LEARNING OUTCOMES

BA courses aim to provide students with a basic knowledge of British literature and culture from the Renaissance to the present age with special emphasis on the development of modern fiction, post-colonial studies, twentieth-century modernism and post-modernism.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

Students who attend this course regularly, and study the prescribed materials, will acquire a good knowledge of some aspects of nineteenth-century literature. They will be able to analyse some literary texts, describe their main formal and thematic features, connect them to specific historical and cultural contexts, and make use of intrepretative hints and tools derived from critical material.

PREREQUISITES

An acquaintance with literary periodization as customarily deployed in the study of European literatures; ability to understand English, both oral and written.

TEACHING METHODS

Lectures in English interspersed with seminar/group activities. Active attendance is heartily recommended. Students who are unable to attend will have to refer to a slightly different reading list.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

This course provides an introduction to nineteenth century literature, through an historical and cultural survey of the Romantic, the mid-Victorian and the late Victorian periods. Its main focus is on fiction and its transformations in connection with the Woman Question.

For students who choose this course as a 6-credit option the syllabus does not include the late Victorian period.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Regarding the standard 9 CFU course, all students will have to read two of the following novels in any unabridged edition of their choice:

• Jane Austen, Persuasion or Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818 edition) 
•  Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre or George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss;

Plus

• a selection of Romantic and Victorian poems and poetical manifestos (which will be provided via aulaweb);
• a selection of late nineteenth-century short stories by New Woman writers and of extracts from notable statements on the Woman Question (which will be provided via aulaweb)
• Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest 
• one critical article on each of the novels they have chosen to read, and one on the New Woman fiction

Students will also have to make themselves familiar with the history of English Literature 1785-1900. Other materials (contextual and/or critical) will be made available through aulaweb and/or in the Department library. 

The 6-credit syllabus does not include the late Victorian period (i.e. Oscar Wilde and New Woman fiction).

Students who cannot attend regularly and actively will have to refer to a different reading list, more suitable to individual study; they are advised to contact the instructor for further details.