Introductory description

EN2B4-30 Romantic & Victorian Poetry

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Indicative syllabus

Set texts

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume D, The Romantic Period, ed. Stephen
Greenblatt (W. W. Norton & Co, 2012); and The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume E,
The Victorian Age, ed. Stephen Greenblatt (W. W. Norton & Co, 2012).

Term 1

1. Introduction
2. William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
3. Anna Barbauld, 'A Summer Evening's Meditation'; 'Epistle to William Wilberforce, Esq'; To a
   Little Invisible Being Who is Expected Soon to Become Visible'; 'The Rights of Woman'; 'The
   Caterpillar'
4. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘Frost at Midnight’; ‘Fears in Solitude’ ;‘The Pains of Sleep';
   ‘Dejection: an Ode’
5. William Wordsworth, 'Simon Lee', 'We are Seven', ‘Tintern Abbey'; The Prelude in the Norton: Book Fifth [The Boy of Winander], Book Sixth [Crossing Simplon Pass], Book Twelfth [Spots of Time], Book Thirteenth [The Vision on Mount Snowdon]
6. Charlotte Smith, 'Beachy Head'
7. Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘Mont Blanc’; 'England in 1819’; ‘To a Sky-Lark'; ‘Ozymandias’
8. John Clare, ‘The Badger’, 'The Nightingale ('This is the month') ‘The Mores’ [link]; ‘I Am’; ‘An Invite to Eternity'; ‘Emmonsails Heath in Winter’ ; ‘The Nightingale's Nest’; 'The Peasant Poet'
9. John Keats, ‘Ode: to a Nightingale’; ‘Ode on Melancholy’; ‘To Autumn’; ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’; 'The Eve of St Agnes'
   Term 2
10. Letitia Landon, ‘I am a daughter of that land...’ (from The Improvisatrice), 'Revenge' , 'Love's Last Lesson', 'The Marriage Vow', ‘Calypso Watching the Ocean’ Felicia Hemans, ‘Properzia Rossi’; ‘Casabianca’; 'A Spirit's Return'; 'The Indian Woman's Death Song'; Corinne at the Capitol'
11. Alfred Tennyson, ' Mariana'; ‘The Lady of Shalott’; In Memoriam [focus on extracts in the Norton]; 'Maud'; 'The Kraken'
12. Matthew Arnold, 'Dover Beach'; 'The Buried Life'; 'The Scholar Gypsy'
13. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ‘A Musical Instrument’; ‘The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point’; 'The Cry of the Children'; Aurora Leigh (extract from Book V in the Norton)
14. Christina Rossetti, ‘Goblin Market’; ‘A Birthday’; ‘Winter: My Secret’; ‘Cobwebs’; ‘Dead before Death’; 'In An Artist's Studio'; 'Uphill'; 'The World'
15. Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘God’s Grandeur’; ‘The Windhover’; ‘As kingfishers catch fire...’; 'Pied Beauty'
16. Algernon Charles Swinburne, 'Hermaphroditus'; 'Anactoria', 'Sapphics', 'Fragoletta'
17. Amy Levy, ‘In the Mile End Road’; ‘Magdalen’; ‘Contradictions’; Augusta Webster, 'Medea'
18. Francis Thompson, 'The Hound of Heaven'; Oscar Wilde, ‘Impression du Matin'; 'The Harlot's House'; Ernest Dowson, 'Cynara'; Arthur Symons, 'White Heliotrope'

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• To study a group of Romantic and Victorian period poets in the context of their eighteenth and nineteenth-century historical, cultural, social, political, economic, religious, scientific and aesthetic context.
• To develop close reading skills.
• To explore the history of critical assessment of this period through literary critical analysis from the late eighteenth century to the present.

Indicative reading list

M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic theory and the Critical Tradition (1958)
Isobel Armstrong, Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics, and Politics (1993)
Harold Bloom, The Visionary Company: A Reading of English Romantic Poetry (1961)
Marilyn Butler, Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries (1982)
Joseph Bristow, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Poetry (2002)
Cynthia Chase, ed., Romanticism (1993)
Stephen Copley and John Whale, eds. Beyond Romanticism: New Approaches to Texts and
Contexts 1780-1832 (1992)
Stuart Curran, Poetic Form and British Romanticism (1986)
Richard Cronin et al, ed., A Companion to Victorian Poetry (2002)
Aidan Day, Romanticism (1995)
Paula Feldman and Theresa Kelley, ed., Romantic Women Writers (1995)
Jonathan Herapath and Emma Mason, Nineteenth Century Poetry: Criticisms and Debates
(Routledge: 2015)
Margaret Homans, Women Writers and Poetic Identity (1980)
Linda K. Hughes, The Cambridge Introduction to Victorian Poetry (2010)
Iain McCalman, An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age (1999) Anne Mellor, Romanticism and Gender (1993) Marlon B. Ross, The Contours of Masculine Desire: Romanticism and the Rise of Women's Poetry (1989) Sharon Ruston, Romanticism (2007) Janet Todd, Sensibility: An Introduction (1986) Raymond Williams, Culture and Society 1780-1950 (1958)

Subject specific skills

No subject specific skills defined for this module.

Transferable skills

No transferable skills defined for this module.