Module Identifier EN32520  
Module Title GENDER AND ROMANTICISM  
Academic Year 2006/2007  
Co-ordinator Dr Richard J Marggraf-Turley  
Semester Semester 2  
Course delivery Seminars / Tutorials   20 Hours. 10 x 2-hour seminar workshops  
Assessment
Assessment TypeAssessment Length/DetailsProportion
Semester Assessment 2 X 2,500 WORD ESSAYS Continuous Assessment: 2 x 2,500 word essays  100%
Supplementary Assessment RESUBMIT FAILED ELEMENTS Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements. Where this involves re-submission of work, a new topic must be selected. 

Learning outcomes

On completion of the module students should typically be able to:

1. locate and discuss issues relating to gender in their cultural and historical context;

2. demonstrate an ability to write about literary texts in the light of recent critical debates;

3. construct focused and well-structured arguments;

4. engage in coherent oral discussion of the material studied.

Aims

Brief description

This module will explore the writings of the Romantic period in relation to the changing social history of the time, concentrating in particular on issues of gender. During the years which bridged the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries social attitudes and behaviour with regard to gender were in a state of flux, in transience from the emergent feminism of late eighteenth-century radicalism to the rigid polarization of gender roles characteristic of the Victorian epoch. In this option we will be looking at the works of both male and female writers of the period to examine the manner in which such changes found expression in literary texts.

Content

The module will be taught by means of weekly two-hour seminars.

Seminar 1: Introductiory Session

PART A: Gender and Social Change (2 seminars)

Seminar 2: A Woman Alone

Seminar 3: Free Love?

PART B: Feminine Genres and their Detractors (4 seminars)

Seminar 4: Sensibility and the Fictionalization of Feminism

Seminar 5: Anti-Sensibility

Seminar 6: Women and the Gothic

Seminar 7: Mocking the Gothic

PART C: Male Romanticism (3 seminars)

Seminar 8: Recasting Masculinity

Seminar 9: Negative Capabilities

Seminar 10: Masculinity Unbound?

See below for editions of the primary texts.

Reading Lists

Books
** Should Be Purchased
Ann Radcliffe (1994) The Romance of the Forest Oxford: Oxford University Press
Jane Austen (1985) Northanger Abbey Harmondsworth: Penguin
Jane Austen (1985) Sense and Sensibility Harmondsworth: Penguin
John Keats (ed. John Barnard) (1997) The Complete Poems 3rd edn, Harmondsworth: Penguin
Mary Hays (1994) The Memoirs of Emma Courtney Oxford: Oxford University Press
Mary Shelley (1994) Frankenstein Oxford: Oxford University Press
Mary Wollstonecraft (1987) Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark Harmondsworth: Penguin
Mary Wollstonecraft & Mary Shelley (ed. Janet Todd) (1985) Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary and Maria; Mary Shelley, Mathilda Harmondsworth: Penguin

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 6