Unit information: Victorian Poetry:Belief, Doubt & Dissent in 2014/15

Unit name	Victorian Poetry:Belief, Doubt & Dissent
Unit code	ENGL39018
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Dr. Wright
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of English
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This unit explores the work of a wide range of Victorian poets grappling with issues of doubt and dissent, belief and non-belief, and reports of the death of God. Questions about belief during the nineteenth century came up against provocative and newly-defined divisions in knowledge - divisions we recognise now, for example, as those between the sciences and the arts. This was an age of classification - an age in which not only Biblical hermeneutics and evolutionary theory, but studies in psychology, philology, and anthropology developed apace. Coinciding with central concerns about class, race, and the expression of sexuality, Victorian poets and critics found themselves wondering not only what they could or should believe, but what the nature of belief itself meant for human life. Poets studied will include Tennyson, Barrett Browning, Browning, Clough, Arnold, Meredith, C. G. Rossetti, James Thomson, Swinburne, Hopkins, and Hardy.

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, students are expected to:

• have a thorough knowledge of a wide range of Victorian poems and poets.

• show understanding of some of the ways in which beliefs (religious, scientific, social, aesthetic) were explored and challenged during the later decades of the nineteenth century.

• exercise skill in the analysis of poetry and poetic form, and demonstrate awareness of both Victorian and later critical responses to the poems and topics studied.

Teaching Information

1 x 2 hour seminar per week, plus 1-to-1 discussion in consultation hours where desired.

Assessment Information

• 1 short essay (2000 words max) one-third of unit mark 33.3%

• 1 long essay (4000 words max) two-thirds of unit mark 66.7%

Reading and References

• Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam, AHH (1850)

• Matthew Arnold, Empedocles on Etna (1852)

• Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1856)

• George Meredith, Modern Love (1862)

• Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market (1862)

• James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night (1874)