ENH2310

Romantic literature

K Hart

8 points
* 2.5 hours per week
* First semester
* Clayton

Objectives Students successfully completing this subject should develop a grasp of romantic ways of thinking and imagining, of the variety of ways of reading romanticism and familiarity with a range of central romantic texts.

Synopsis This subject works in two directions: firstly, it aims at a thorough knowledge of a range of literary works written between 1790 and 1830, including the literary and cultural criticism written by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley and Keats. In works of imaginative literature, it studies the ideas of imagination and of literature, exploring the romantics' notions of organic form and originality, of nature and of natural genius, of innocence, moral evolution and the construction of the self, of religious consciousness and the recovery of paradise - and of the role of imagination in social revolution. And it will also explore works of romantic self-questioning, which through irony, satire and comedy, disbelieve the characteristic ideals invented in this period of revolution. Secondly, the subject will provide, in both lectures and discussion, a study of the seminal role romanticism has played as both source and subject matter for modern literary theory, employing a number of theoretical approaches to illuminate the particular qualities and limitations of Romanticism.

Assessment Seminar participation: 10%
* Report (1500 words): 20%
* Short essay (1500 words): 20%
* Long essay (3000 words): 50%
* An examination, counting for up to 50%, will be available; students whose written work is completed and whose participation is satisfactory are normally excused the examination.

Prescribed texts

The poetry of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats, and selected prose of these and other writers, from M H Abrams The Norton anthology of English literature 6th edn, vol. 2, Norton.
De Quincey T The confessions of an English opium-eater OUP
Shelley M Frankenstein OUP
Austen J Persuasion OUP
A coursebook with further material will be available from the English department.