Undergraduate Course: George Orwell and the Politics of Literature (ENLI10335)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | George Orwell dedicated his life to making political writing into an art, and bore witness to many of the definitive political events and movements of the first half of the twentieth century. He also expanded the boundaries of a variety of genres: the realist novel, the documentary and the travelogue, satire and dystopia, the essay and the allegorical fable. This course places Orwell's work in the context of the cultural and political debates of the 1930s and 40s, and asks what it means to talk of the 'politics of literature'. |
| Course description |
George Orwell is one of the most famous writers of the twentieth century, and terms such as 'Orwellian', 'Big Brother', and '1984' have entered the language. But Orwell was more than the author of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eight-Four: he dedicated his life to making political writing into an art, and he bore witness to many of the definitive political events and movements of the first half of the century. He also expanded the boundaries of a variety of genres: the realist novel, the documentary and the travelogue, satire and dystopia, the essay and the allegorical fable. Through his work we can gain an unparalleled insight into the cultural debates of the 1930s and 40s; and in this course we will focus on the relationship between text and context in order to build up a comprehensive picture of a period shaped by the Great Depression, communism, fascism, and wars that defined the modern world. We will also consider the formal and theoretical issues involved in bringing politics into literature, and question what it means to talk of the 'politics of literature' more generally.
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Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- By the end of the course a student will be able to demonstrate competence in core skills in the study of English Literature: independent reading, essay planning and writing, group discussion, oral presentation, and small-group autonomous learning.
- By the end of the course a student will be able to demonstrate familiarity with George Orwell's oeuvre, including his fiction, documentary and essay writing.
- By the end of the course a student will be able to show knowledge of the seminal generic and literary historical contexts in which Orwell wrote.
- By the end of the course a student will be able to reflect critically on the formal and theoretical issues involved in bringing politics into literature.
- By the end of the course a student will be able to demonstrate knowledge of key works of secondary criticism and historical background relevant to Orwell's writing.
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Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Anna Vaninskaya
Tel: (0131 6)50 4284
Email: |
Course secretary | Ms June Haigh
Tel: (0131 6)50 3620
Email: |
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