Unit+4+18th+and+Early+19th+Century

Unit 4 European Literature:18th and Early 19th Century

Overview:

 * Observing themes related to nature as well as “natural” forms and language, students consider whether nature appears as a force of good or a menace. Observing narrative digressions, idiosyncrasies, exaggerations, and biases, they consider human, unpredictable, idiosyncratic aspects of storytelling. They have the opportunity to practice some of these narrative techniques in their own fiction and nonfiction writing. Students also explore some of the philosophical ideas in the literary texts—questions of free will, fate, human conflict, and loss. In seminar discussion, students consider a philosophical question in relation to a particular text. Students write short essays and also develop an essay or topic from an earlier unit, refining the thesis and consulting additional sources. These essays can be used to inform and inspire longer research papers at the end of the unit that answer the essential question. By the end of this unit, students will have an appreciation for some of the tendencies of early Romanticism and will recognize that this era, like all others, is filled with exceptions, contradictions, and subtleties.

Focus Standards:

 * **RL.11-12.2:** Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.
 * **RL.11-12.3:** Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed).
 * **RI.11-12.5:** Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the structure an author uses in his or her exposition or argument, including whether the structure makes points clear, convincing, and engaging.
 * **W.11-12.3 (a-e):** Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
 * **W.11-12.7:** Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
 * **W.11-12.8:** Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the task, purpose, and audience; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and overreliance on any one source and following a standard format for citation.
 * **L.11-12.2 (a-b):** Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Suggested Student Objectives:

 * Read fiction, drama, poetry, biography, and autobiography from the eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
 * Consider the relationship between art and nature in these works.
 * Observe narrative digressions, idiosyncrasies, exaggerations, and biases.
 * Consider the dual role of the narrator as a character and as a storyteller.
 * Consider the role of the supernatural in the literary works read in this unit.
 * Write a story in which they practice some of the narrative devices they have observed in this unit.
 * Explore and analyze some of the philosophical ideas in the literary texts—questions of free will, fate, human conflict, and loss.
 * Consider the difference between natural and forced language, as explained by Wordsworth.
 * Consider both the common tendencies of works of this period and the contradictions, exceptions, and outliers.
 * Participate in a seminar discussion in which a philosophical question is explored in relation to a specific text.


 * SUGGESTED WORKS**

Literary Texts

__Novels__ //Robinson Crusoe// //Gulliver's Travels// //The Vicar of Wakefield// //Emma// //The Sufferings of Young Werther// //The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchhausen//

__Short Story__ "Micromegas" (Voltaire)

__Poetry__ "Auguries of Innocence" and //Songs of Innocence and of Experience// //"//Ode of Indolence" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (John Keats) "The Deserted Village" (Oliver Goldsmith) "Tintern Abbey," "London, 1802," "The World is Too Much with Us" (William Wordsworth)

__Informational Text__ //The Diary of Samuel Pepys// // The Life of Samuel Johnson //(James Boswell) "Preface to //Lyrical Ballads"// (William Wordsworth)

__Art, Music, and Media__ John Singleton Copley, //Watson and the Shark// Frederick Edwin Church, //Morning in the Tropics// John Constable, //Seascape Study with Rain Cloud// William Blake, //The Lovers' Whirlwind//