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PointersKey to AJVS Comments & Questions In "Clarissa and Criticism," you will write a major course paper and 2 short papers . The major course paper will require a draft, to be turned in well ahead of time, as well as participation in peer reading. You will also write a commentary, required but not graded separately. For the course paper, you may choose one of the frameworks provided or you may plan your own project from the outset. For the very short papers, you will need to follow the directions provided. In addition to the papers, you will also write on the messageboard and write informally in class.
---NB: There is no room for delay in any of the writing due dates unless you have a documented emergency or illness.
The illustration at the left is a John Leech Sketch from Punch called "Symptoms of Wet Weather," dated 1846, just about a century after the first publication of Clarissa. This image comes from the John Leech Sketch archives from Punch. The same image is available for sale from a modern postcard vendor.
---The two short papers allow you to do graded work relatively early in the quarter.
---They also allow you to isolate and practice skills that you will need to "fold in" to the longer course paper.
---And they allow you to start tracking on yourself as a writer in this course.Short Paper #1. Close analysis (10% of grade). (See Modeling close analysis.)
---Beginning with a close analysis of one of the sections below from Clarissa, write a 2-3 page paper. Please bring 2 copies to class. Turn one in and keep the other so that you can read it to the class. Please also turn it in electronically (via e-mail to me ajvansan@uci.edu) before class on the due date. It should be typed, double-spaced in 12 pt. font.
Short Paper #2 (1o% of grade):
Choose an article that you think you can use for your major course paper. Write a short paper in which you explain the writer's argument. Begin your paper by completing the sentence that follows below. Continue your paper by explaining how the writer explains/defends/develops what he/she says. Then use what the writer says for your own thinking. (The task: Explain someone else's thinking to your audience and then use that thinking to generate your own.)In “Title,” Author says that___________________________________________.
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NOTES ON A CRITICAL WORK
Margaret Doody, A Natural Passion: a Study of the Novels of Samuel Richardson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974.
Chapter V. “Tyrannic Love and Virgin Martyr: Tragic Theme and Dramatic Reference in Clarissa”
Doody quotes A.D. McKillop: “McKillop says ’Lovelace’s attitudes lead him to use a style which lends a half-playful use of the rhetoric of tragedy and heroic play with the colloquialisms of the fine gentleman of comedy’, and he thinks the quotations Lovelace uses serve him as ‘a rhetorical commentary on his own moods’” (107).
Doody argues that Lovelace adopts the role of “tyrant-hero,” a figure “wrapped in a dream of power” (108).
Discussing these characters, Doody says, “The Emperor in Aureng-Zebe, Maximin in Tryrannick Love, Muley Moluch in Don Sebastian (all by Dryden), the hero of Lee’s Mithridates or of Rochester’s Valentinian are only a few among the many characters in drama who attempt (or threaten to attempt) to posses a woman against her will. In these plays, which might be called ‘variations on the theme of Lucrece’, forced conquest leads only to disaster, and the hero-villain is forced to discover that he cannot, even by violation conquer the will of the woman he loves, The hero is defeated, remorse comes too late, and the woman is, in the strength not merely of innocence but also and primarily of opposing will, the victor even in death” (108-9).
“Lovelace enjoys all the various sensations of love and rage indulged by the tryrant-hero. He recognizes the possibility of resistance on the part of the woman, and welcomes it; opposition will be a stimulus to his will. He meets the arguments of Belford, who urges Indamora’s plea (slightly misquoted)
Sweet are the joys that come with willingness.
with Boabdelin’s reply:
It is Resistance that inflames desire,
Sharpens the darts of Love, and blows its fire.
Love is disarm’d that meets with too much ease;
He languishes and does not care to please.The women know this as well as the men. The love to be addressed with Spirit:
And therefore ‘tis their golden fruit they guard
With so much care, to make possession hard.He is making the same mistake as Dryden’s Emperor, who erred notably in supposing Indamora would enjoy being conquered against her will. Such contemptuous generalizations about women are always shown in the heroic plays to be erroneous” (111).
“The heroic tragedies also have another kind of villain, the “Machiavellian schemer” who is “witty . . . and cunning in achieving an object of sexual or political desire. . . . In the tragedies such characters, who represent in another aspect the power mania and self-deception seen in te tyrant-heroes, are also proved wrong and come to no good end” (113).
