ENGLISH 313 : From Romantics to Victorians

Arts

2020 Semester Two (1205) (15 POINTS)

Course Prescription

An exploration of some key preoccupations of nineteenth-century literature: identity and the psyche, and the self’s engagement with the other. Both topics will be considered against a changing social context which influenced religious beliefs and constructions of gender in particular. Covers poetry and prose from the 1790s to the 1880s.

Course Overview

In the fifth chapter of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1865), the Caterpillar asks Alice, "Who are you?" Alice is perplexed, and ends up saying, ‘'I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir … because I'm not myself, you see."
      Much nineteenth-century literature was centrally concerned with the capacities of the human mind, including questions of identity. Identity was also influenced by the individual’s interactions with the other.  We start with the Romantic concept of the imagination in  Coleridge's poetry and prose, and then go on to Jane Austen's  Pride and Prejudice - a really different text, but one that does probe the human mind. The dramatic monologues of  Robert Browning and Augusta Webster then  take us into  some strange psychological territory! By contrast, Carroll’s "Alice" books offer a more light-hearted take on questions of identity.
     Interactions between the self and other emerge in  the poetry of John Keats, and in Charles Dickens’s Hard Times (1854). This novel reveals the damaging effects on human relationships of valuing facts over the imagination.  Meanwhile Alfred Tennyson's poetry explores love, aspiration, and loss; large questions affecting human bonds are also to the fore in  Olive Schreiner’s  The Story of an African Farm (1883). This last novel highlights as well the impact of differences in gender roles, religious beliefs, and race.

This course should be of particular interest to students who've taken English 219, Nineteenth-Century Literature - but it's accessible to those who've not studied this period before.


Course Requirements

Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II in English

Capabilities Developed in this Course

Capability 1: Disciplinary Knowledge and Practice
Capability 2: Critical Thinking
Capability 3: Solution Seeking
Capability 4: Communication and Engagement
Capability 5: Independence and Integrity
Graduate Profile: Bachelor of Arts

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, students will be able to:
  1. Apply close-reading skills to works in different genres written over a period of about 100 years. (Capability 1.1 and 1.2)
  2. Understand the origins of our ideas about the self and the self's relations with others, in the writing of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (Capability 2.1 and 2.3)
  3. Develop an understanding of how individuals' lives over the period studied were affected by their socal context, including the impact of social theories, gender, class and race. (Capability 3.1)
  4. Articulate and discuss ideas in group work and essay writing. (Capability 4.1 and 4.2)
  5. Build students' capacity to become lifelong learners / readers through exposure to appealing but challenging texts. (Capability 5.2)
  6. Learn from texts which reflect a period that is both historically distant from the present and crucial to the world we now live in. (Capability 5.2)

Assessments

Assessment Type Percentage Classification
Coursework 15% Individual Coursework
Essay 25% Individual Coursework
Assignments 10% Individual Coursework
Final Exam 50% Individual Examination

Next offered

Not known.

Learning Resources

There will be an anthology covering the poetry set for the course available from the University Bookshop.

The fiction texts are:

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (Penguin Classics)

Lewis Carroll, The Annotated Alice (Penguin)

Charles Dickens, Hard Times (Penguin Classics)

Olive Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm (Penguin Classics)

 

Workload Expectations

This course is a standard 15 point course and students are expected to spend 10 hours per week involved in each 15 point course that they are enrolled in.

For this course, you can expect 2 hours of lectures, a 1 hour tutorial, 4 hours of reading and thinking about the content and 3 hours of work on assignments and/or test preparation.

Digital Resources

Course materials are made available in a learning and collaboration tool called Canvas which also includes reading lists and lecture recordings (where available).

Please remember that the recording of any class on a personal device requires the permission of the instructor.

Academic Integrity

The University of Auckland will not tolerate cheating, or assisting others to cheat, and views cheating in coursework as a serious academic offence. The work that a student submits for grading must be the student's own work, reflecting their learning. Where work from other sources is used, it must be properly acknowledged and referenced. This requirement also applies to sources on the internet. A student's assessed work may be reviewed against online source material using computerised detection mechanisms.

Inclusive Learning

All students are asked to discuss any impairment related requirements privately, face to face and/or in written form with the course coordinator, lecturer or tutor.

Student Disability Services also provides support for students with a wide range of impairments, both visible and invisible, to succeed and excel at the University. For more information and contact details, please visit the Student Disability Services’ website at http://disability.auckland.ac.nz

Well-being always comes first
We all go through tough times during the semester, or see our friends struggling. There is lots of help out there - for more information, look at this Canvas page (https://canvas.auckland.ac.nz/courses/33894), which has links to various support services in the University and the wider community.

Special Circumstances

If your ability to complete assessed coursework is affected by illness or other personal circumstances outside of your control, contact a member of teaching staff as soon as possible before the assessment is due.

If your personal circumstances significantly affect your performance, or preparation, for an exam or eligible written test, refer to the University’s aegrotat or compassionate consideration page: https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/academic-information/exams-and-final-results/during-exams/aegrotat-and-compassionate-consideration.html.

This should be done as soon as possible and no later than seven days after the affected test or exam date.

Student Feedback

At the end of every semester students will be invited to give feedback on the course and teaching through a tool called SET or Qualtrics. The lecturers and course co-ordinators will consider all feedback and respond with summaries and actions.

Your feedback helps teachers to improve the course and its delivery for future students.

Class Representatives in each class can take feedback to the department and faculty staff-student consultative committees.

Tutorials this semester will feature more group work, in response to last year's student evaluation of the course.

Student Charter and Responsibilities

The Student Charter assumes and acknowledges that students are active participants in the learning process and that they have responsibilities to the institution and the international community of scholars. The University expects that students will act at all times in a way that demonstrates respect for the rights of other students and staff so that the learning environment is both safe and productive. For further information visit Student Charter (https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/forms-policies-and-guidelines/student-policies-and-guidelines/student-charter.html).

Disclaimer

Elements of this outline may be subject to change. The latest information about the course will be available for enrolled students in Canvas.

In this course you may be asked to submit your coursework assessments digitally. The University reserves the right to conduct scheduled tests and examinations for this course online or through the use of computers or other electronic devices. Where tests or examinations are conducted online remote invigilation arrangements may be used. The final decision on the completion mode for a test or examination, and remote invigilation arrangements where applicable, will be advised to students at least 10 days prior to the scheduled date of the assessment, or in the case of an examination when the examination timetable is published.

Published on 05/07/2020 02:57 p.m.