Victorian Lit

This course offers a broad survey of literature (poetry,
fiction, and essay), written during the Victorian period in Great Britain.
Usually demarcated by the 1837-1901 reign of Queen Victoria, this period
brought enormous change as well as resistance to change as Britain became the
first industrialized nation, the possessor of the world’s greatest empire, and,
as a result, the site of both stunning wealth and grinding poverty.  We will read key texts and examine their
specific social, political, and aesthetic contexts, as well as suggest the ways
in which British Victorian concerns anticipate and, in some cases, inaugurate
many of the questions and issues that persist in present day America.

Required Texts:

Victorian Poetry
(Blackwell Essential Literature)
ed. Valentine Cunningham & Duncan Wu

Victorian Literature:
A Sourcebook
, ed. John Plunkett et al.

Hard Times,
Charles Dickens

The Picture of Dorian
Gray
, Oscar Wilde

Course Requirements:

Three (3) essays and a final exam.