“Corrupt egotism and the lust for power displayed in the sex relationship are dealt with in two distinct and antithetical ways in Restoration drama. In the comedies, the rake is treated with approval. His assumption of the power to subjugate women is seen as admirable, and his cynicism is attractively witty. The two kinds of hero are kept sharply distinct by the context in which they appear” (113).
“These dissimilar conventions are united in the creation of Lovelace, a character who himself is highly conscious of these literary conventions. He is more sophisticated than the characters in the dramas to which he refers, because these dramas themselves are included in the scenery of his mind . . . .” (113).
“. . . he thinks of tragedy and comedy as two equal and open alternatives, between which he is continually free to choose” (114).
Clarissa resembles the tragic heroines (118).
“Like so many of the tragic heroines Clarissa is reduced to pleading with her lover to spare her violation. The scene before the rape, in which Clarissa sinks down on her knees, imploring Lovelace’s pity, is Richardson’s version of a scene often enacted upon the stage. Her desire for death rather than dishonour is typical of all the victim-heroines” (119)
Doody gives examples of Clarissa’s high, heroic language and compares it with that of the victim-heroines.
Lovelace “liv[es] a life of Hobbist domination” (124).
“Richardson recognized that the story of the tyrant-lover and the proud, violated woman is, however violent some of the action, essentially a story of inward states, of psychological tension. In his novel, the material of the drama is transmuted to the activity of the inner life—the very narrative form which Richardson imself had discovered means that all is inner life” (126).
Chaper VI is called “Clarissa and earlier Novels of Love and Seduction”Doody compares Clarissa’s situation with that of the heroine of Mary Davys’s The Lady’s Tale. Doody (like most modern critics) understands Clarissa to be in the right in asking “to be allowed a negative voice in the choice of a husband” (134). Doody also discusses what Richardson shares with the novelist Eliza Haywood.
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Major Course Paper -- Overview
The major course paper, due at the end of the quarter, should be 15-16 pages long. You may choose one of the frameworks provided or create your own. You will write a draft, which will go to 2 peer readers, and you and your peer readers will attend a peer conference to discuss your draft and theirs. When you turn in the revision of the paper, you will also turn in a commentary (a 1-2 page comment on the writing of your paper). Please also turn in the draft with AJVS comments, the peer readings YOU RECEIVED, and the peer readings YOU GAVE. If you would like a final comment on your revision, please provide a stamped self-addressed envelope at the same time that you turn in your revision.
Paper Thoughts -- In order to "talk" with one another about your thinking for the paper, each of you will have an individual forum on the message board. When you write something there and want comments or suggestions from other students, send word on the list serve and ask for visitors.
Possible frameworks/topics for the course paper
1. Anthology of articles on Clarissa. Introduction. Argument.
Imagine that you have been commissioned by a college text editor to assemble an anthology of articles to accompany Clarissa, as a companion volume to the novel.
As you put the anthology together, you will also be constructing an introduction for it. And this introduction is the major course paper.
This project is probably the most fun to get started because it is low-pressure and high-discovery. Its difficulty lies in the tendency of such introductions to become miscellaneous descriptions. Your introduction must work out an argument. So if you choose this project, you will need to work between exploration of articles and a tentative thesis. At first, the articles will suggest your line of argument, but by the end, your argument will determine your criterion of selection for the articles. You should choose about 12 articles, at least 2 of which should be chapters from books.
2. Epistolarity
Several topic areas are possible here, but I will propose one: self-creation through writing.
A number of critics have discussed Richardson’s novel as one in which the principal characters create themselves through writing. At one point, Lovelace exclaims, “I threatened above to refrain writing to thee. But take it not to heart, Jack—I must write on, and cannot help it.” Clarissa similarly says that she must keep writing.
Richardson has them write to bring the novel into existence, but giving the characters the responsibility for bringing themselves into existence is different in many ways from creating a narrator who appears to mediate between character and reader.
These characters seem to author themselves. What processes of self-creation and self-discovery and self-revelation do their letters reveal? What claim(s) can you make about the novel on the basis of self-creating writers?3. Ungoverned relations
Several of the relations at the center of the novel are closely governed, e.g., father and children, husband and wife. But there are also relationships that are not so prominently governed, e.g., women friends, brothers and sisters. How do they disturb the order outlined in governed relations? Where does their power lie?. Focus attention on the ungoverned relationships. What questions can you ask? This topic would require reading parts of Fleetwood’s Relative Duties as well as some critical articles. A new book, Lynn Shepherd's Clarissa's Painter: Portraiture, Illustration, and Representation in the Novels of Samuel Richardson(2009) will also be useful here. Shepherd examines family groupings in paintings and compares the painting of the Harlowe family done by Joseph Highmore (see the banner image for our course website) with other paintings of family groupings.
