BA English Literature and History / Course details

The long eighteenth century in Britain (c. 1680–1820) is often understood as split between an ‘age of satire’ and an ‘age of sentiment’. The first term has been used to describe the sharply witty moral judgements of the first half of the century, while the second has defined the expressive feelings of the mid-century ‘novel of sensibility’ and Romanticism. Although satire and sentiment have typically been identified as competing aesthetic and social discourses, in this course we explore the importance of, and connections between, these two influential literary modes. We read satirical and sentimental writing in poetry and prose, including several different kinds of novels: amatory fiction, epistolary novel, romance, fictional autobiography, political detective fiction, feminist gothic thriller. This course will situate these works within their historical and cultural contexts and explore some of the critical approaches that have been applied to the literature of this period. Topics we will consider along the way include: representations of gender, sexuality, sexual violence, and the body; eighteenth-century aesthetics; colonialism and slavery; criminality and class; popular and elite culture; relations between human and animal/nature and culture; expressions of consciousness.

- To read some of the major literary works written between 1680 and 1820
- To encourage the use of a range of theoretical and critical approaches to inform the close reading of poetry and prose
- To make students aware of different literary genres and of the main lines of development in poetry and fiction from this period
- To enable students to situate literary texts within their historical, political, and cultural contexts
- To examine the relation between literary discourse and ideology in the period
- To explore the relations between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture in eighteenth-century Britain
- To foster an interest in eighteenth-century literature and culture
- To develop skills of critical thought, speech, and writing in relation to the study of eighteenth-century literature.

By the end of this course students should  be able to:

- display a detailed and convincing knowledge of a wide range of eighteenth-century texts, and offer close readings of them.

- display some knowledge of the relations between texts and their moments of their production and reception.

- discuss different varieties of satire, sentiment, and the novel, and explain how these modes influenced the development of the English literary tradition.
 

By the end of this course students should be able to:

- summarize and engage with different critical and theoretical approaches to reading texts

- use the vocabulary of literary criticism to provide detailed analyses of course texts.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

- discuss and debate course topics and ideas

- develop a logical, coherent written argument based on the explication of evidence.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

- read and explicate difficult texts

- provide detailed rhetorical analysis (close reading)

- construct clear, well-substantiated, and thoughtful written arguments.

- present information to a group.

• Written feedback on class presentation
• Optional formative feedback on an essay plan (face-to-face, by appointment)
• Written feedback on essay
• Optional one-on-one meeting to discuss essay (by appointment)
• Written feedback on final exam

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (Oxford World’s Classics edition)

Eliza Haywood, Fantomina (text to be provided on Blackboard)

Samuel Richardson, Pamela (Oxford World’s Classics edition)

Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote (Oxford World’s Classics edition)

Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (Oxford World’s Classics edition)

Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African (text to be provided on Blackboard)

William Godwin, Things As They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (Oxford World’s Classics edition)

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (Oxford World’s Classics edition)

Poetry by Alexander Pope, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Thomas Gray, Charlotte Smith, Phillis Wheatley Peters, and others (all provided on the Blackboard site for the course).