Part I:
This seminar offers the opportunity for in-depth study of a range of novels from the Victorian period (named after the reign of Queen Victoria 1837–1901), frequently subsumed under the auspices of ‘realism’. Next to the poetics of the Victorian novel, its philosophical, political and ideological concerns will be addressed, as will be gender and authorship. In the light of the recent prominence of material cultures in Victorian studies, we shall also be looking at modes of publication and reception (serial publication) etc.
Core reading (please obtain your own copies):
- Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist (1837–39) (Penguin Classics)
- George Eliot: Middlemarch (1871–72) (Penguin Classics)
- Thomas Hardy: Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) (Penguin Classics)
A further title is to be announced. Reading at least one of these novels in advance of the course is recommended.
Part II:
This seminar on “Victorianism”, a notoriously problematic term difficult to define, operates in tandem with my course on the Victorian novel. Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world, from upheavals in theology, science and new technologies to empire, we will be exploring a broad range of phenomena such as popular fiction (in extracts), conservative cultural criticism, the “movement” of the Pre-Raphaelites (entwining literature/poetry and art), and, finally, the aesthetic turn at the fin de siècle.
A considerable part of the course reading will be made available on Moodle but please obtain your own paperback copy of Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy (1867–68) and of Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest. A Trivial Comedy for Serious People (1895). |
