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Semester 2

Literature, Revolution and Rebellion in the Long Nineteenth Century (ENLI10428)

Subject

English Literature

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed 4 English Literature courses at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses, and we do not consider civilisation & other interdisciplinary courses, freshman seminars, writing/composition courses or film/cinema/media courses; visiting students who have taken multiple courses in literature in other languages, should have passed at least two courses in English Literature as well. **Please note that this course may incur additional costs to purchase core texts** **Please see Additional Restrictions below**

Course Summary

This course is designed to explore literary responses to the phenomenon of revolution and anti-colonial rebellion across the long nineteenth century. Students will be encouraged to reflect on ways in which texts of rebellion - or rebellious texts - inform a larger conversation about the relationship between literature and history, and to think about what happens when moments of intense political crisis migrate into fictional or poetic form.

Course Description

This course will explore literary engagements with the French Revolution together with responses to the Haitian Revolution, while Scott's inauguration of the historical novel will frame our discussion of later responses to the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865. We will consider the multiple forms of discursive and ideological connection between literature and history, and we will think about what literary forms are capable of registering the shock of historical novelty: the historical novel looms large in that respect, but we will also explore the transformation of the bildungsroman, the differing poetics of various mid-Victorian writers, fin-de-siècle utopian imaginaries and early examples of the Empire 'writing back'. In the seminars, we'll also discuss various 'non-literary' para-texts, including writings by anti-colonial rebels such as Toussaint L'Ouverture, Firoz Shah and Paul Bogle, in order to explore the broader intertextual, international and political constellations that inform the literature of revolution and rebellion during the long nineteenth century. ***Essential reading: William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1805), esp. books 9,13 ; Walter Scott, Waverley (1814) ; Harriet Martineau, The Hour and the Man (1841) ; Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847) ; Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859) ; Christina Rossetti, Mary E. Leslie, James Minchin: poems on the Sepoy Rebellion (1850s) ; J. A. Froude, The English in the West Indies (1888) & John Jacob Thomas, Froudacity (1889) ; T. N. Mukharji, A Visit to Europe (1889) & Flora Annie Steel, On the Face of the Waters (1896) ; William Morris, News from Nowhere (1890).

Assessment Information

Written Exam 0%, Coursework 100%, Practical Exam 0%

Additional Restrictions

Unless you are nominated on an English Literature exchange agreement, visiting students are only permitted to enrol in one 3rd year English Literature course each, per semester, before the start of the relevant semester’s welcome period – and spaces on each course are limited so cannot be guaranteed for any student. Enrolment in a second course from this group will depend on whether there are still spaces available in the January Welcome Period, and cannot be guaranteed, and students will not be permitted to enrol in three 3rd year English Literature courses in the same semester at any time. It is NOT appropriate for students to contact staff within this subject area to ask for an exception to be made; all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. This is due to the limited number of spaces available in this very popular subject area.

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