Postgraduate Course: Cultural Sensibility in the Age of Richardson's Clarissa (PGHC11352)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course will introduce first-year graduate students to the historical discourses that shaped the composition and reception of one the great European novels of the period, which helped to produce 'the age of sensibility' of the eighteenth century as an abiding topic of scholarly and cultural concern. We will do this through critical examination of literary, historical, religious, theoretical, and visual sources. |
| Course description |
This course will meet two primary aims: first, it will train students in comparative approaches to examining and interpreting literary, critical, and visual materials that document the cultural history of mid-eighteenth century Britain. Second, by immersing students in this lengthy and compelling novel (of over one million words, read in weekly instalments), and by orienting their reading through studies in the social, legal, artistic, medical, and moral discourse that informed eighteenth-century responses to it, students will generate a meaningful appreciation of the complex social concerns that defined the culture of sensibility.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate, through seminar discussions and the course assessment a detailed and critical command of the body of the knowledge that documents emergence and flourishing of sensibility in eighteenth-century Britain, with specific reference to literary, religious, legal, economic, and aesthetic developments unique to this period
- Demonstrate, through seminar discussion and the course assessments, an ability to analyse and reflect critically upon relevant scholarship concerning the recent historiography of sensibility, as it has developed among literary critics and cultural historians
- Demonstrate, through seminar discussion and the course assessments an ability to understand and apply specialised research or professional skills, techniques and practices considered in the course, including close reading of literary, theoretical, and visual sources from the associated historical period
- Demonstrate the ability to develop and sustain original scholarly arguments in oral and written form, independently formulating appropriate questions and utilising relevant evidence considered in the course
- Demonstrate, in seminar discussion and the course assessments, originality and independence of mind and initiative; intellectual integrity and maturity; an ability to evaluate the work of others, including peers; and a considerable degree of autonomy
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Reading List
S. Richardson, Clarissa, ed. Angus Ross (London: Penguin, 1985
Maxine Berg, "Men and Women of the Middling Classes: Acquisitiveness and Self-Respect," Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010) 119-46
Karen Lipsedge, "'Enter into Thy Closet': Women, Closet Culture, and the Eighteenth-Century English Novel," Gender, Taste, and Material Culture in Britain and North America, 1700-1830, eds. J. Styles and A. Vickery (New Haven: Yale UP, 2006) 107-123
John Mullan, "Sensibility and Literary Criticism," The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, ed. H. B. Nisbet and C. Rawson, vol. 4 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997) 419-33
James Grantham Turner, "Richardson and His Circle," in The Columbia History of the British Novel, ed. John Richetti (New York: Columbia UP, 1994) 73-101. http://tinyurl.com/3wj2ex5
Klein, Lawrence E. "Gender and the Public/Private Distinction in the Eighteenth Century," Eighteenth Century Studies 29 (1995): 97-109.
John A. Dussinger, "Clarissa: The Curse of Intellect," in The Discourse of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century Fiction (The Hague: Mouton, 1974) 77-126
J. G. Turner, "Lovelace and the Paradoxes of Libertinism," in Margaret Anne Doody and Peter Sabor, eds., Samuel Richardson: Tercentenary Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) 70-88
Robert A. Erickson, The Language of the Heart, 1600-1750, London: Pennsylvania UP, 1997. 185-228
George S. Rousseau, "Nerves, Spirits and Fibres: Towards Defining the Origins of Sensibility," Nervous Acts: Essays on Literature and Sensibility. London: Palgrave, 2004. 160-184
Antony Simpson, "The 'Blackmail Myth' and the Prosecution of Rape and its Attempt in the Eighteenth Century," The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 77 (1986): 105-50
Adam Budd, "Why Clarissa Must Die: Richardson's Tragedy and Editorial Heroism," Eighteenth-Century Life 31 (Fall 2007): 1-28
John A. Dussinger,. "Conscience and the Pattern of Christian Perfection in Clarissa." PMLA, 81 (1966): 236-245. http://www.jstor.org/stable/460809 |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
In sum, students will demonstrate the following SCQF Level-11 academic skills:
- To provide ongoing and sustained critical analysis of a major and challenging work of eighteenth-century literature, relating this to contemporary social and cultural contexts;
- To locate, access, and evaluate primary eighteenth-century sources, clarifying their significance with direct relation to the main themes of this course (see Course Content, below);
- To generate, through consultation with the course director, a compelling topic for a 20-minute presentation, that refers both to a self-selected primary document and to the thematic concerns of the given weekly seminar;
- To design a course-related research project at the MSc level;
- To make effective use of interactive electronic materials and related technology, including bibliographical software and databases.
- To engage in active and productive group discussion.
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| Keywords | Clarissa Cultural Sensibility Richardson's Clarissa |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Adam Budd
Tel: (0131 6)50 3834
Email: adam.budd@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Lindsay Scott
Tel: (0131 6)50 9948
Email: Lindsay.Scott@ed.ac.uk |
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