2. Time map
2.1 Lectures
L1. Victorian England: the age and the spirit of the age
The political and social background of Victorian England. The Industrial Revolution and aftermath. Queen
Victoria and the Royal Family. Scientific discoveries, economic progress and prosperity: the Great
Exhibition of 1851; real access to culture and education: public system of instruction, publication of cheap
editions, serialization, lending libraries; the modern newspaper. Inadequacy, poverty, unemployment and
social unrest: the Hungry Forties, the system of warehouses, the Peoples Charter. The cultural
background and the spirit of the age. Formative theories: Utilitarianism and Darwinism. The crisis of
belief. The tendencies of the age: discipline, reason and balance, and restlessness, divergence and
renovation. The fin-de-sicle spirit.
Critical bibliography: Radu, Palace of Art (5-8). Radu, Perceptions (5-14). Ford (59-119). Baugh
(1279-86, 1448-54). Galea (9-53).
L12. The Pre-Raphaelite Movement and the prosodic renovation: Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Gerard Manley
Hopkins
Divergence and renovation; the need for rejuvenation and Romanticism reloaded. John Ruskin as
theoretical forerunner: mannerism vs. natural world and representation, greatness in art (Modern
Painters). The Pre-Raphaelite Movement and the re-discovery of early medievalism. The search for
detail, colour and form in painting and poetry. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, sensuality and tone (The House of
Life: Nuptial Sleep), painting and poetry (The Blessed Damozel). Gerard Manley Hopkins: Religious
dogma, God and power, the rediscovery of form and new prosodic techniques: inscape, instress and
sprung rhythm; the re-moulding of the language, obscurity and distorted syntax; the avatars of the
Messiah (The Starlight Night, The Windhover); existential dilemmas and the condition of the cleric
(Carrion Comfort).
Critical bibliography: Alkalay-Gut in Bristow (228-254). Baugh (1422-3, 1421-6). Ford (87-93, 352-
70, 353-74, 90-3). Macsiniuc (125-47). Radu, Palace of Art (12-13, 163-4). Radu, Perceptions (96-
104). Slinn in Bristow (46-66). Scheinberg in Bristow (159-79). Daiches (1042-8), Macsiniuc (151-
68). Radu, Palace of Art (193-5). Radu, Perceptions (115-130).
L13. The frame of mind: Victorian non-fiction
Thomas Carlyle: the lesson of history and the epic in prose, didacticism vs. docudrama, vitality of
presentation and cinematic technique (The French Revolution), the credit of authority and leadership, the
hero as divinely appointed Messiah, avatars of the hero (On Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History).
Matthew Arnold: the condition of the critic, education and the goals of poetry (The Function of Criticism
at the Present Time and The Study of Poetry), society and awareness, the role of culture and education
3. Bibliography
3.1. Literary bibliography
Any edition is accepted. The texts preceded by an asterisk (*) represent compulsory reading.
Anne Bront: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
Charles Dickens: *Hard Times, Bleak House, Great Expectations.
Charlotte Bront: *Jane Eyre, Shirley.
Elizabeth Gaskell: North and South, Cranford, Wives and Daughters.
Emily Bront: *Wuthering Heights.
George Eliot: The Mill on the Floss, *Middlemarch.
Thomas Hardy: *Tess of the dUrbervilles.
William M. Thackeray: *Vanity Fair.
Alfred Tennyson : The Palace of Art, The Lady of Shalott, The Lotos Eaters, Ulysses, Idylls of the King:
*The Passing of Arthur, In Memoriam: *LVI (So careful of the type? but no.), *Crossing the Bar.
Robert Browning: Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, The Bishop Orders His Tomb, Fr Lippo Lippi,
Andrea del Sarto *My Last Duchess, *Porphyrias Lover.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti: *The Blessed Damozel, The House of Life: *Nuptial Sleep.
Charles Manley Hopkins: *The Starlight Night, The Windhover.
4. Assessment
seminar attendance and activity: +/-
in-term research project: 1/3
end-of-term examination: 2/3