BA Film Studies and English Literature

Venice today is a manifestation of Romanticism’s continuing influence on modern-day culture: Romantic-period literature transformed the city from an almost forgotten backwater into the iconic city of modern tourism. This course is focused on the international re-imagining of Venice by Romantic-period writers such as Goethe, Radcliffe, de Staël, Byron and P. B. Shelley, and the influence of this re-imagining across Europe and beyond. However, this international focus on ‘Romantic Venice’ will also enable students to re-think Romanticism in Britain, in terms of its inherently international nature and its international impact. It will do this by foregrounding Romanticism’s interest in urban as well as natural worlds; its reinvention of literary genres to address new aesthetic, social and political objectives; the importance of writers (especially women writers), and kinds of writing (especially travel writing), often marginalised in scholarly accounts of Romanticism; and the influence of ‘Romantic Venice’ on writers such as Dickens, George Sand and Henry James.

 The aims of this course are:
- to analyse representations of Venice, as a case study of Romanticism’s engagement with place, in a range of texts;
- to introduce students to the comparative analysis of texts (in translation where necessary) from different national traditions;
- to introduce students to key Romantic-period texts and the influence of these on later texts;
- to analyse the ways in which texts interact with their cultural and historical contexts;
- to consider issues such as gender and nationality as they affect the texts studied;
- to compare texts across a range of different genres (including drama, poetry, prose fiction and travel writing), especially in terms of their formal and thematic innovations;
- to develop skills of critical thought, speech and writing in relation to Romantic and later texts;
- to develop skills of independent research and persuasive argumentation.

By the end of this course, students should be able to:
- demonstrate a good familiarity with a range of texts and contexts;
- demonstrate a good understanding of some of the dialogues between these texts;
- demonstrate a good understanding of the developing representation of Venice, c1790-1890, and some of the wider literary, social, political and historical implications of this;
- demonstrate an ability to critically compare texts (in translation where necessarily) from different national literary traditions;
- demonstrate a critical knowledge of, and engagement with, the existing critical debate about individual texts, their inter-relation, and Romanticism’s engagement with place.

By the end of this course, students should be able to:
- think critically, and make critical judgments, about a wide range of Romantic and post-Romantic representations of Venice in particular, and of place more generally, and the wider literary, social, political and historical implications of these;
- critically compare texts from different periods and (national/international) contexts;
- analyse course texts in a detailed, critical and persuasive manner, orally and in writing;
- identify, and critically engage with, key claims, issues and problems in existing scholarly debates about Romantic literary traditions and legacies.

- plan, execute and present independent research on topics relating to the course;
- make good use of library, electronic, and online resources pertaining to the course;
- speak and write clearly and persuasively about literary and other texts;
- critically assess the language of both primary and secondary texts relating to the course.

- retrieve, sift, organise, synthesise and critically evaluate material from a range of different sources, including library, electronic and online resources;
- deliver oral presentations in front of a lecturer and a seminar group;
- produce written work, in language appropriate for an academic audience, that collects, integrates and presents evidence to persuasively formulate/test a critical argument;
- display basic negotiating skills in understanding, working and debating with others;
- improve one’s learning through reflection, self-evaluation and time management.

David Barnes, The Venice Myth: Culture, Literature, Politics, 1800 to the Present (London: Routledge, 2014)

John Julius Norwich, Paradise of Cities: Venice And Its Nineteenth-Century Visitors (New York: Viking, 2003)

John Pemble, Venice Rediscovered (London: Faber and Faber, 2009)

Tony Tanner, Venice Desired (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992)

Michael O'Neill, Mark Sandy and Sarah Wootton (eds), Venice and the Cultural Imagination: 'This Strange Dream upon the Water' (London: Routledge, 2012)

Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2027 will be £10,050 per annum. Tuition fees for international students will be £29,200 per annum.

For general information please see the undergraduate finance pages.

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

We know that student finance can be complicated. The links below provide further information to help guide you.

Learn more about student finance options for UK students .

Learn more about f ees and finance for international students .

As an international student you may be eligible for our Global Futures Scholarships . This is open to students starting their studies in September 2026.