| Unit name | Writing the Working Classes |
|---|---|
| Unit code | ENGL20030 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Batt |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
none |
| Co-requisites |
none |
| School/department | Department of English |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
On this unit we will explore writing for, about, and by the working classes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Considering novels by canonical authors such as Gaskell and Dickens alongside prose and verse by agricultural labourers, domestic servants and factory workers, we will examine the role played by imaginative writing in the making of the working class. Questions we will address include: how - and why - do novelists and poets write about work and the social order? What did working-class men and women write about, and what impact did their writing have? How does this writing reflect an increasingly politicised class, and to what extent was literature used to inspire radicalism or to quell incipient revolution? What genres and what kinds of language appealed to writers exploring working-class experiences? And finally, how have literary critics responded to this body of work?
On successful completion of this unit students will have
(1) developed a detailed knowledge and critical understanding of writing by and about the working classes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries;
(2) in-depth knowledge of some of the critical approaches that have been taken to this subject;
(3) demonstrated the ability to analyse and evaluate differing critical accounts of the primary literature;
(4) demonstrated the ability to identify and evaluate pertinent evidence in order to illustrate/demonstrate a cogent argument; and
(5) strengthened their skills in argumentation and academic writing.
1 x 2-hour seminar per week.
Both summative essays assess ILOs 1-5.
Charles Dickens, Hard Times ed. by Paul Schlicke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)
Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton ed. by Shirley Foster (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)
John Goodridge, gen. ed. Eighteenth-Century English Labouring Class Poetry (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2002) 3 vols.
John Goodridge, gen. ed. Nineteenth-Century English Labouring Class Poetry (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 3 vols.
James R. Simmons, Jr., ed., Factory Lives : Four Nineteenth-Century Working-Class Autobiographies (Plymouth: Broadview Press, 2007)
Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes 2nd ed (London: Yale University Press, 2010)
