EL 405.01: Victorian Poetry and Prosefall 2017

EL 405.01: Victorian Poetry and ProseFall 2017

Hande Tekdemir

Office: TB 529 Office Hours: Mon. 14:30-15:30

d. 15:00-16:00

& by appointment

Course Objectives:

Focusing on poetry, prose and a novel written during Victorian England, we will pursue two main objectives:

1. To be acquainted with the work of major Victorian writers,

2. To look at Victorian culture and ideology through the lenses of literature.

For our first goal, we will examine works by canonical writers and poetssuch Tennyson, Arnold, Browning, Ruskin, and Gaskell, which reflect the socio-cultural issues and artistic pursuits of the period.For our second goal, we will examine how some of the important developments of “the long nineteenth century” such as industrialism, urbanization, imperialism,emergenceof the middle class, increasing commercialization, developing labor movements, initial challenges against gender roles and distinctions, are reflected, confirmed or contested in the literary texts of the period.

As we pursue both goals, I’d like to be able to introduce you with the canon as much as what is pushed outside the mainstream culture. To that end, we will look at some examples of street literature, discuss the “sensational” aspect of the Oscar Wilde trials for the Victorian culture, and ponder over the ongoing influence of Victorian culture in TV series.

Evaluation and Requirements:

Class participation% 10

(5 points for regular attendance and 5 points for meaningful and relevant participation in class discussion)

Reading Quizzes% 20 (no make-up for quizzes)

Midterm paper% 30

Final exam (cumulative)% 40

Schedule of Readings:

Course Reader is available at the library copy center.

North and South is available for purchase at the Bookstore.

Week 1:

Sept. 18Introduction

Sept. 20“Victorian Age” in The Longman Anthology

Industrialism: Progress or Decline?

Week 2:Perspectives ON the Wrking Class

Sept 25-27Prose:From The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels

From The Cond. of the Working Class in England in 1844 by Engels

Poem: “The Cry of Children” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Week 3:Perspectives OF the Working Class

Oct. 2-4“Street Ballads and Broadsides: The foundation of a class culture” by Martha Vicinus (article)

examples from street literature, selection from the Reader Quiz 1

The Victorian Social Novel

Week 4:The Victorian Novel and Serialization

Oct. 9-11North and Southby Elizabeth Gaskell

Week 5:

Oct. 16-18cont. North and SouthQuiz 2

Week 6:

Oct. 23-25cont. North and South

The “Other” Victorians: Dissenting Voices of the Fin de Siècle

Week 7: The Woman Question

Oct. 30-Nov. 1selected readings from the Course Reader

Week 8:Victorian underworld, sensation and scandal

Nov. 6Sex Labor in Victorian EnglandMIDTERM PAPER DUE

Nov. 8Oscar Wilde trials

Poems: “Hermaphrodite”by A. C. Swinburne, “In Praise of Shame,” “Two Loves” by Lord Alfred Douglas

Week 9:

Nov. 13Michel Foucault, “We Other Victorians”

Nov. 15Crime, Detection and the Victorian Underworld:Jack the Ripper and

Sherlock Holmes

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia”Quiz 3

Victorian Art andCulture & The Society of Spectacle

Week 10:

Nov. 20-22Gothic art: John Ruskin, from “The Nature of Gothic”77-95, end of 101-109

The Great Exhibition[1]

Victorian Poetry: Nostalgia for the Past

Week 11:Victorian Quest and Melancholy: Alfred Lord Tennyson & Matthew Arnold

Nov. 27-29Poems: “Ulysses,” “Lotus Eaters,” The Lady of Shalott” by Tennyson

“The Scholar Gypsy” by Matthew ArnoldQuiz 4

Week 12:The Grotesque: Robert Browning

Dec. 4-6“The Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister” “Andrea Del Sarto”

Algernon Swinburne “Leper”

Week 13:Neo-Victorianism

Dec. 11-13selected examples from TV series (student-lead class discussion)