EN2B4/EN3B4 Romantic and Victorian Poetry
Convenor and Tutors 2022-23:
Dr Emma Francis (Convenor) & Dr Oliver Clarkson
Overview
This module focuses on significant poets from the Romantic and Victorian periods and situates their work within the cultural, social, political, economic, scientific and aesthetic debates of the period. You will need to pay close attention to both formal and contextual dimensions of the poems. The majority of the set texts are in the Norton anthologies (see "Text Books" below for details); those not included in the anthologies are provided in an online pack provided at the start of term. You are welcome and encouraged to read other poems and prose written in the period 1780-1900 in addition to the set texts.
Recommended introductory reading
Recommended introductions to the period include: Isobel Armstrong, Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics, and Politics (1993); Marilyn Butler, Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries (1982); and Stuart Curran, Poetic Form and British Romanticism (1986).
The module also requires engagement with several historical prose works, including: Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757); Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man (1791); Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792); Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy (1869); and Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859). The King James Bible (otherwise known as the Authorised Version) is also crucial for the poets we will consider, a text almost all of them in one way or another reference, repudiate or rework. Prior to the commencement of the module, you should read at least Genesis, Jeremiah, Luke and Revelation.
Many of the historical and modern critical works with which the poets are in dialogue are included in Emma Mason and Jonathan Herapath, Nineteenth Century Poetry: Criticisms and Debates (Routledge: 2016). Students are advised to refer to this resource throughout the module, which was edited with this specific module in mind. The Norton anthologies assigned as module readers, which contain most of the set texts of the module, also comprise extracts from a wide range of the contemporaneous social, political, religious, aesthetic and economic and scientific debates, to which students will be directed as the module progresses.
Assessment
Intermediate years:
1 x 800 word formative close reading essay. Produce a close reading of Anna Barbauld's 'To a Little Invisible Being Who Is Expected Soon to Become Visible' (required; submit in hard copy to your seminar tutor, not through Tabula in your week 9 seminar)
1 x 3000 word essay (50% of the final mark; submit through Tabula) deadline tba
1 x 3,000 word essay (50% of the final mark; submit through Tabula) deadline tba
Finalists:
1 x 800 word formative close reading essay. Produce a close reading of Anna Barbauld's 'To a Little Invisible Being Who Is Expected Soon to Become Visible' (required; submit in hard copy to your seminar tutor, not through Tabula in your week 9 seminar)
1 x 3000 word essay (50% of the final mark; submit through Tabula) deadline tba
1 x 3,000 word essay (50% of the final mark; submit through Tabula) deadline tba
Essay submission dates will be confirmed by the English office at the start of the academic year.
For 2023-24 the assessment pattern changes. For both finalists and intermediate years the second 3,000 word essay is replaced by a 2 hour closed examination paper taken in the summer term.
Text books
You need to buy two books: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume D, The Romantic Period, ed. Stephen Greenblatt (W. W. Norton & Co, 2018); and The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume E, The Victorian Age, ed. Stephen Greenblatt (W. W. Norton & Co, 2018). The most recent editions, the10th editions, should be purchased.
Get the best price by ordering directly from Norton: www.wwnorton.co.uk
Enter the code WN858 to obtain a 25% discount on both volumes.
