Romantic and Victorian Literature

Objective

The course opens with a social, intellectual and cultural background of England during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, that serves as a layout for discussion of the prescribed texts. The course contains three significant movements: Romantic, Victorian, and Modern. These literary periods will be examined, analyzed and evaluated through comprehensive understanding of the literary history  and contextual reading of the texts.  

Outcomes

• Knowledge and Comprehension
• Discuss  the characteristics of the traditional novel and poetic movements of England in the 18th& 19th centuries.
• Skills
• Analyze critically chosen poems and novels and their applications.
• Present critical views toward literary works effectively in speech and/or in writing.
• Values
• Demonstrate self-discipline, ethical standards and academic integrity in performing assigned tasks. 

Content

• The Romantic Poetry: 

An Introduction: Historical, Political (1780- 1832) 

Key words to the Romantic poetry: Nature 

Imagination & Childhood. 

William Blake: Songs of Innocence & Experience 

“Holy Thursday” OR “The Tiger” 

 William Wordsworth: 

The Preface to the Lyrical Ballads. (Characteristics of the new poetic   style” Romantic Poetry”). 

“Simon Lee” (The tragedy of old age) 

“I wander Lonely as a Cloud” (Relation to Nature) 

T.S. Coleridge: The Rime of The Ancient Mariner 

John Keats "Ode to a Nightingale"   

or 

Lord Byron: “She Walks in Beauty” 

• The Victorian Poetry: 

Introduction (Formative Influences on the Literature of the Victorian era: Political, Social and Religious) 

Gerard Manley Hopkins: 

“Pied Beauty” (Imagism) 

Or 

Tennyson:" The Lady of Shalott 

Dramatic Monologue  

Robert Browning: “My last Duchess” (Only a reference 

to the poem as an example (Dramatic Monologue) 

Pre-Raphael Poetry: Main Characteristics  

Female Poets and Lyric Poetry  

Elizabeth Browning "A Curse of a Nation" 

Or 

Introducing Female Poets (poetess) 

“When I Am Dead” 

One of the Pre- Raphaelitism Major Poets 

Christina Rossetti: 

“When I Am Dead” 

Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice 

Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre 

Textbook

• Greenblatt, Stephen, Ed. (2018). The Norton Anthology of English Literature (10th ed). W.W. Norton and Company.
• Jane, Austen. Pride and Prejudice (Any edition)
• Charlotte, Bronte. Jane Eyre (Any edition)
• Jean, Rhys. Wide Sargasso Sea (Any edition)

Course ID: ENGL 307