English 422
British Victorian Literature

This rigorous, advanced-level course will study the extraordinary literary achievements of Victorian Britain.
An age of cultural, political, and aesthetic upheaval, the Victorian period was a time of working-class agitation,
struggles for women's rights, industrialization, imperial aggression, and scientific discovery. Through the study of novels,
poems, and non-fiction prose, we will consider how both formally and thematically Victorian literature engages with the
disordered age in which it was composed.

Download a PDF of the syllabus
An example of a great reading-response paper

Prosody guide: "For Better or Verse"
Advice for college students from the New York Times

Class Schedule

Week 1 (9/1 and 9/3): Victorian Poetics I

I. Introduction and course overview
II. RESPONSE 1 DUE: on Hemans & Mill/Taylor
J. S. Mill, “What Is Poetry?”
Sir Henry Taylor, “Preface” to Philip van Artevelde
Felicia Hemans, “Indian Woman's Death-Song”

Week 2 (9/8 and 9/10): Victorian Poetics II

I. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Mariana,” “The Palace of Art,” “The Lady of Shalott”
II. Spasmodic poetry [available on the Broadview Anthology website]
Sydney Dobell, from Balder
Alexander Smith, from A Life-Drama
W. E. Aytoun, from Firmilian

Week 3 (9/15 and 9/17): Woman Questions I

I. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre – volume 1
Sarah Stickney Ellis, from “The Daughters of England”

II. QUIZ 1: on Brontë
Brontë, Jane Eyre – volume 2
Anonymous, “Hints on the Modern Governess System”
Harriet Taylor, from The Enfranchisement of Women
Frances Power Cobbe, from “Criminals, Idiots, Women, and Minors”

Week 4 (9/22 and 9/24): Woman Questions II

I. Brontë, Jane Eyre – volume 3

II. QUIZ 2: Aurora Leigh
[2nd response due by today's class]
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh – books 1-2
Alexander Dyce, “Preface” to Specimens of British Poetesses

An outline of Aurora Leigh

Week 5 (9/29 and 10/1): The Victorian Poetess

I. EBB, Aurora Leigh – books 3-6
II. EBB, Aurora Leigh – books 7-9

Week 6 (10/6 and 10/8): Race & Imperialism I

I. ESSAY 1 DUE
Thomas Carlyle, from “Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question”
John Stuart Mill, from “The Negro Question”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point”
Charles Dickens, from “The Noble Savage”
William Gladstone, from “Our Colonies”
Benjamin Disraeli, from “Conservative and Liberal Principles”
Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man's Burden”

II. QUIZ 3: Seacole
Mary Seacole, from The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands

The Mary Seacole Centre
Bust of Mary Seacole at the Getty Center

The Crimean War: photographs and a brief history from the Library of Congress
Crimean War Research Society

Week 7 (10/13 and 10/15): Dramatic Monologue

I. Alfred Tennyson, “St. Simeon Stylites,” “Ulysses”
Robert Browning, “Porphyria's Lover,” “Fra Lippo Lippi,” “Andrea del Sarto”

II. QUIZ 4: Tennyson, Browning, Webster, and Levy
Augusta Webster, “A Castaway”
Amy Levy, “Xantippe”

Week 8 (10/20 and 10/22): Realism

I. PROJECT PROPOSAL DUE
In-class peer reviewing of proposals: bring four copies of your proposal

II. Dickens, “Introduction” to Oliver Twist
George Eliot, “In Which the Story Pauses a Little,” from Adam Bede, chapter 17
Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities – book 1
Frederick Engels, “The Great Towns” (from The Condition of Working Class in England)
Henry Mayhew, from London Labour and the London Poor
Recommended: George Levine, “Realism” (B)

Week 9 (10/27 and 10/29): Realism

I. [3rd response due by today's class]
Dickens, Tale of Two Cities – book 2

II. QUIZ 5: Dickens
Dickens, Tale of Two Cities – books 3

Week 10 (11/3 and 11/5): Culture and Aesthetics

I. Tennyson, In Memoriam
Matthew Arnold, “Sweetness and Light” (from Culture and Anarchy )

II. Tennyson, In Memoriam (concluded)
Charles Darwin, from The Origin of Species – “Struggle for Existence”

Week 11 (11/10 and 11/12): The Social Organism I

I. REVISED PROPOSAL & BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE
George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss – books 1-2
Who was Philoctetes? (important for book 2, chapter 6)

II. QUIZ 6: Eliot
Eliot, The Mill on the Floss – books 3-5

Week 12 (11/17 and 11/19): The Social Organism II

I. Charles Darwin, from The Origin of Species; from The Descent of Man
John Ruskin, “The Nature of Gothic”

II. Eliot, The Mill on the Floss – books 6-7

Week 13 (11/24 and 11/26): Thanksgiving

I. Classes cancelled for student conferences

II. Thanksgiving holiday

Week 14 (12/1 and 12/3): The Pre-Raphaelites

I. [4th response due by today's class]
Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market,” “In an Artist's Studio”
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “The Blessed Damozel”

II. QUIZ 7: Pater, Hopkins, Swinburne
Walter Pater, from The Renaissance
Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Windhover,” “Pied Beauty,” “Felix Randal”
Algernon Charles Swinburne, “The Triumph of Time”

Week 15 (12/8 and 12/10): Aestheticism

I. TERM PAPER DUE
Oscar Wilde, from “The Critic as Artist,” “Hélas,” “Impression de Matin”
Michael Field, Author's preface, “The Birth of Venus” [image] “La Gioconda”

Who was Michael Field?

II. Course Review

Final Exam: Thursday, December 17 from 10:30am to 12:30pm