Undergraduate Course: Romantic Poetry and its Contexts (ENLI10444)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course introduces students to poetry of the Romantic period in Britain (1789-1832) through a range of genres, such as lyric and autobiography, as well as themes including revolution, empire, and medievalism. |
| Course description |
This course introduces students to poetry of the Romantic period in Britain (1789-1832) through a range of themes and genres. In addition to theoretical rigour, the course emphasises the importance of historical context; accordingly, students will explore aspects of the political, colonial, cultural, and intellectual issues affecting the writing and circulation of poetic texts in this period.
Although the prescribed essential texts might change from year to year, they will be organised under the following weekly headings:
Revolution
Empire
Blank-verse Autobiography
Place
The Modern Ballad
The Ode
Song
Ekphrasis
Hellenism
Medievalism
Students will be taught in 2-hour seminars and will demonstrate their achievement through written work.
INDICATIVE READING LIST
Essential Reading:
Most of the essential reading for the course is available from the EULs electronic version of:
Duncan Wu, ed., Romanticism: An Anthology, 4th ed. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012)
1. Revolution
Charlotte Smith, The Emigrants (1793)
Edmund Burke, from Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Thomas Paine, from Rights of Man(1791)
2. Empire
Robert Southey, from The Curse of Kehama (1810)
S.T. Coleridge, Kubla Khan (1816)
Henry V. L. Derozio, from Poems (1827)
3. Blank-verse Autobiography
William Wordsworth, The Two-Book Prelude (1799)
4. Place
John Clare, from Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820)
Charlotte Smith, Beachy Head (1807)
William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey (1798)
5. The Modern Ballad
David Herd, from Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs (1776)
William Taylor, The Lass of Fair Wone (1796)
S.T. Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere (1798)
Walter Scott, from The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802-3)
6. [Assessment Week]
7. The Ode
William Wordsworth, Ode (1807)
S.T. Coleridge, Dejection: An Ode (1817)
P.B. Shelley, Mont Blanc (1817)
John Keats, To Autumn (1820)
8. Song
Robert Burns, selection of songs
William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794)
9. Ekphrasis
Felicia Hemans, The Image in Lava (1827)
William Wordsworth, Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle (1807)
Percy Shelley, Ozymandias (1818) and On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci (1819)
John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn (1819)
10. Hellenis
Phillis Wheatley, An hymn to the morning, An hymn to the evening Niobe in Distress To Maecenas (1773)
Lord Byron, The Giaour (1813)
William Hazlitt, On the Elgin Marbles (1816/1822)
11. Medievalism
John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1819) and The Eve of St. Agnes (1820)
Keatss letters to Benjamin Bailey, 22 November 1817; George and Tom Keats, 21 December 1817; John Reynolds, 3 May 1818; Richard Woodhouse, 27 October 1818.
Exceptions, together with recommended and further reading, will be made available via learning Resources.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | Available to students on Honours degrees with English and Scottish Literature and to Visiting Students; not available as an outside course to other Edinburgh students. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 22,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
174 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Core Period course (20 credits):
Midsemester Coursework Essay - 2,000 words (30% of final mark) - meets LOs 1, 2, 3
Final Essay - 3,000 words (70% of final mark) - meets LOs 2, 3, 4 |
| Feedback |
Students will receive feedback in the following formats:
1. Students will receive formative feedback on all written assignments. Feedback for the mid-semester essay will be available before submission of the final essay.
2. Students receive in-class formative feedback from peers and seminar leader on the work completed during autonomous learning groups.
3. Students are encouraged to meet with the course organiser during drop-in hours or at another pre-arranged time for verbal feedback in advance of, and following, assignment submission. Students with specified learning adjustments that allow for submissions of essay plans in progress are encouraged to submit these to the course organiser. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Construct extended literary-critical arguments in discursive prose, identifying and explaining key issues in the literary history of Britain in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries with specific reference to a particular poet from the period
- Think critically about the relation of particular poetic texts to their literary, intellectual, and historical contexts
- Analyse and engage with relevant scholarship in this field;
- Construct extended literary-critical arguments in discursive prose, identifying and explaining key issues in the literary history of Britain in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries with reference to a range of Romantic poets
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
By the end of this course, students will have curiosity for learning that makes a positive difference and enhanced courage to expand and fulfil their passion to engage locally and globally. They will be more creative problem solvers and researchers, critical and reflective thinkers, effective and influential contributors, and skilled communicators. |
| Keywords | Romantic poetry,Revolution,Empire,Blank-verse Autobiography,Place,The Modern Ballad,The Ode,Song |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Tim Milnes
Tel: (0131 6)50 3615
Email: tim.milnes@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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