ENGL 335 A: English Literature: The Victorian Age

Course Description:

This course, an introduction to nineteenth-century literature, addresses the Darwinian revolution and the emergence of modern attitudes about the Bible as integral to the ways that we still conceive of history, society, and the world.  Please expect to read a very long novel —George Eliot's masterpiece, Middlemarch (1872) — as well as healthy amounts of poetry and nonfiction prose. The class will be jointly taught by Professor LaPorte and Professor Taylor.

Learning Outcomes: 

This course will pose a series of nested questions. By the end of the course, students should be able to pose thoughtful and informed arguments about: 

• Literature as medium for understanding the history of ideas, and the context(s) from which it emerges in the nineteenth century
• The relationship between literature and social change
• Darwinism as an important threshold in the history of ideas, at once a new formulation and one that emerges out of prior ideas and cultural forms
• Religion as an evolving set of social forms, practices, and discourses, as well as an essential context for nineteenth-century literature
  
• The nineteenth century as a critical juncture within modernity, marked by transformative social and ecological changes including industrialization, empire, urbanization, and secularization