Postgraduate Course: Romanticism and Victorian Society 1815-1900 (ENLI11141)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course picks up the strands of the semester 1 course on 'Enlightenment and Romanticism' - the romantic subject, the nation, gender and class hierarchies - and takes them forward into the nineteenth century. It traces their ramifications across a wide range of genres, and introduces students to the complexities of the interaction between literary and cultural formations in the Romantic and Victorian periods. The course is divided thematically rather than chronologically into five major sections; the set texts will enable students to consider a range of topics of intellectual and cultural significance, including religion, science, nation and Empire, gender and class. In each of these sections, established literary genres such as the novel, the romance and the elegy (as well as a range of modes from the Gothic to the naturalistic) will be brought into dialogue with other forms, including short stories, reviews, treatises, essays and lectures (to be circulated as supplementary reading). The aim is to assess both the modifications that 'literary' and 'non-literary' texts undergo in response to each other, and the ways they reflect and, in their turn, influence social reality. |
| Course description |
Double Visions
Week 1: Gothic Romance: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818/1831)
Week 2: Victorian Gothic: Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
Imagining Extinction
Week 3: Elegy: Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam (1850)
Week 4: Scientific Romance: H. G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895)
The Country and the City
Week 5: Social-Problem Novel: Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton (1848)
Week 6: Naturalist Novel: Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891)
Liberal Subjects?
Week 7: Novelistic Realism: George Eliot, Felix Holt, the Radical (1866)
Week 8: Cultural Criticism: Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy (1869)
Far Away and Long Ago
Week 9: Historical Romance: Walter Scott, Ivanhoe (1819)
Week 10: Imperial Modernism: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899)
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | This course is only available to students on the MSc in Literature and Society. No outside subject enrolments or auditors are permitted. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | This course is only available to students on the MSc in Literature and Society. No outside subject enrolments or auditors are permitted. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2024/25, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
|
Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
196 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
4000 Word Essay (100%) |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
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 advanced study of English Literature: independent research, 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 critically analyse Romantic and Victorian fiction, poetry and non-fictional prose.
- By the end of the course a student will be able to show knowledge of the ways in which literary writing changed in response to religious, political, and scientific developments over the course of the nineteenth century.
- By the end of the course a student will be able to demonstrate the ability to reflect critically on textual production in relation to social formations and their conceptualisation.
- By the end of the course a student will be able to demonstrate an understanding of how ideas developed in political or historical discourses might borrow from and contribute to literary writing.
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Reading List
Double Visions
Week 1: Gothic Romance: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818/1831)
Week 2: Victorian Gothic: Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
Imagining Extinction
Week 3: Elegy: Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam (1850)
Week 4: Scientific Romance: H. G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895)
The Country and the City
Week 5: Social-Problem Novel: Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton (1848)
Week 6: Naturalist Novel: Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891)
Liberal Subjects?
Week 7: Novelistic Realism: George Eliot, Felix Holt, the Radical (1866)
Week 8: Cultural Criticism: Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy (1869)
Far Away and Long Ago
Week 9: Historical Romance: Walter Scott, Ivanhoe (1819)
Week 10: Imperial Modernism: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899)
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Special Arrangements |
No UG version. |
| Keywords | RaVS |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Owen Holland
Tel:
Email: owen.holland@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Hope Hamilton
Tel: (0131 6)50 4167
Email: hope.hamilton@ed.ac.uk |
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