This assignment allows you to think through, in writing, a particularly Romantic aesthetic: the sublime.
First, be sure to complete the reading assigned on the syllabus for Friday’s class (9/25). You’ll read the introductory note to this section and then focus on the selections from Edmund Burke (remember him?) and Mary Wollstonecraft (early feminist and mother of Mary Shelley).
This (very short) video gives a handy overview that may help you get your bearings.
Next, you will start a new post of your own. (Log in to the blog, then click the “+New” button on the top banner. My post will stay at the top of the page, so scroll down to see yours once you click “publish.”) In this post, you should provide a few lines from a poem we’ve read that invokes the aesthetic of the sublime. (Consider, for example, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” or “Mont Blanc,” though you may use other examples.) Type these lines into your post and make sure you tell the reader which poem and line numbers you’re quoting. Then, in a short reflection, explain how you see these lines engaging in theories of the sublime (either Burke’s or Wollstonecraft’s). You needn’t feel that you’ve mastered the theories yet! But show the connections you do see, and be as precise as you can be. Your post should be around 300-500 words. (There’s a word count at the bottom of the post window.)
This assignment should be completed by Sunday evening. I’ll read them and may refer to some in class on Tuesday as we begin Frankenstein.
To get full participation credit, you should also leave at least one comment on a classmate’s post before Tuesday’s class. If you run into any technical issues, just let me know.
German artist Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog
