Postgraduate Course: Romanticism and Victorian Society 1815-1900 (ENLI11141)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | English Literature |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | This course introduces students to the new conceptions of social formation developed in the literature of the nineteenth century, and in particular the literary mediation of the categories of class, race and culture as they developed in relation to each other. In particular, it traces the ascription to 'aesthetic' or 'cultural' production of new roles in the resolution or transcendence of historical contradictions, either concomitant with, or as an alternative to, radical political change. It places these developments in Britain within two larger contexts: the increasing centrality to British identity of empire and, later in the century, 'Imperialism'; and the impact of the social thought of Hegel, Marx, and Engels on British writing. In both these contexts, the legacy of romantic historicism on Victorian modes of writing is traced across a wide range of literary genres, and students invited to consider the ways in which this legacy continues to shape our understanding of culture today. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | No |
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2013/14 Semester 2, Available to all students (SV1)
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Learn enabled: Yes |
Quota: None |
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Web Timetable |
Web Timetable |
| Course Start Date |
13/01/2014 |
| Breakdown of Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Please contact the School directly for a breakdown of Learning and Teaching Activities |
| Additional Notes |
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| Breakdown of Assessment Methods (Further Info) |
Please contact the School directly for a breakdown of Assessment Methods
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| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
* an understanding of how literary writing documents and mediates the complex and changing relationship between national, imperial and class identities from the end of the French wars in 1815 to the turn of the century.
* an understanding of how Romantic conceptions of history, society and the aesthetic are developed and questioned during the course of the nineteenth century.
* an understanding of the social agency of literary writing in the period. |
Assessment Information
| 4000 Word Essay (100%) |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Aims and Objectives
* to attempt to understand textual production in relation to social formations and their conceptualisation (i.e., in what ways do ¿literary¿ genres such as the novel or lyric verse provide specific resources for imagining the social whole?).
* to consider how ideas developed in philosophical writing or political politic might borrow from and contribute to literary writing.
* to evaluate the ways in which literary writing changed in response to social and political developments over the course of the nineteenth century.
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| Syllabus |
1. National History, National Romance
Walter Scott, 'Guy Mannering' (1815)
G.W.F. Hegel, 'Introduction to the Philosophy of History' (1837)
2. Romantic Irony
Byron, 'Don Juan' Cantos I - V (1819, 1821)
Friedrich Schlegel, from 'Lucinde' (1799) and 'Critical Fragments'
3. Romantic Aesthetics
Thomas Carlyle, 'Sartor Resartus' (1833-4)
S.T. Coleridge, 'Biographica Literaria' (1817).
4. The Aesthetic in History
Walter Scott, 'Ivanhoe' (1819)
G.W.F. Hegel, 'Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics' (1835)
5. Culture and Society
John Ruskin, extracts from 'Unto This Last' (1862)
Matthew Arnold, extracts from 'Culture and Anarchy' (1869)
William Morris, 'News from Nowhere' (1891)
6. The Science of Humanity
Charles Darwin, extracts from 'The Descent of Man' (1871)
E.B. Taylor, extracts from 'Primitive Culture' (1871)
H.G. Wells, 'The Island of Dr. Moreau' (1893)
7. Faith and Doubt
Alfred Tennyson, selected poems
Robert Browning, selected poems
G. M. Hopkins, selected poems
T. H. Huxley, 'Evolution and Ethics' (1893)
8. Men and Women
J. S. Mill, 'The Subjection of Women' (1869)
G.B. Shaw, 'Mrs Warren's Profession' (1893)
9. The Empire
Rudyard Kipling, selected poetry and stories
'Empire Writing: An Anthology of Colonial Literature, 1870-1918'. Ed. Elleke Boehmer (Oxford)
10. Poverty and Class
Friedrich Engels, extracts from 'The Condition of the Working Class in England' (1845)
Henry Mayhew, extracts from 'London Labour and the London Poor' (1851)
Arthur Morrison, 'Tales of the Mean Streets' (1894)
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| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
* Abrams, M.H. Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature. New York: Norton, 1971.
* Ambrosini, Richard and Dury, Richard eds. Robert Louis Stevenson: Writer of Boundaries. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.
* Anger, Suzy. Knowing the Past: Victorian Literature and Culture. Ithaca NY: Cornell UP, 2001.
* Baldick, Chris. The Social Mission of English Criticism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983.
* Beiser, Frederick C., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Hegel. Cambridge: CUP, 1993.
* Bristow, Joseph. Robert Browning. London: Harvester, 1991.
* Carroll, Joseph. The Cultural Theory of Matthew Arnold. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
* Chandler, James. England in 1819: the Politics of Literary Culture and the Case of Romantic Historicism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
* Chaudhry, Yug. Yeats, the Irish Literary Revival, and the Politics of Print. Cork: Cork University Press, 2001.
* Colley, Ann. Robert Louis Stevenson and the Colonial Imagination. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.
* Collini, Stefan. Public Moralists: Political Thought and Intellectual Life in Britain, 1850¿1930. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.
* Dudley, Will, ed. Hegel and History. Albany NY: SUNY Press, 2009.
* Duncan, Ian. Modern Romance and Transformations of the Novel: the Gothic, Scott, Dickens. Cambridge: CUP, 1992.
* Farrier, David. Unsettled Narratives: The Pacific Writings of Stevenson, Ellis, Melville and London. London: Routledge, 2007.
* Hartman, Geoffrey. Wordsworth's Poetry: 1787-1814. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964.
* Hawlin, Stefan. The Complete Critical Guide to Robert Browning. London: Routledge, 2002.
* Helfer, Martha B. Rereading Romanticism. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000.
* Houlgate, Stephen. Freedom, Truth and History: An Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy. London: Routledge, 1991.
* Howes, Marjorie Elizabeth. Yeats's Nations: Gender, Class, and Irishness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
* Jacobus, Mary. Romanticism, Writing and Sexual Difference: Essays on 'The Prelude'. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989.
* Kiberd, Declan. Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation. London: Vintage, 1996.
* Lee, Yoon Sun. Nationalism and Irony: Burke, Scott, Carlyle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
* Beiser, Frederick. Hegel. London: Routledge, 2005. Most reliable recent introduction to Hegel¿s work.
* Loehndorf, Ester. The Master¿s Voices: Robert Browning, the Dramatic Monologue, and Modern Poetry. Tubingen: Francke Verlag, 1997.
* Loy, Martin. Browning¿s Romantic Monologues and the Post-Romantic Subject. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.
* O'Leary, Philip. The Prose Literature of the Gaelic Revival, 1881-1921: Ideology and Innovation. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994.
* Rajan, Tilottama and Arkady Plotnitsky, eds. Idealism without Absolutes: Philosophy and Romantic Culture. Albany NY: SUNY Press, 2004.
* Sandison, Alan. Robert Louis Stevenson and the Appearance of Modernism: A Future Feeling. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996.
* Simpson, David. Wordsworth¿s Historical Imagination: The Poetry of Displacement. London: Methuen, 1987.
* Smith, Vanessa. Literary Cultures and the Pacific: Nineteenth-Century Textual Encounters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
* Taylor, Charles. Hegel. Cambridge: CUP, 1975.
* Wilt, Judith. Secret Leaves: The Novels of Walter Scott. Chicago IL: Chicago University Press, 1985. Very interesting argument which re-reads Scott from the point of view of Ivanhoe rather than Waverley.
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| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | RaVS |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Anna Vaninskaya
Tel: (0131 6)50 4284
Email: |
Course secretary | Miss Natalie Carthy
Tel: (0131 6)50 3030
Email: |
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