Romantic Revolutions: British Literature and Culture, 1790-1830

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course examines British literature of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the context of the period's major social, political, and cultural revolutions. Questions of literature and social justice will be at the forefront of our readings and discussions. We will focus on how writers engaged creatively and rhetorically with topics including the rights of men and women; the legitimacy of revolution; the abolition of slavery; the experiences of poverty and war; the nature of heroism; the powers of the imagination; the potentials of science; and the social role of the writer. We will read selections from a wide range of writers in diverse genres, including Mary Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Blake, Edmund Burke, Olaudah Equiano, William Godwin, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley. Instances of contemporary visual art and, where possible, theater and/or film, will help broaden our understanding of this intensely creative and conflictual period in British literary history.