RALPH BAUER
2115 Susquehanna Hall
Department of English
University of Maryland,
College Park, MD 20742

Phone: (301) 405 3797
E-Mail: bauerr@umd.edu
website: "http://www.mith2.umd.edu/fellows/bauer/home.html"
ENGL 748b HOMEPAGE | ABOUT THE COURSE | ON-LINE ANTHOLOGY | ON-LINE DISCUSSION FORUM | SCHEDULE | RESOURCES

ENGLISH 748b:
Mercurius Americanus:

Magic, Miracles, and Metaphors in the Conquest of America, 1492-1700


Description

“Gold is most excellent,” Christopher Columbus wrote on his first Atlantic voyage, “of gold there is formed treasure and with it whoever has it may do what he wishes in this world and come to bring souls into Paradise.” If Renaissance culture had already been steeped in the mysticism of Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, the European discovery and conquest of the Americas further invigorated the scientific hope of controlling nature through magic. The writings of the sixteenth-century conquerors of America abounded in alchemical imagery and mystical fantasies such as the Philosopher's Stone, elixirs of life, the Fountain of Youth, the island of the Amazons, and, most of all, the magically redemptive power of “El Dorado” (the Golden One). In this course, we will investigate the shifting and complex cultural connections between early modern scientific epistemologies, ideologies of conquest, and literary poetics. We will trace alchemical imagery in seminal prose texts relating to the European conquest of the Atlantic world during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, by writers such as Columbus, Hernando Cortés, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Sir Walter Ralegh, Thomas Hariot, and George Sandys, as well as the literary lineages of alchemical imagery in the seventeenth-century poetry of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Anne Bradstreet, and Edward Taylor. Secondary readings that will help us think about alchemy, conquest, and metaphor include texts by Carl Jung, Tzvetan Todorov, and Hayden White.



REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING:

1. Presentations (30%)

You will give three presentations: (1) once during the semester, you will start out and lead the discussion on a primary reading assigned for that day; (2) one 10-15 minute presentation on a secondary work (please distribute an approximately 20-page selection from the work for the class one week before (3) one conference-style presentation (about 15 mins) from your seminar paper toward the end of the semester (post your paper on the ON-LINE DISCUSSION FORUM by Sunday night before your presentation).

2. Seminar Paper (40%)

For a seminar paper, you have the choice between two different sorts of projects: (a) you may write a 25 (+) page, potentially publishable seminar paper on a primary text and dealing with some topical, historical, or theoretical aspect of this course; or (b) you may prepare a complete and professional digital edition (including introduction, annotation, and bibliography) of one primary early American text not yet available in digital format, and preferably not yet available in a modern edition at all (for copy right reasons). In either case, one preliminary ten-page draft will be due two weeks before the end of the semester, when you will present your work to the class (see above; in case (b), this might be a version of your introduction or a special presentation dealing with editorial issues). I will be happy to discuss with you individually your ideas and read/critique additional drafts that you might want to produce.

3. Book Review (15%)

Once during the semester, you will turn in a 5-7 page book review which has grown out of one of your presentations on, and subsequent discussion of, a book from historiographic/theoretical apparatus. Your paper should contain two parts: (a) a book review following the conventions of this academic genre; and (b) an application part, pointing out possible and hypothetical implications of this book to one of the primary texts we are reading in this class. This paper will be due no later than one week after you have presented on the book you are reviewing. Ideally, this review paper should assist you in generating ideas, providing perspectives, etc. for your seminar paper.

4. Participation (15%)

On days when you are not presenting or leading discussions, you will be expected to participate.