Victorian to Modernist Literature

Course Content:

In this module texts are studied from the nineteenth to early twentieth centuries that
register the ways in which Britain is transformed by the Industrial Revolution, and which
give expression to fears about technology, social mobility and urban culture. We will
consider literature of the period that questions and resists established theories of
gendered identity, and which challenges the literary representation of sexuality, defying
censorship in the process. Writers will be introduced who engage with contemporary
debates about science, religion, the empire, and racial and national identity. A range of
consciously modern texts will be encountered which dislocate and make new the
reader?s experience by technical innovation and experiment.

Students will study a range of Victorian and Modernist poetry selected from an anthology
such as The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2. They will also encounter a
diverse set of novels from the long nineteenth century, for example Oliver Twist (1838)
to Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), in order to chart the development of literary
representations of the fallen woman and to open up discussion about sexual morality
and literary censorship. Fictional texts will also be studied in relation to non-fiction texts,
for example Charlotte Bronte's Villette (1853) and Mary Seacole's mid-century autobiography, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands, in order to develop our understanding of topics such as female subjectivity and cultural perceptions of the
woman writer.

Having acquired a solid grounding in the conventions of nineteenth-century literature,
students will then proceed to examine the works of a number of Modernist writers,
including key novels of the early twentieth century and inter-war period which make a
deliberate break from such conventions and through various forms of experimentation
attempt to represent individual consciousness with greater authenticity. Texts might
include Conrad's Lord Jim, Lawrence's, Sons and Lovers, Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as
a Young Man and Woolf's Mrs Dalloway.

AUTUMN SEMESTER LECTURES:
Introductions: The Victorians and the Modernists, The Victorian City, The Victorian
Nation: Crime & Punishment, Ideal and Transgressive Femininity, Ideal Masculinity &
Victorian Medievalism, Constructing Female Sexuality, Constructing a National Identity,
Changing Landscapes: England's Industrialisation, Changing Beliefs', Sexual Morality and
the Victorian Novel, The Great Game, The End of Empire

SPRING SEMESTER LECTURES:
The Fin de Siècle: The Death of Victorianism , The Fin de Siecle: The birth of Modernism,
The Fin de Siecle: The New Woman, The City and Urbanity in the Modern Short Story,
Gender play in Modern Short Stories, Modernism and Modern Life: Modernist Poetry,
Modernism and War: Modernist Poetry Part 2, The Gendered Modernist Life in Fiction,
One Day in Dublin, Modernism and the First World War, Modernism and the Woman
Writer.

Teaching:
Lectures/workshops and seminars

Assessment:
STUDY OPTION 1: a portfolio made up of four elements:
20 weekly discussions points to be completed and signed on a weekly basis and then
submitted with the portfolio (50-75 words each) 20%
Close Reading 1 - to be submitted in TB1 - Week 10 (750 words) 20%
Close Reading 2 - to be submitted in TB2 ? Week 9 (750words) 20%
Essay (1500 words) 40%
STUDY OPTION 2: portfolio (some elements as those for Study Option 1).
STUDY OPTION 2: portfolio (some elements as those for Study Option 1).

Study Option 1 = Whole Year
Study Option 2 = Autumn
Study Option 3 = Spring/summer