MODULE SPECIFICATION
Code: UPGPPK-30-2 Title: Romanticism Unbound Version: 1
Level: 2 UWE credit rating: 30 ECTS credit rating: 15
Module type: Standard
Owning Faculty: SSH Field: English
Faculty Committee approval: QSC Date: 25 February 2009
Approved for Delivery by:
( indicate name of affiliated institution if module will only be delivered by them)
Valid from: September 2009 Discontinued from:
Contributes towards: Awards up to BA
Pre-requisites: UPGPPF-30-1 Beyond the Horizon: Spaces and Places in Literature or
UPGPPG-30-1 Once Upon a Time: Stories, Children and Literature
Co-requisites: None
Entry requirements:
(If the module is offered as CPD or stand alone, indicate the entry requirements)
Entry requirements: N/A
Excluded combinations: UPGPTG-30-3 The Romantic Period, 1789-1832
Learning outcomes:
By the end of the module students should normally be able to demonstrate:
• knowledge of the lives and works of some important British writers of the Romantic period (assessment components A, B.1 and B.2);
• a critical awareness of some of the formal characteristics of British Romantic poetry and prose (assessment components A, B.1, and B.2);
• an understanding of the ways in which Romantic-period writing embodies significant new preoccupations and distinctive ways of thinking and feeling (assessment components A, B.1, and B.2);
• an ability to put Romantic-period texts into historical, intellectual, and cultural context (assessment components A, B.1, and B.2).
Syllabus outline:
This module will adopt a broad, multi-genre approach to literature of the Romantic period. The syllabus will be constructed either on a chronological basis, or around a small number of thematic areas such as Revolution and Reform; Nature and Landscape; Travels, Explorations, and Empires. The complex and shifting responses of British writers to such events and issues as the French and Industrial Revolutions, the Napoleonic Wars, the parliamentary reform movement, and slavery and abolition, will inevitably feature prominently. Other recognised features of Romanticism that may attract attention are theories of imagination, individualism, the cult of sensibility, the aesthetics of the sublime and beautiful, and interest in the unconscious and extreme states of mind. The growth of interest in previously marginalised areas of Romanticism, such as women’s poetry, labouring-class writing, and periodical literature, will be reflected in the choice of texts. Efforts will be made throughout to situate writers and works within the contemporary literary marketplace, with its evolving institutions and technologies of publishing, authorship, and readership.
Teaching and learning methods:
The module will be delivered through a weekly programme of lectures and seminars, with the possibility of occasional tutorials, e.g. for advice on extended essays.
Reading Strategy
Students will be required to obtain their own copies of the current edition of Romanticism: An Anthology, ed. Duncan Wu, as well as copies of a small number of prose texts which may change from year to year. These texts will furnish all the primary reading for the module. Detailed advice on recommended secondary reading will be provided in a module handbook, which will also list the best websites (e.g. Romantic Circles, The Voice of the Shuttle) for accessing information and resources on Romanticism. Links to these websites will also be provided on Blackboard. Students will be constantly reminded that the Library’s stock of printed books on Romanticism is valuably supplemented by thousands of full-text articles downloadable from databases like LION, JSTOR, and Project Muse, and specialist online journals like Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net.
Indicative Reading List: (see guidance notes)
The following list is offered to provide validation panels/accrediting bodies with an indication of the type and level of information students may be expected to consult. As such, its currency may wane during the life span of the module specification. However, as indicated above, CURRENT advice on readings will be available via other more frequently updated mechanisms.
Primary
Austen, Jane Sense and Sensibility. (Ed. Ros Ballaster. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2003.)
Godwin, William . Caleb Williams. (Ed. Maurice Hindle. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988.)
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. (Ed. Maurice Hindle. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2003.)
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. (Ed. Richard Holmes.
Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987.)
Wu, Duncan (ed.). Romanticism: An Anthology. (3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.)
Secondary
Abrams, M. H. Naturalism Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature. (New York: Norton, 1971.)
Butler, Marilyn. Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.)
Curran, Stuart. Poetic Form and British Romanticism. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.)
Jarvis, Robin. The Romantic Period: The Intellectual and Cultural Context of English Literature, 1789-1830. (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2004.)
Kelly, Gary. English Fiction of the Romantic Period, 1789-1830. (London: Longman, 1989.)
McCalman, Iain (ed.). An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age: British Culture, 1776-1832. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999.)
McGann, Jerome. The Romantic Ideology. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.)
Mellor, Anne K. Romanticism and Gender. (London: Routledge, 1993.)
St Clair, William. The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.)
Assessment
Weighting between components A and B (standard modules only) A: 25% B: 75%
ATTEMPT 1
First Assessment Opportunity
Component A
Description of each element Element weighting
1 Exam (1 hour 30 minutes) 25%
Component B
Description of each element Element weighting
1 Reading Log (2500 words) 25%
2 Extended Essay (4000 words) 45%
3 Attendance 5%
Second Assessment Opportunity (further attendance at taught classes is not required)
Component A
Description of each element Element weighting
1 Exam (1 hour 30 minutes) 25%
Component B
Description of each element Element weighting
1 Essay (2000 words) 25%
2 Extended Essay (4000 words) 50%
SECOND (OR SUBSEQUENT) ATTEMPT: Attendance at taught classes is required.
Specification confirmed by ……………………………………………Date ……………………………
(Associate Dean/Programme Director)