ENG-20033 - Module Specification
School of Humanities
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2023/24

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2023/24

Module Overview
The Romantic period is one of the most creatively fertile and historically compelling in the history of English literature. There were revolutions in France and America. Old certainties ¿ religious and political ¿ were challenged by new ideas about the rights of men and women. Educational and political reform was on the agenda in parliament and the industrial revolution was in full swing. The period was alive with debates which would bring about the end of the slave trade and reform the British political system. The writers and thinkers of the time included mavericks like William Blake and communities brought together by shared beliefs like the Lake Poets and the Bluestockings. Lyric poetry and landscape art redefined how the natural world was viewed while the theatre and the novel were key outlets for creative artists keen to make satirical observations.
In this module students will read and critically engage with a range of texts from the key writers of the Romantic period who redefined the role of literature in a world characterised by rapid cultural, technological and political change. Authors studied include Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Austen, Burney and Barbauld.

Texts for Purchase
Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, ed. Claudia L. Johnson (Norton)
Bryon's Poetry and Prose, ed. Alice Levine (Norton)
Maria Edgeworth, Letters for Literary Ladies, ed. Clare Connolly (Everyman)
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings, ed. Vincent Carretta (Penguin)
Helen Maria Williams, Letters Written in France, eds. Neil Fraistat and Susan S. Lanser (Broadview)

Other Texts
We will study poetry in an Anthology that will be available for free to all students on the KLE. This includes works by William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Anna Letitia Barbauld, William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley and others.

To equip students with knowledge of the work of a range of authors from the Romantic Period
To offer students an understanding of key historical, political and philosophical contexts in relation to the literature of this period.
To offer students insight into some of the theoretical and critical traditions that have shaped our understanding of Romanticism.
To enable students to carry out contextualised close reading analysis of Romantic literature.
To offer students the opportunity to draw comparisons between the work of different Romantic authors and to construct an argument based around these comparisons.

Intended Learning Outcomes

identify the distinctive formal and thematic features of a variety of Romantic literature: 1,2
engage in contextualised close textual analysis of a variety of Romantic literary forms and genres: 1,2
demonstrate the ability to compare and contrast literature by different authors writing during the Romantic Period: 2
demonstrate the ability to engage with theoretical and critical constructions and receptions of Romanticism: 1,2
demonstrate knowledge of the historical, political and philosophical contexts of the Romantic period: 1,2
develop skills in writing for different audiences and in different formats: 1

Study hours

lectures/workshops (24 hours)
seminars (12 hours)
seminar preparation and private study (65 hours)
long essay writing and preparation (35 hours)
short paper preparation and writing (14 hours)

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment