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Romanticism and the Politics of Exclusion

Module description

This team-taught module will interrogate and complicate the literature and concept of “Romanticism.” We will look at the ways in which the construction of Romanticism that has been dominant for more than 100 years does not, in fact, represent the writing of the period; we will do this both by examining canonical texts in new ways and by reading works that have been excluded from the canon. The module ends by questioning the usefulness of periodicity altogether.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries had profound implications for a modern understanding of the self, nature, feeling, gender, imagination, the sublime, freedom and the role of the artist. Recently, however, the movement has been undergoing a reconceptualization. Critics today are arguing that Romanticism contains more voices, and offers more complex interpretations, than has been thought. This module seeks to read Romanticism afresh, reading against the grain of canonical readings to hear what has been excluded, devalued, or undiscovered. We will read canonical texts in non-canonical ways, and read non-canonical texts that have accidentally or deliberately been excluded from our understanding of Romanticism. In doing so, we will question the validity of the current comfortable version of “Romanticism.”

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate advanced critical knowledge and understanding of the uses of the past in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English culture
• 2. Demonstrate an advanced appreciation of modern debates surrounding the interpretation of these issues

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Demonstrate an advanced and precise ability to work from the close detail of literary texts, with a full appreciation of their formal aspects
• 4. Demonstrate an advanced ability to digest, select, and organise interdisciplinary material and to trace the development of debate across disciplinary boundaries

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Through essay-writing, demonstrate advanced research and bibliographic skills, an advanced and intellectually mature capacity to construct a coherent, substantiated argument and to write clear and correct prose
• 6. Through research for seminars, essays, and presentations demonstrate an advanced proficiency in information retrieval and analysis
• 7. Through responses to constructive feedback on plans and writing, demonstrate an advanced and intellectually mature ability to reflect upon and strengthen written work

Syllabus plan

Students will read a different Romantic text or texts each week, discussing the text and considering both canonical and non-canonical readings.  The term will be roughly divided into two halves. Text to be read include:

• Works by John Keats
• Works by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
• The Woman of Colour, Anonymous
• Works by Anne Letitia Barbauld
• Works by Anne Cromarty Yearsley
• Works by “the peasant poets”
• Slave Narratives and other Abolition documents

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 50%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 50%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Fifty Voices – Keats-Shelley Journal
• Other resources:
• The Broadview Anthology of British Literature
• Byron: The Eastern Influence

Key words search

English, literature, Romantic, Romanticism, Nature, Imagination, questioning