesis or five-paragraph theme.  Rather, I want an exploration -- as detailed and specific as possible -- of the reading assignment for the day.

Normally, as long as you submit a response paper of suitable length, detail, and thoughtfulness (and as long as you turn it in on time in the class assigned), you will receive all 50 points that the assignment is worth.  Grammar, punctuation, spelling, and organization have no effect on the number of points you receive.  You may not submit more than one response paper on a single day, nor may you submit a response paper for a day that you are absent from class, but you may submit more than nine response papers in the course of the term (to make up for any response papers that do not receive a grade of Pass).  (NOTE:  If you do not submit a response paper on a particular day, you should still come to class prepared to discuss the questions assigned for that day, since we will focus on those questions in our discussion of the reading assignment.)

COURSE SCHEDULE.  (This schedule is subject to revision at the discretion of the professor.)

Date	Topic/Assignment
T May 28	Introductions, “Classics,” and Storytelling
W May 29	Read Homer, Odyssey, Books I-IV (in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces). Click here for the response paper assignment.
R May 30	Read Homer, Odyssey, Books V-VI, IX-X (in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces). Click here for the response paper assignment.
M June 3	Read Homer, Odyssey, Books XI-XIII, XXI-XXIV (in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces). Click here for the response paper assignment.
T June 4	Read Virgil, Aeneid, Books I-III. Bring The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces to class with you too. Click here for the response paper assignment. Click here for a comparative list of Greek and Roman gods.
W June 5	Read Virgil, Aeneid, Books IV-VI. Bring The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces to class with you too. Click here for the response paper assignment.
R June 6	Read Virgil, Aeneid, Books VII-VIII, X, and XII. Click here for the response paper assignment.
M June 10	Read Ovid, Metamorphoses, Books 1-3, 10. Bring both the Aeneid and The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces to class with you too. Click here for the response paper assignment.
T June 11	Read Ovid, Metamorphoses, Books 12-15. Bring the Aeneid to class with you too. Click here for the response paper assignment.
W June 12	Read the Song of Roland (all selections in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces) and Marie de France (all selections in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces). Click here for the response paper assignment.
R June 13	Read Dante, Inferno, Cantos I-VII (in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces). Bring the Aeneid to class with you too. Click here for the response paper assignment.
F June 14	PAPER DUE in my box by 4:30 p.m.
M June 17	Read Dante, Inferno, Cantos VIII-XVII (in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces). Click here for the response paper assignment.
T June 18	Read Dante, Inferno, Cantos XVIII-XXXIV (in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces). Click here for the response paper assignment.
W June 19	Read Boccaccio, Decameron, First to Fourth Days (selections in the Norton Critical Edition), and the four fabliaux in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Click here for the response paper assignment.
R June 20	Read Boccaccio, Decameron, Fifth to Tenth Days (selections in the Norton Critical Edition), and Marguerite de Navarre, Heptameron (all selections in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces). Click here for the response paper assignment.
M June 24	Read Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part I (all selections in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces). Click here for the response paper assignment.
T June 25	Read Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part II (all selections in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces). Click here for the response paper assignment.
W June 26	Review. Response paper assignment:  Choose any response paper assignment that you did not do before and go back and write a response paper on that assignment now.
R June 27	FINAL EXAM