ENGL 208

Spring 2022 All Classes

All Classes

Victorian Literature and Culture

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Credit: 3 hours.

While Queen Victoria was on the throne (1837-1901), Britain became a world power, but often looked backwards to the lovely worlds of the past. Many of the era’s great literary works reflect this tension between realism and romance: between the realism of being a poor governess and the romance of finding true love in Jane Eyre; the tragedy of losing your best friend and the hope of emotional survival in In Memoriam; the practical work of building a useful device and the fantasy of visiting the dystopian future in The Time Machine. Literature studied in this class will include poetry, prose, drama, and fiction, possibly including works by Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Seacole, Thomas Carlyle, Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Christina Rossetti, William Morris, Oscar Wilde, H.G. Wells, Olive Schreiner, or George Bernard Shaw.

Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.

This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2022 for:

Humanities – Lit & Arts

Cultural Studies - Western

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ENGL 208 class schedule data for spring 2022
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	31992	Lecture-Discussion	X	12:00PM -12:50PM	MWF	Henry Administration Bldg	Cheslow, E	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 01/18/22-05/04/22 Degree Notes: Humanities - Lit & Arts, and Cultural Studies - Western course. Section Info: SP22 ENGL 208 - Throughout the literature of the Victorian period (1837-1901), authors, poets, and artists faced many of the social issues we continue to contend with today. From industrialism, environmentalism, and labor to racism and colonialism to the New Women, free love, and aesthetics, Victorians were fascinated with characterizing their age, as well as how they characterized it. We will continue that work by defining and analyzing many of these themes through an aesthetic or formal approach to the period. Not only will we discuss and question the political and personal content of the literature of the long nineteenth century, but we will also explore the different genres and forms that emerged alongside that content. Starting with the lyric and gothic poetry of the Romantic period, which immediately preceded Victoria’s reign, we will use their introspective exploration of the self and the sublime as a foundation for understanding how Victorians dealt with the rapid change that defined the rest of the century. As we proceed, we will engage with the major forms that marked the period, including realism, sensationalism, sonnet sequences, and the early musical. We will engage with a number of questions about form and the political and social change it reflected: How does Victorian poetry stem from but also reimagine earlier poetic forms and why? How does the realistic, journalistic form of the social problem novel help or hinder the reader’s understanding of working-class conditions? Why realism? How might other forms be responding to realism? What role does drama play toward the end of the century? Restriction(s): Restricted to Undergrad - Urbana-Champaign.