| Module Identifier | EN36020 | ||
| Module Title | WRITING LIVES: AUTO/BIOGRAPHIES 1790-1900 | ||
| Academic Year | 2000/2001 | ||
| Co-ordinator | Dr Patricia Duncker | ||
| Semester | Intended For Use In Future Years | ||
| Next year offered | N/A | ||
| Next semester offered | N/A | ||
| Course delivery | Seminar | 20 Hours 10 x 2 hr workshop/seminars | |
| Assessment | Continuous assessment | 2 essays (2,500 words each) | 100% |
| Resit assessment | Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements. | ||
Brief description
Writers' lives are always of interest, not because they are generally action-packed, but because they are intimately related to other written texts. This module examines the vexed relationship between the life and the text, and engages with Romantic and post-Romantic theories of inspiration and creativity. Auto/biographies reflect the concerns not only of the writer, but of the society which consumes both the life and the texts. Both the life and the texts are open to continual re-writing and re-interpretation.
Module objectives / Learning outcomes
This module aims to:
provide students with an insight into the range of auto/biographical practices with particular reference to nineteenth century literature;
to give students an awareness of the theoretical, literary and ethical issues surrounding the practice of auto/biography;
to enable students to construct a piece of auto/biographical prose using the critical and analytical skills they have acquired on the module.
On completion of the module students should be able to:
demonstrate that they have acquired a knowledge and understanding of the primary texts on the module and a critical awareness of the broader issues raised by the module;
discuss the texts and their various contexts coherently, and
write about them in a well-structured and well-argued way.
Reading Lists
Books
** Recommended Text
William Godwin / Mary Wollstonecraft. (1987)
Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1798) (ed. Richard Holmes) / A Short Residence in Sweden. pub.together. Penguin
William Wordsworth. (1979)
The Prelude 1799 Two-Part Prelude and 1805 Prelude (eds Jonathan Wordsworth, MH Abrams and Stephen Gill. W.W. Norton
Jonathan Wordsworth (ed.). (1995)
The Prelude: The Four Texts. Penguin
Pauline Nestor (ed.). (1995)
Charlotte Bronte: Biographical Preface to Wuthering Heights. Penguin
Angus Easson (ed.). (1996)
Elizabeth Gaskell The Life of Charlotte Bronte (1859). OUP
Michael Mason (ed.). (1993)
Samuel Butler The Way of All Flesh. OUP
Edmund Gosse. (1989)
Father and Son (1907). Penguin
** Recommended Background
Shari Benstock (ed.). (1988)
The Private Self: Theory and Practice of Women's Autobiographical Writings. Routledge
Timothy Clark. (1997)
The Theory of Inspiration: Composition as a Crisis of Subjectivity in Romantic and post-Romantic Writing. Manchester University Press
Helene Cixous and Mireille Calle-Gruber. (1997)
Memory and Life Writing. English. Routledge: London & New York
Mark Freeman. (1993)
Re-writing the Self: History, Memory, Narrative. Routledge
Carolyn G Heilbrun. (1989)
Writing a Woman's Life. The Women's Press
Richard Holmes. (1986)
Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer (1985). Penguin
Henry Festing Jones.
Memoirs of the Author of Erewhon (1919).
Laura Marcus. (1994)
Auto/Biographical Discourses: Theory, Criticism, Practice. Manchester University Press
J Olney (ed.). (1972)
Metaphors of Self: The Meaning of Autobiography. Princeton University Press
Sidonie Smith. (1992)
Subjectivity, Identity and the Body: Women's autobiographical practices in the Twentieth century. Indiana University Press
Carolyn Steedman. (1992)
Past Tenses: Essays on writing, authbiography and history. Rivers Oram Press
Julia Swindells (ed.). (1995)
The Uses of Authbiography. Taylor & Francis