Penn State Altoona 2019 British Survey Dashboard

Leader

Laura Rotunno

Participants

Karen Dieleman
Henry Kleit
john Kunig
Lianna Male
Alexis Gladfelter
Gyuhaeng Lee
Timothy Chuhran
Myranda Mamat
Tessa Albert
Elijah Boyd-Pla...
Zachary Bloom
Samantha Nash
Jessica Cattalo
blake evans

Description

 

Hayter's Queen Victoria, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Hayter's Queen Victorian, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

EVERYTHING OLD COULD BE NEW AGAIN

BRITISH LITERATURE FROM 1798  // ENGLISH 222/W, SECTION 001

Steampunk Ladies, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

It is natural to compare and contrast one's own ideas and world with those found in any literature one reads; this class is crafted so that we foster those comparisons and contrasts. In other words, this class will plunge you into worlds inhabited by Romantics who rival today's most eccentric entertainers, Victorians who probe social, political, and even sexual questions that still plague us today, and Modernists (and Postmodernists) who, like us, try to make some sense out of all previous traditions. By comparing the writers, characters, and texts of these three literary periods between themselves and with our own, this class will move inductively to the "big questions" that have come to characterize the Romantic, Victorian, and Modern periods of British literature. Thus, as we read our way through the late eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, our attention will be focused on issues such as gender and familial politics, national and international relations, literary and artistic ideals AND the interactions between all of those ideas. This focus should help identify similarities and differences—stasis and growth—between the literary periods. It should also lead us to question what "old things" are "new again" and whether we should embrace or discard them.

While this approach makes us, as a class, more active in identifying Romantic artistic ideals, Victorian social anxieties, and Modern disillusionment, it also positions us in ways similar to past British readers, who, like the writers of the time, were creating and participating in the dialogues that shaped these periods by deciding what old and new ideas and artistic techniques should be embraced or discarded. In other words, in this class we will enter the time periods focused on both cultural and artistic history.

Ultimately, then, this class is designed to bring home the idea that the "Romantic Hero," the "Woman Question," and "Modernism" were not ideas until writers and readers made them topics for discussion. More globally, the goals of this classare 1) to introduce you to the main literary and social concerns of these time periods; 2) to exercise and enhance your close reading skills; and 3) to appreciate and synthesize others' readings of literature with your own. 

One bonus of this course is that it can be "attached" to a one-week trip to London. This trip will occur late-May 2019 and will appear as English 299 (subtitled "London Calling: Ordering the World") on the class schedule soon. If you are interested in this course and have not yet applied, you MUST talk to me on the FIRST DAY OF SPRING CLASSES.

A further bonus of this course we'll also be using THIS EXCITING new Learning and Teaching Tool--COVE (the Central Online Victorian Educator)--as a SOURCE OF YOUR READINGS and to create a timeline and map that will help us better understand the literary periods we will investigate.

 

 

 

 

Steampunk Ladies ABOVE,  Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Galleries, Timelines, and Maps

Map

Mrs. Dalloway's London

Posted by Laura Rotunno on Friday, December 21, 2018 - 10:48

This site will allow us to create a map of SOME of the MANY sites that appear in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. As explained in the paper assignment packet's description of the 

WHEN THE LOCALE IS REAL BUT THE CHARACTER ISN’T: THE IMPORTANCE OF PLACE assignment 

you will be assigned a site to research (remember you'll be finding 1925 and 2019 info on this place) and place on our map. You'll then be asked to read all students' map contributions and then compose a short paper, exploring how this immersion in a real London helps you understand ONE of Woolf's characters.

