Undergraduate Course: Charles Dickens (ENLI10255)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | English Literature |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/literatures-languages-cultures/english-literature/undergraduate/current/honours |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | This course involves a close and concentrated reading of a selection of Dickens's writing spanning his career. It looks at the ways in which Dickens's understanding of the novel form developed, moving from the energetic sentimentalism of the early work to the much more controlled and sophisticated layering of a book like Great Expectations. The course is designed to explore questions of narratology, and will engage with both recent and influential accounts of Dickens's formal experimentation (J. Hillis Miller, D. A. Miller, Peter Brooks, for example). We'll discuss the extent to which Dickens has become the definitive Victorian novelist, and consider the ways in which his writing might also point towards later, post-Victorian developments in the novel. The course also examines aspects of the material and social culture in and about which Dickens writes, including the impact of serial publication on ideas of authorship, the pervasiveness of ideologies of domesticity in his work, his response to the United States, and the tension in his writing between social radicalism and forms of political conservatism. Students will be able to concentrate intensively on an author whose centrality to Victorian culture and to histories of the novel as a mode of textual practice allows for a wide range of critical and theoretical approaches. |
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2013/14 Semester 1, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Learn enabled: Yes |
Quota: 15 |
Web Timetable |
Web Timetable |
| Class Delivery Information |
1 hour(s) per week for 10 week(s): plus one hour Autonomous Learning Group at time to be arranged. |
| Course Start Date |
16/09/2013 |
| Breakdown of Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Additional Notes |
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| Breakdown of Assessment Methods (Further Info) |
Written Exam
75 %,
Coursework
25 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Exam Information |
| Exam Diet |
Paper Name |
Hours:Minutes |
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| Main Exam Diet S2 (April/May) | | 2:00 | | |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course students will be able to:
- demonstrate a good knowledge of the writing career of Charles Dickens;
- show an awareness of issues of narrative style and narrative theory as they pertain to his work;
- demonstrate a familiarity with a variety of the historical and contextual contexts that inform Dickens's prose;
- assess the impact of Dickens's writing in his own cultural moment and in a post-Victorian age |
Assessment Information
One course essay of 2,500 words (25%);
1 two-hour examination (75%)
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Special Arrangements
| Numbers are limited and students taking degrees not involving English or Scottish literature need the written approval of the head of English Literature. |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Not entered |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Not entered |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Andrew Taylor
Tel: (1031 6)50 4584
Email: Andrew.Taylor@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Sheila Strathdee
Tel: (0131 6)50 3619
Email: S.Strathdee@ed.ac.uk |
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