This course introduces the literature and culture of the British Romantic period (1789-1832), a time of profound political, social, and cultural change. We will examine how key historical events such as the French Revolution, mediated by the aesthetic concept of the sublime, shaped the literary and artistic imagination of the period. In terms of textual form, we will consider how developments in print, song, and epistolary culture are reflected in major literary works of the era. Turning to questions of genre, we will look at the ways in which the Gothic and the Romantic lyric were used to explore themes of desire, death, and the supernatural. We also will analyze how travel narratives, orientalist imagery, and representations of luxury and excess reflect broader social and cultural debates around class, gender, race, and nationality. By the end of the course, students will have gained a nuanced understanding of British Romanticism and its continuing relevance in contemporary culture.
Readings will include a selection of poetry and prose and one full-length novel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Key writers will include Byron, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Percy Shelley, Charlotte Smith, De Quincey, and Anna Letitia Barbauld.
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: The 1818 Text, Contexts, Criticism, ed. J. Paul Hunter, 3rd ed. (W.W. Norton & Company, 2012).
Romanticism: An Anthology, ed. Duncan Wu, 4th ed. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).
Students will develop an understanding of the historical and cultural contexts of British Romanticism. They will analyze major texts of the period in terms of literary technique, genre, and style while discussing the ideas, themes, and debates that emerge in these texts. Students will also reflect upon the contemporary critical attempts to reconceptualize the period.
There will be three contact hours per week. A one-hour session every Tuesday from 12.30-1.20 will feature a lecture on the historical and critical contexts of the readings for that week. This is followed by a two-hour session every Friday from 12.30-2.20 organized around class discussions of the weekly reading.
Writing Assignments (80%)
- Weekly Response Papers (20%)
- Term paper (60%)
Oral Contributions (20%)
- Class presentation (15%)
- Class participation (5%)