"Laus Veneris" (1873-8) by Edward Coley Burne-Jones

 

Prof. Florence S. Boos - 8:224 - Spring 2002

After some consideration of the social landscape of the 1830s and 40s, we will read and discuss a wide range of texts from early Victorian Britain--chiefly art criticism and social commentary, poetry and autobiographies, essays and fiction--and examine linguistic and psychological aspects of the poetry and autobiographies, social implications of the essays and art criticism, and aesthetic principles reflected in the fiction. We will also consider some of the ways in which region, class, gender and intended audience influenced these texts, and seek common motifs and modes of organization which may have crossed generic or class boundaries. The works to be read and discussed will include:

Art: John Ruskin, selections from The Seven Lamps of Architecture and Modern Painters; slides of Pre-Raphaelite art

Poetry: selections from the Broadview Anthology of Poetry and Poetic Theory, edited by Thomas Collins and Vivienne Rundle: Tennyson, Christina Rossetti, Dante Rossetti, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Augusta Webster, Matthew Arnold, Algernon Swinburne, Gerard Manley Hopkins; handouts from working-class poets, including Janet Hamilton and Samuel Laycock

Autobiographies: Ellen Johnston's Autobiography; The History of Mary Prince

Signs of the Times: Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy; J. S. Mill, On Liberty; Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto

Fiction: Charlotte Bronte, Villette; George Eliot, Felix Holt

I will ask students to post internet responses to the readings, and write two or three shorter papers or one long (25 page) critical essay.