Individual Entries

Place

Green Park, London

Posted by Laura Rotunno on Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - 15:37

The Green Park is one of the Royal parks of the London that is located in Westminister, central London. The park itself covers almost about 40 acres of land, and it is located at the north of Buckingham palace, east of Hyde Park, and west of St. James park. It was enclosed in 16th century and later became a royal park by Charles II. The park is least decorated among the royal parks. Park was used to be a place served as a meeting place for duels, and sometimes, there were fireworks displays and balloon ascents during 18th century. Unlike other parks near it, The Green Park has no buildings, lakes playgrounds, and just few monuments. Still, as the edges of the park is surrounded by buildings, it has views with the harmony of those buildings and many trees and flowers. There are lot of walks, and mostly grass being dominating so that people could rest in any place.

According to the Royal Parks, which manages this park, the history of this park starts from...

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Place

Russell Square, London

Posted by Laura Rotunno on Monday, April 15, 2019 - 11:48

Russell Square is a garden square in Bloomsbury. The Russell family, who were earls of Bedford since 1550. The family gained possession of the land in 1669. According to hidden-london.com, “The square was laid out in 1801 by Humphry Repton on land earlier called Southampton Fields, and subsequently Long Fields. James Burton was the designer of the original buildings that surrounded the square, only a few of which now remain” (hidden-london). Russell Square quickly became one of London’s most desirable places of residence, home to the highest of high society. It is the prime setting for the events of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, which is set at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. In 1897, a cabmen’s shelter was placed on the north-west corner and is still present till this day.  During the 1920’s in Mrs.Dalloway’s time famous poet T.S. Eliot lived in Russell Square from 1925-52. During this upper-...

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Place

Oxford Street

Posted by Henry Kleit on Monday, April 15, 2019 - 06:12

Oxford Street c. 1920s

Oxford Street is a major street in London, and one of the most busiest shopping centers in the city. Hundreds of shops and hundreds of thousands of visitors daily, in modern times Oxford Street is bustling center of city life. It is also one of the most dangerous streets in the city, hosting most of London’s pickpockets and, back in the 1970s, several Irish Repubican Army bombings. In modern times, while still often viewed as a trashier area, it is undeniably an area in the culture of London.

In the 1920s things were very similar. Many large stores were opening up like the original HMV record store, introducing Londoners to music that would later go on to start the British Invasion of music in the 1960s. The Selfridges department store, althought opening 1909...

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Place

The Green Park

Posted by Gyuhaeng Lee on Monday, April 15, 2019 - 02:02

The Green Park is one of the Royal parks of the London that is located in Westminister, central London. The park itself covers almost about 40 acres of land, and it is located at the north of Buckingham palace, east of Hyde Park, and west of St. James park. It was enclosed in 16th century and later became a royal park by Charles II. The park is least decorated among the royal parks. Park was used to be a place served as a meeting place for duels, and sometimes, there were fireworks displays and balloon ascents during 18th century. Unlike other parks near it, The Green Park has no buildings, lakes playgrounds, and just few monuments. Still, as the edges of the park is surrounded by buildings, it has views with the harmony of those buildings and many trees and flowers. There are lot of walks, and mostly grass being dominating so that people could rest in any place.

According to the Royal Parks, which manages this park, the history of this park starts from the 1554 as a first...

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Place

St. Jame's Park

Posted by Tessa Albert on Monday, April 15, 2019 - 01:32

St. Jame's Park has went through massive transformations since it was deemed a Royal Park.  It is the oldest Royal Park in London.  In 1532, Henry VIII stated that St. Jame's Park would house a population of deer for his hunting hobby.  The park stayed as a hunting ground for kings and queens until the Hanoverian period. Not long after, the park was opened to the public.  A large canal and natural- looking lake were constructed to give St. Jame's Park a romantic style and atmosphere.  Unfortunately, the romance ended during the first World War.  The biggest fear that Londoners had was that St. Jame's Park would become a target for an air raid.  St. Jame's Park is bound by Buckingham Palace, The Mall, and Westminster.  All three of these locations house the most important people in all of Britain.  The natural- looking lake was quickly drained so that no enemy pilot would be able to detect if they were flying over St. Jame's Park or not.  In March of 1915, The Times...