4.The rape of Clarissa is a problem of central interest to readers of the novel. If you would like to write on this "event"/"act"/ "plot element," you should at first write informally for yoruself and on the message board. Find out what you think about it. Questions to consider: Did the novel need to develop toward rape? What other lines of development seem at least as likely? What does Richardson accomplish by having the rape occur? What do you think of the way Richardson structures readers' knowledge of the rape? What do you think of the presence of the women of Sinclair's establishment? Heroism is often established through suffering and death. What is "different" when the suffering includes rape? Familiarize yourself also with the story of the "rape of Lucretia." Using your own thinking about the novel as well as these and other questions, and considering the the following critical and historical materials, shape a question that interests you.
Legal Materials: 1. J.M. Beattie's Crime and the Courts in England, 1660-1800. Princeton, 1986. References to rape fall under "criminal offenses against the person" and are on pp. 6-7, 74-77, & 124-132. [I will send you these pages.]
2. A famous 18th c writer: William Blackstone wrote commentaries (4 vols) on the laws of England. You can find his work online at various sites. He deals with the history of the laws of rape in Book IV, Public Wrongs, Ch. 15, "Of Offences against the Persons of Individuals." Section III: http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/blackstone/bla-415.htm (scroll down the page to section III).
3. Antony E. Simpson, Popular Perceptions of Rape as a Capital Crime in Eighteenth-Century England: The Press and the Trial of Francis Charteris in the Old Bailey, February 1730. Law and History Review, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Spring, 2004), pp. 27-70. [Useful to give you a wider view.]
Critical materials
1. Judith Wilt, He Could Go No Farther: A Modest Proposal about Lovelace and Clarissa, PMLA, Vol. 92, No. 1 (Jan., 1977), pp. 19-32. [In my view this argument that Lovelace didn't do it is somewhat perverse, but it's widely known.]
2. Frances Ferguson, "Rape and the Rise of the Novel," Representations 20 (1987) 88-112. This article is part of a special issue called Misogyny, Misandry, and Misanthropy.
3. Katherine Binhammer, "Knowing Love: The Epistemology of Clarissa," ELH, Volume 74, Number 4, Winter 2007, pp. 859-879.
For a bibliography of representations of rape in popular culture: http://faculty.law.lsu.edu/ccorcos/lawhum/RAPEBIBLIOGRAPHY.htm
5. The novel's ending: Lady Bradshaigh heard what was going to happen in Richardson's novel and wrote to ask him to change it, promising that if he would, she would read it through every year. Both she and her sister, Lady Echlin, proposed alternative endings to the novel. Make an argument that the novel does or does not have to end the way it does. Question to consider: At what point does the novel "close down" or "close off" other possibilities? Again, start with your own thinking--based on your reading--and then move on to the historical and critical materials.
Historical materials
Endings by Lady Bradshaigh and Lady Echlin
References to the ending of Clarissa in Lady Bradshaigh's letters
Richardson's defense of the endingCritical materials:
Norman Rabkin, "Clarissa: A Study in the Nature of Convention," ELH, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Sept., 1956), pp. 204-217.
Adam Budd, "Why Clarissa Must Die: Richardson's Tragedy and Editorial Heroism," Eighteenth-Century Life 31.3 (2007) 1-28.
1. Read the paper until you find the thesis. Circle the key terms of the thesis, and put an asterisk next to it in the margin of the paper. Based on the thesis statement, how do you expect the essay to unfold? Can you imagine objections that the writer should take into account? Do you remember any material from our reading that might be helpful to the writer? (That is, can you offer the writer specific quotations that might be useful in the development of his or her paper?)
2. Read the paper through for a first impression. What strikes you about it? What are its best sections?
3. Were you right about the thesis? If not, what now appears to be the thesis to you? Does the paper follow through on it? If the paper seems to have more than one thesis, do you see any relation between them?
4. Locate and underline transitions between paragraphs. Do the transitions follow the “plot” or “argument” of the material being analyzed? Or do they follow the development of the writer’s thinking?
5. Comment in detail on a paragraph that “works” and a paragraph that doesn’t. What hooks sentences together in the paragraph that works? What kind of help does the non-working paragraph need?
