ROMANTIC LITERATURE: 1789-1830 - 2021/2

Module Overview

This module will investigate the profound literary innovations that took place in the Romantic period (1789-1830), examining a range of canonical and non-canonical Romantic texts. Each week, the module explores a given form or theme through a selection of representative poets or authors. The literary revolution that we have come to associate with Romanticism will be situated within political revolutionary fervour and backlash in England and France, as well as abolitionist activism, ideologies of love and marriage, and ideas of British nationhood. Romantic ideals such as the power of the imagination and the relationship between self and Nature will be understood in terms of, for example, eighteenth-century treatments of landscape and subjectivity (e.g. the ‘picturesque’ and the ‘sublime’), eighteenth-century sentimentalism, and the rise of the Gothic. Similarly, the ‘big six’ Romantics will be read alongside a range of not-so-canonical poets and authors, in order to appreciate the diversity of literary activity in the Romantic age.

Module provider

School of Literature and Languages

Module Leader

THOMPSON Carl (Lit & Langs)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 5

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 2

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

None. This module has a capped number and may not be available to ERASMUS and other international exchange students. Please check with the departmental exchange coordinator.

Module content

Indicative content includes:

INTRODUCTION

Week 1: Romanticisms.

In the first week, popular concepts of Romanticism (notions of selfhood, nature, imagination) are assessed against the historical and cultural upheavals of the late eighteenth century. The critical history of Romanticist scholarship, including the invention of the term ‘Romantic’ in the late nineteenth century, is also discussed. Students are introduced to the notion that Romanticism is not a stable concept but is itself the product of a particular critical narrative.
 

Week 2: Pre-Romanticisms: Sentimentalism and the Gothic

PART ONE: MAPPING HIGH ROMANTICISM

Weeks 3-6 will map the emergence of the ‘high’ Romanticism associated with figures such as William Blake, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, introducing students to key concepts like imagination, nature and the sublime.

PART TWO: DIVERGENT ROMANTICISMS AND SECOND-GENERATION ROMANTICS

Weeks 6-11 (or 6-10 if running in Semester 1) then introduce students to a range of writers who in various ways contest or fail to conform to the High Romantic paradigm. These will include women writers like Charlotte Smith and Anna Letitia Barbauld, lower-class writers like Robert Burns and John Clare, and ‘second-generation’ figures such as Shelley, Keats and Byron who saw themselves as oppositional to earlier figures such as Wordsworth.

 

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

N/A

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate achievement of the module learning outcomes.

Seminar discussion with ongoing tutor feedback is designed mainly to assess transferable skills in communicating ideas orally and in working individually and in a group. It also assesses subject knowledge in Romantic-period writers and historical context and in theoretical/critical methodologies, and cognitive/analytical skills in analysing literary form in close relation to historical/cultural context.

Both the formative essay and the exam assess subject knowledge in Romantic-period writers and historical context and in theoretical/critical methodologies; cognitive/analytical skills in analysing literary form in close relation to historical/cultural context; transferable skills in communicating ideas in written form, and in planning and implementing timetables for essay deadlines and exam revision.

The essay further assesses professional/practical skills, namely the ability to conduct research for written work in an organized and critical fashion. The exam further assesses professional/practical skills, namely the ability to present ideas coherently under time constraint.

 

Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

·         2-hour exam

 

Formative assessment and feedback

·         Seminar discussion with ongoing tutor feedback in seminar

·         1000-word formative critical commentary (normally to be submitted in week 8)

 

Students receive both written feedback and verbal feedback in tutorials that informs the final summative assessment, i.e. the exam. 

Module aims

• The module aims to deepen and expand students' understanding of: the literary and historical movement of Romanticism;
• literary form and technique in relation to historical context;
• the critical methodologies that underpin the study of the Romantic period;
• The module aims to develop and strengthen students' skills in: close reading and analysis of literary texts;
• critical thinking about formal aspects of poetry and their relationship to context;
• independent work and group work in seminars;
• time management through essay submission and revision planning.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to deliver subject knowledge, to develop cognitive/analytical skills, and to develop in-depth transferable, practical and professional skills. Specifically, the weekly lectures deliver subject knowledge related to literature of the Romantic period and develop cognitive/analytical skills in analysing literature in cultural and historical context. The weekly seminars offer student-led discussions that develop skills in communication and in working individually and as a group. The seminars also provide students with instruction on planning and implementing timetables, on conducting research in an organised and critical fashion, and on presenting ideas coherently under time constraint.

 

This relates to the programme learning and teaching strategy, which, at FHEQ Level 5, is designed to continue the delivery of subject knowledge through lectures and SurreyLearn and to develop in-depth transferable, practical and professional skills, with a greater emphasis on student-led involvement, critical analysis, discussion and rhetorical ability.

 

The learning and teaching methods include a combination of lecture materials, seminars, captured content, guided learning and independent learning.

 

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: ELI2031

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2021/2 academic year.