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Place

Westminster, London

Posted by Zachary Bloom on Monday, April 15, 2019 - 00:37

In 1925

Westminster is actually a city with the greater area of London. Just like there is he City of London which actually is within the area known as London. Like New York has the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens etc. Its somewhat like a "borough" of London. The area also does not lie within the original roman city, which means therefore it is younger than the city of london. The area as we see it in Mrs. Dalloway is wealthy and very politically key. This is because the Parliament building, Westminster Abbey, and other important institutions reside within the city of Westminster. 10 Downing Street, the residence of the British Prime Minister is also in Westminster, along with the Royal Household at Buckingham Palace. The City of Westminster really grew up around what we know as Westminster Abbey. The Abbey was built as a catholic church in the second century AD. The church was originally known as St. Peters Cathedral, as the story of its creation says that St....

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Place

Whitehall RD, london

Posted by blake evans on Sunday, April 14, 2019 - 23:52

1920s

It was an important year for London in 1920. This was the year that the Cenotaph was unveiled in stone. It began as a wooden/ plaster memorial for Peace Day in July of 1919. It was originally intened as a temporary memorial, but following the First World War, it was modified to be erected for a continuous reminder of those fallen soldiers. Due to an uproar and public demand, King George V pulled the cord on the Union Jack that shrouded the Cenotaph. Cenotaph in Greek means  "Glorious Dead". The Cenotaph is an empty burial cite, but a cornerstone for all of London and the world. It was erected on Whitehall, a very important road in London. Whitehall is used the same as "washington" in the states when referring to government. Whitehall road recieved its name from the palace that once resided in that area. Surrounding the building of Whitehall are other government buildings, one of which being the home of the Prime minister. Whitehall has been the site...

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Place

Russell Square

Posted by Myranda Mamat on Sunday, April 14, 2019 - 23:27

Russell Square is a garden square in Bloomsbury. The Russell family, who were earls of Bedford since 1550. The family gained possession of the land in 1669. According to hidden-london.com, “The square was laid out in 1801 by Humphry Repton on land earlier called Southampton Fields, and subsequently Long Fields. James Burton was the designer of the original buildings that surrounded the square, only a few of which now remain” (hidden-london). Russell Square quickly became one of London’s most desirable places of residence, home to the highest of high society. It is the prime setting for the events of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, which is set at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. In 1897,  a cabmen’s shelter was placed on the north-west corner and is still present till this day.  During the 1920s...

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Place

Harley Street, London, UK

Posted by Alexis Gladfelter on Sunday, April 14, 2019 - 22:07

1925: Harley Street is in Marylebone which is in centeral London.  It is known for its large number of medicine and surgery speacialists and those numbers only increased as time went on.  But before that it consisted of a small amount of house, but doctors were drawn to these areas because the houses were spacious enough for them to double as surgery areas and their residences.  It was named after Edward Harley who marreid Henrietta Cavendish Holles, daughter of the Duke of Newcastle. 

Today: This area is managed by the Howard de Walden Estate. There are about 3,000 people who are employed on Harley Street, such as plastic surgeons and paramedics.  Medicine is one of the many reasons that classify Maryledone as a esteemed region to live in London with Prime Central status.  The London Clinic Cancer Care have some of the most cutting- edge radiology equiptmwnt in the world.  Marylebone is one of the most desireable places to live in London.

Link to picture: ...

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Place

Russell Square, London

Posted by Myranda Mamat on Sunday, April 14, 2019 - 19:17

Russell Square is a vast garden square in Bloomsbury. The Russell family, earls of Bedford from 1550, gained possession of it in 1669.  The square was laid out in 1801 by Humphry Repton on land earlier called Southampton Fields, and afterward, Long Fields. James Burton was the designer of the original buildings that surrounded the square, only a few of which now remain. According to hiddon-london.com,  "Russell Square quickly became one of London’s most desirable places of residence, home to the highest of high society. It is the prime setting for the...

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