Module Descriptors
LITERATURE AND MODERNITY: VICTORIAN REVOLUTIONS
ENGL50331
Key Facts
Faculty of Arts and Creative Technologies
Level 5
15 credits
Contact
Leader: Martin Jesinghausen
Hours of Study
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities: 24
Independent Study Hours: 126
Total Learning Hours: 150
Assessment
  • ASSIGNMENT weighted at 60%
  • GROUP PRESENTATION weighted at 30%
  • BIBLIOGRAPHICAL EXERCISE weighted at 10%
Module Details
Module Resources
Library, access to networked pc (for assignments and module website).
Module Texts
Bocock, Robert, and Kenneth Thompson, Social and Cultural Forms of Modernity; Understanding Modern Societies: Book 3 (London: Polity Press/O.U.P, 1992).
Brantlinger, Patrick, Rule of Darkness - British literature and imperialism, 1830-1914 (Cornell U.P., 1988).
Dyos, H.J., and Michael Wolff, The Victorian city - images and realities (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973).
John, Juliet, and Alice Jenkins, Rethinking Victorian culture (Basingstoke:Macmillan, 2000).
Shires, Linda M., Rewriting the Victorians - theory, history, and the politics of gender (London: Routledge, 1992).
Sinfield, Alan, The Wilde Century (London: Cassell, 1994).
Module Learning Strategies
Teaching will be through lectures, workshops and seminars. You will work independently (on research, preparation of lectures, seminars and seminar presentations) and in pairs or small groups (on seminar assignments and presentations).
Module Indicative Content
This module will lead off the Level 2 English Core programme by introducing students to English literature's involvement in the developing social, economic, cultural and conceptual processes of modernisation in the nineteenth century. The module is thematically organised around two key areas: Detecting the Modern City and Identity and the Modern Subject. We will study exemplary works from nineteenth century prose writing (including texts such as Bleak House by Dickens, Poe's The Man of the Crowd: Bronte's, Wuthering Heights, Wilde's, Picture of Dorian Gray) and poetry (typically including poems by Arnold, Barrett Browning, Clare, D.G. Rossetti and Tennyson).
Module Additional Assessment Details
Written ASSIGNMENT [Learning Outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4]
GROUP PRESENTATION [Learning Outcome 4]
A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL EXERCISE [Learning Outcome 3]