ENG-20068 - Module Specification
School of Humanities
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2024/25

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2024/25

The Victorian age was an age of empire, industry, social reform and technological and scientific progress. It was also a period popularly associated with moral rectitude, charity, philanthropy, temperance, self-reliance and other markers of a civilized society. Yet, literature of the Victorian age suggests the Victorian dream of progress was best by anxieties that saw it queried from numerous angles. What were the signs of a successful society? Narratives of culture and barbarism were one way in which writers of the Victorian age rethought their relationship to this question.
This module offers you the chance to engage with literary and other texts of the nineteenth century which demonstrate that while cultural achievement was generally perceived as being opposed to barbarism ¿ carrying the meaning of cruelty, but also savagery, vulgarity and coarseness ¿ this was not always the case. The module will look at narratives of progress and deterioration in texts from British and American writers, exploring such issues as slavery and abolition, consumerism and materialism, science and pseudo-science, evolution and devolution, class, decadence, the new woman and the frontier.

To equip students with knowledge of the work of a range of writers from the Victorian age.
To enable students to engage with the key historical, political and philosophical contexts within which literature of the Victorian age was produced.
To give students insight into the major theoretical and critical traditions that have shaped our understanding of literature of the Victorian age.
To enable students to carry out contextualised close reading of literature of the Victorian age.
To offer students the opportunity to make comparisons between literary texts of the Victorian age and construct arguments around these comparisons.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Show sensitivity to the complexity of literary language and critical discourse: 1,2
Demonstrate research and planning skills and the ability to present that research effectively: 1,2
Employ skills in close analysis of form and content: 1,2
Demonstrate the ability to articulate arguments about literature of the Victorian age: 1,2
Demonstrate the ability to engage with critical traditions that have shaped our understanding of literature of the Victorian age: 1,2
Apply knowledge of the historical factors that influenced the production of nineteenth-century literature: 1,2

Study hours

12 hours: seminars
24 hours: lectures/workshops (including session on podcasting)
14 hours: research/writing for podcast
30 hours: essay writing and preparation
70 hours: seminar preparation

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment