Transgression in Victorian Lit

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

The Victorian novel loves trouble. Some of the Victorian period’s most noteworthy novelists, such as Dickens, Wilde, and Thackeray, created iconic fictional troublemakers, monsters, deviants, and criminals that continue to resonate with contemporary readers. What can the Victorian novel teach us about the Victorians and the polarizing world in which we currently live? How can the Victorian novel inform our understanding of transgression? How does the Victorian novel use transgression to interrogate Victorian values? From suicide, criminality, and murder to vivid monstrosity and sexuality, countless Victorian novels center transgression. Is transgression in the Victorian novel found in acts of taboo such as suicide, forbidden desire, and the problematization of class, gender, and racial categories, or does it more readily manifest in acts of speech, dissent, passing, and performance? This course examines transgressive figures and themes in the Victorian novel and attempts to articulate why transgression is a powerful conceptual tool for a culture that is ostensibly conservative. Students will be asked to consider various definitions of transgression and apply them to their readings of the Victorian novel. In addition to reading several canonical Victorian novels, students will engage with the writings of various key Victorian cultural critics and journalists as well as seminal scholarship in Victorian studies. Students in this course will walk away with a better understanding of the Victorian novel’s form, content, and subgenres.