In this course, we shall explore late Victorian prose in the context of dominant social discourses such as class, race, gender, empire, and technology. How, we will ask, does narrative fiction respond in formal terms to the challenges of the late nineteenth century? How does it articulate and negotiate cultural pessimism? In the writings of Thomas Hardy, Bram Stoker, H. Rider Haggard, Oscar Wilde and others, we examine growing apprehensions about former social, religious, and philosophical certainties, the legitimacy of imperial ambitions and the dangers and advantages of scientific and technological progress.

English Renaissance revenge tragedy as a genre is deeply concerned with questions of personal agency, transgressions, the question of what is ‘right’ (in the judicial as well as moral sense) and the handling of grief. At the same time, it is a genre defined by spectacular violence, transgressive acts (from necrophilia to incest) and a rather bleak sense of dark comedy. In this seminar, we will contextualize the treatment of revenge in its time; see how revenge tragedy relates to the theatre of its time; and trace the development of a ‘spectacular’ (in every sense of the word) genre from its inception to its eventual decline. We will also read in detail three revenge tragedies (The Spanish Tragedy, The Revenger’s Tragedy and ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore), noting the different ways that the ‘abstract model’ can look in practical terms.

Tuesdays, 10-12, NW II, S 75

This seminar provides an introduction to selected British poetry from the Victorian Age to the present. We will engage in close readings of these texts and look at their historical and cultural contexts. Following Billy Collins Introduction to Poetry (1986), we will hold these poems up to the light, drop questions into them, walk inside their rooms and feel the walls for a light switch, perform them and read them aloud, and we will think about what reading poetry means to us today.

This is part two of a two-semester introduction to British poetry. Each course can also be taken separately. Reading assignments will be made available on the e-learning platform. The course is limited to 20 participants.