ENGH 335: Prose and Poetry of the Victorian Period

ENGH 335-001: Victorian Poetry and Prose: Nineteenth-Century Sexualities
(Spring 2014)

07:20 PM to 10:00 PM W

Section Information for Spring 2014

This course is primarily an introduction to poetry of the Victorian period, with a focus on constructions of sexuality.  Famous for wildly popular love poems, the Victorian period has also earned a reputation for silence on matters of sex.  But in fact, Victorian poetry is characterized by artistic experimentation as well as intimate expression, by bracing realism and witty playfulness as well as romantic reverie and haunting spirituality, by dynamism as well as beauty.  And Victorians were fascinated by questions of sexuality and desire, questions to which the era's poetry often gives voice.  In this course, we'll be learning how to read poetry closely, with attention to poetic form, and we'll be thinking about how this poetry responds to the cultural, technological, scientific and political developments of the advent of modernity.  At the same time, we'll use this poetry (and a few works of non-fiction prose) as the basis for a wider inquiry into sexuality in Victorian Britain, including versions of masculinity and feminity, same-sex love, desire and transgression, the relationship of body and spirit, eroticism and consumer society.  We will begin with two Romantic-era poets, Shelley and Keats, who were key figures of desire for many Victorian writers, and we'll end with Oscar Wilde and the aestheticism of "art for art's sake."

Course Information from the University Catalog