Course Description
The theme of this  survey of nineteenth-century English literature is “England at Home and Abroad.”  We will analyze works that explore national identity from within, such as regional poetry and social problem novels, and from without, such as travel literature. Selections from influential prose writers have also been included to gloss the issues raised in the literary works and to place those issues within a wider cultural setting.  Some of the subjects that will inform our discussion include:  the unique role of certain genres, especially the novel and the epic, in representing the nation; travel as a means of affirming, or, alternatively, destabilizing one’s national identity; and the possibility of a transnational literature.  Featuring a broad range of authors, the course will leave students with a strong understanding of nineteenth-century literature and culture.

Required Texts
Wordsworth, William.  Selected Poems.  Penguin, 1994.
Byron, George Gordon, Lord.  Selected Poems.  Penguin, 1996.
Dickens, Charles.  Bleak House.  Penguin, 1997.
Mundhenk, Rosemary J. and LuAnn M. Fletcher, eds.  Victorian Prose: An Anthology.  Columbia, 1999.
Karlin, Daniel, ed.  The Penguin Book of Victorian Verse.  Penguin, 1997.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett.  Aurora Leigh.  Norton, 1996.
Hardy, Thomas.  Jude the Obscure.  Oxford, 1985.
Kipling, Rudyard.  Kim.  Penguin, 1987.

Secondary Reading and Viewing
Students are encouraged to read at least one of the critical introductions to the Romantic or Victorian period I have placed on reserve at the library (see separate handout).  I will also periodically assign short critical essays, which I will either hand out in class or place on reserve.  For our discussion of the Brownings and British poets in Italy, please see the film Tea with Mussolini (1999).