Victorian Literature and Culture (Part II: Victorianism: Genres, Movements, Contexts, SoSe 2020)

Part II:

This seminar on “Victorianism”, a notoriously problematic term difficult to define, operates in tandem with my course on the Victorian novel. Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world, from upheavals in theology, science and new technologies to empire, we will be exploring a broad range of phenomena such as popular fiction (in extracts), conservative cultural criticism, the “movement” of the Pre-Raphaelites (entwining literature/poetry and art), and, finally, the aesthetic turn at the fin de siècle.

A considerable part of the course reading will be made available on Moodle but please obtain your own paperback copy of Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy (1867–68) and of Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest. A Trivial Comedy for Serious People (1895).