ENGL 431 A: Topics in British Literature

Poetry in the nineteenth century was both a prestigious art form and an extremely popular one.  It enjoyed a breadth of readership that is hard to imagine today.  This course will discuss nineteenth-century British poetry and its legacy.  We will discuss various poetic traditions, connections between poetry and nationalism, the influence of sentimental poetics, the place of poetry in contemporary discussions of human and animal rights, and the material conditions of global literary exchanges (printing presses, steamship voyages, railroads, telegraphs).  And we will study some of the most influential poetry ever written.