Module Information
Course Delivery
Assessment
| Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
|---|---|---|
| Semester Assessment | Essay or Portfolio Portfolio consisting of: 1 x 2,500-word comparative critical essay and 1 x 500-word reflection, OR 2,000-word creative piece (pro rata for poetry) and a 1,000-word commentary (inc. reflection). 3000 Words | 100% |
| Supplementary Assessment | Essay or Portfolio 3,000-word comparative critical essay, or 2,000-word creative piece (pro rata for poetry) and a 1,000-word commentary. | 100% |
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
Demonstrate knowledge of a range of literary texts from across the Nineteenth Century;
Locate texts in appropriate cultural and historical contexts;
Articulate a critical analysis of individual texts from the period that shows an understanding of their distinctive qualities;
Relate texts from the period either to each other or to a common theme.
Brief description
This module introduces students to a representative range of writing across the Romantic and Victorian periods. It focuses on the century’s crises, from the impact of revolution and urgent concerns about language, to pressing anxieties about sexuality, gender, empire, and science. The module familiarises students with a range of literary forms, including the novel and poetry, as well as fast forms that thrived in the era, such as periodical literature and the short story. Students will also generate their own comparative critical and/or creative readings of the nineteenth-century literature studied.
Content
2: First-generation Romantics – William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads
3: Second-generation Romantics – John Keats
4: Romantic-era prose – Jane Austen, Persuasion (extracts)
5: Workshop – Victorianism
6: Dramatic monologues (for example, samples from Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
7: Victorian women’s poetry – Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market
8: The Victorian novel – Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
9: Victorian short-fiction – Arthur Conan Doyle, selected Sherlock Holmes stories
10: Workshop – Revision and assessment preparation
Module Skills
| Skills Type | Skills details |
|---|---|
| Communication | Confident communication is developed through group discussions during seminars. |
| Improving own Learning and Performance | Students are encouraged to take more personal initiative in the planning and conduct of their preparation for assignments than at Level 1, and to make use of a broader range of resources; formal feedback on essays and informal feedback on seminar participation help students measure their improvement |
| Information Technology | Substantial use is made of electronic text-databases (Jisc Historical Texts, LION), of electronic journals, and of Blackboard, and students are encouraged to familiarise themselves with these |
| Personal Development and Career planning | Through increased critical self-reflection and the development of transferable ICT, communication and research skills. |
| Problem solving | Addressing the challenges of formulating and putting into practice a critical approach appropriate to text and topic set. |
| Research skills | Close reading of literary texts; grasp of generic and intertextual relationships between texts; identification and analysis of appropriate historical and cultural contexts. |
| Subject Specific Skills | Close reading of literary texts; grasp of generic and intertextual relationships between texts; identification and analysis of appropriate historical and cultural contexts |
| Team work | Informal group work in seminars. |
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 5