English 133 - Spring, 2018

19th Century British Literature

Class Information

Instructor: Roy, Parama
CRN: 61791
Time: TR 3:10-4:30
Location: 146 Olson

Description

This course will serve as an introduction to the representative poetry, fiction, drama, and discursive prose of the Victorian period (roughly 1830 to 1900) in Britain. It will combine detailed critical reading with a consideration of the intellectual, social, economic, and political contexts out of which these cultural texts emerged. We will investigate the following topics in some detail: imagined pasts, “progress,” evolution, and projected futures; urbanization and ethnographic documentation of the urban poor; the industrial, consumer, scientific, and feminist revolutions; domesticity, intimacy, and the regulation of sexual identities; imperial expansion and crisis; and the growth of mass media.

Grading

Participation and attendance: 15%; five unannounced quizzes: 10%; one short (2-3 pages) close-reading exercise, written in class: 20%; one 8-9 page paper: 30%; one take-home final exam (25%).

Texts

The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Victorian Era, second edition , Joseph Black et al., ed.
The Moonstone, ed. Steve Farmer (Broadview), Wilkie Collins
The Sign of Four (Penguin), Arthur Conan Doyle