VICT 351 - Studies in Nineteenth-Century British Literature

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

(Same as ENGL 351) Study of a major author (e.g., Coleridge, George Eliot, Oscar Wilde) or a group of authors (the Brontes, the Pre-Raphaelite poets and painters) or a topical issue (representations of poverty; literary decadence; domestic angels and fallen women; transformations of myth in Romantic and Victorian literature) or a major genre (elegy, epic, autobiography).

Topic for 2019/20b: The Brontë Sisters. The aim of this course is two-fold: a detailed study of the major works of Anne, Emily and Charlotte Brontë as well as an examination of the criticism that has been written about the sisters’ novels and poems. We will acquaint ourselves with the different critical lenses through which the Brontës have been viewed (e.g., biographical, feminist, historicist, postcolonial) in order to explore the ways in which the meaning of the Brontë sisters and their writing has changed over time. Primary texts include Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall the Brontës’ poetry and Elizabeth Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë. Susan Zlotnick.

One 3-hour period.

Course Format: CLS