Rakes to Romantics

Aims and Objectives

Learning Outcomes

Cognitive Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

present your research findings confidently to the group
work in teams or pairs on specific set tasks
use internet resources effectively as part of historical research

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

the relationships between long eighteenth-century literary modes and genres such as epistolary and, Gothic fiction; neoclassical and Romantic poetic forms; drama; and non-fiction.
question whether there are common historical or formal descriptors for the ‘long eighteenth century’.
make connections between fictional and discursive writings of different genres

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

a range of eighteenth-century fictional, poetic, and other texts
the interrelationship of literary production, its reception and wider historical context
a range of recent and historical critical approaches to eighteenth-century literature, and their cultural contexts

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

analyse and comment in detail on poetry, drama, essays, novels and philosophical texts
investigate, research and structure arguments around the particular themes and concerns of a vexed historical epoch

Syllabus

The module moves chronologically from Restoration libertinism to Gothic fiction of the 1790s and to another famous libertine, Lord Byron. You will study texts in drama, poetry and fiction (Please note that texts may change from year to year):

1.George Etherege, The Man of Mode, William Wycherley, The Country Wife

2.Thomas Shadwell: The Libertine, Aphra Behn: The Rover

3.John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester: Poems

4.Seduction Narratives: Eliza Haywood, The British Recluse, and Elizabeth Rowe, Letters Moral and Entertaining

5.Matthew Lewis, The Monk

6.William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

7.William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads

8.Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

9.John Keats, Poems, 1820

10.Lord Byron, Don Juan

Learning and Teaching

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include

Lectures
Seminars
Office hours for individual feedback on essays

Learning activities include

Office hours for individual feedback on essays
Experience of organizing and running a seminar
Individual study and research
Accessing and evaluating online resources

This module includes a Learning Support Hour. This is a flexible weekly contact hour, designed to support and respond to the particular cohort taking the module from year to year. This hour will include (but not be limited to) activities such as language, theory and research skills classes; group work supervisions; assignment preparation and essay writing guidance; assignment consultations; feedback and feed-forward sessions.