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After completing this course:
• You will be able to identify the main developments in 19th and 20th-century British literature in relation to their historical and cultural contexts;
• You will be able to discuss key literary genres and texts of this period, ranging from Romantic poetry to postmodernist fiction;
• You will be able to do individual research on literary texts from this period and present your findings in an academic essay.
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In this course we will study a selection of texts from 19th and 20th-century British literature. Beginning with the Romantic poetry of the early years of the 19th century, and moving through the age of realist fiction to the rise of socialism and the aesthetic movement at the period’s close, we will consider these works in relation to the great social and cultural changes that took place alongside them. Topics for discussion will include: the role of gender and class in shaping society, responses to nature and landscape in an industrial age, trends in Victorian art such as Pre-Raphaelitism and aestheticism, the persistence and development of gothic fiction, and the increasing dominance of a scientific worldview.
In the second part of the course, we will analyse the influence of some of the most important historical events (such as the Great War) and cultural movements (such as imagism) on the literature of the first part of the 20th century. We will then turn to discussion of significant post-war cultural and intellectual developments (such as postmodernity and postcolonialism), before concluding by considering contemporary British fiction. Central subjects to be discussed will include: the trauma of war, modernist art, national identity, imperialism, multiculturalism, and the marginalization and emancipation of women.
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