ENH3030 - Rewriting Victorian Narratives: Origins and Oblivion

Leader: TBA

Offered

Not offered in 2007

Synopsis

This unit explores, through a variety of mainstream and marginalised texts, some of the major intellectual and social issues of the nineteenth century, including Darwinian narratives of origins and oblivion, notions of history and historicity, the progress myth, industrialisation and urbanisation, changing political paradigms, social unrest and dissent, class mobility, the rights of women, redefinitions of childhood, the rise of science and the decline of religious faith. We will ask, as texts are situated within specific historic and cultural contexts, what lies beyond the pale, excluded from text and context.

Objectives

Students in ENH2030/3030 should develop:

1. Knowledge and an understanding of major nineteenth-century intellectual, social and cultural debate.
2. An understanding of specific nineteenth-century historic and cultural contexts as they influenced production of particular texts; in particular, as they influenced narrative forms, genres, audiences, speaking voices and narrative contracts.
3. Knowledge and an understanding of historic as well as of contemporary debates about literary theory and values.
4. The critical skills to undertake effective discourse analysis.

Assessment

Essay (2250 words): 50%
Test (2250 words): 50%
Third-year students will be expected to demonstrate a higher degree of conceptualisation in their theoretical understandings, and more sophisticated analytic and interpretative skills.

Contact hours

2.5 hours (1 lecture and 1 seminar) per week

Prerequisites

A second-year sequence in English, Literary Studies or Cultural Studies or permission.

Prohibitions

ENH2030