6. What did you learn from the paper? What do you think the writer will learn from you?
PARAGRAPH AND SENTENCE POINTERS
Say what you mean: Put the most important meaning words in the most important grammatical positions. This move is one of your most important revision strategies. It will help you get rid of wordiness, initial delaying constructions, and clunky clauses; and it will encourage you to subordinate properly.*
Hook-ups: Sentences in a paragraph must "hook on to" preceding sentences. In each case, look for the stated or implied connector.
In hooking on to a previous sentence, each sentence does something to the previous one. You need to be able to say what each sentence is doing to the one before it.
If your sentences have not met each other yet, they don't belong in the same paragraph.Develop your paragraphs: Most paragraphs in English start out in a certain direction and keep on going that way. Many start in one direction and then turn (with such words as "however" and "nevertheless"). There are two "rules" about turning: a) you can only turn once per paragraph; b) all sentences following the turn support that turn OR the original direction of the paragraph.*
Test your paragraphs with the "paragraph test": Cut a paragraph into sentences and see if another intelligent, attentive person can put the paragraph together again.
*These two ideas are from Frederick Crews's The Random House Handbook.
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√√ = very nice, good, etc.
_______ ________= Something is wrong with the connection between circled or underlined elements.
¶ = Paragraph.
¶ development, coherence, and unity.
(See paragraph and sentence pointers.)
Sp = spelling.
SS = sentence structure.
SVA = subject-verb agreement.
// ism = parallelism.
ref = reference not clear (for pronouns, etc.).
frag = sentence fragment.
P = punctuation problem.
ROS = run-on sentence (comma splice) (two sentences that run together)
NI = not idiomatic.
Pass = passive voice used inappropriately
Pred = predication. Something is wrong with the way you are putting together a subject and a verb.
wd ch = problem with word choice.
T = problem with shift in verb tense or with sequence of tense.
# = spacing. You need to add a space or spaces.
POV = point of view. You may want me to explain this problem while looking at your paper.
Rep = repetition.
Redundant = redundant.
Transition = Something amiss with transition between sentences or paragraphs. (Be careful about 2 kinds of transition words: 1) “also,” “in addition to,” and other additive transitions. They may indicate that your paper is developing as if it were a list. You are adding things, but you aren’t increasing complexity. 2) “When,” “then,” and other temporal transitions. They may indicate that your paper’s organization is following the narrative rather than your careful thinking. Your paper’s organization must follow the logical development of your argument.
Subordination = problem with subordination.
Logic = Problem with logic, e.g., your evidence doesn’t match your claim; you have made an unacknowledged assumption or you have assumed agreement that doesn’t exist; you have drawn an inference that doesn’t follow from your observation or from your evidence.
Meaning ? = Even with effort, I find this sentence or phrase hard to understand.
Hm . . . = I’m not persuaded. Sounds doubtful to me.
This = Try not to use the word “this” without a noun following it. Say this point, this idea, this problem, etc., rather than this, this, this.
GSS = Getting-started sentences; omit.
TOS = Too obvious to state.
TSINWVH = This sentence is not working very hard.
TSDNATKEO = These sentences do not appear to know each other. Please introduce them. And please see paragraph and sentence pointers: "hook-ups."
AMAT = Ask me about this [point].
CA = Clarify assertion. One frequent possibility: Put the most important meaning words in the most important grammatical positions. See advice on sentences and paragraphs: "Say what you mean."
Condense = Clarify assertions, subordinate appropriately, and aim for economy in expression. You often need to condense in order to see what needs to be developed.
Conference Schedule
Wednesday, March 5
AJVS brings bagels and cream cheese. BYO Coffee, Tea, etc.
8:00 – 9:00
1. Angela Chang
2. Chris Locke
3. Brooke Sonke
4. Linda Ramirez
11:00-12:00
1. Kristina Pucko
2. Jila Hamrong
3. Estephania Ortiz
4.
12:00-1:00
1. Isabella Blankenship
2. Sam Faulk
3. Nidia Flores
4. Ani Alaverdyan
1:00 – 2:00
1. Stephany Lineback
2. Kathryn Waller
3. Dashiell Gayhart
4. Laura Blockhus
2:00 – 3:30
1. Lashonda Carter
2. Wesley Yim
3. Katarina Lau
4. Gilly Kelleher
5. Michelle McBride
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