Brian Donnelly: Office South Hall 4715
ENGL 180: The Victorian Era: BSIF 1217, MW 3.30-4.45pm.
Office Hours: 5-6pm Monday and Wednesday.
Texts:
Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret (1862)
Henrik Ibsen. A Doll’s House (1879): http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2542/2542-h/2542-h.htm
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)
Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897)
H. G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895)
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
Most of the poetry listed below is available through UCSB library access on “Literature Online” (LION):
http://lion.chadwyck.com/
For poetry and paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti use: http://www.rossettiarchive.org/
I have also placed several poetry anthologies on Reserve in the library.
A helpful website and guide to all things Victorian can be found at: http://www.victorianweb.org/
Assessment: Mid-term Exam: 20%; Final Exam: 40%; Research Paper: 30%; Attendance and
Participation: 10% (missing 3 or more classes will result in an automatic penalty and extensive
absence could result in failing the course).
Schedule (subject to change):
Week 1: Beginning September 28th
M – The Other Victorians: An Introduction;
W – New Poetry for a New Age: The Dramatic Monologue: Robert Browning “‘Childe Roland to the Dark
Tower Came.’” Elizabeth Barrett Browning “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point,” Augusta Webster,
“Faded.”
Week 2: October 5th
M and W – Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.
Week 3: October 12th
M – Victorian Medievalism - Alfred Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott,” Idylls of the King: “The Last
Tournament” and “Guinevere.” (These are 2 sections that come at the end of the entire collection. You only
need to read the sections listed – not the whole poem).
W – The Pre-Raphaelites. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Introductory sonnet to “The House of Life” (“A Sonnet is
a moment’s monument”), “The Portrait” (Sonnet X). Browse the Rossetti archive listed above – particularly
the “Double Works” of Lady Lilith, Found, and Venus Verticordia.
Week 4: October 19th
M – No Class Scheduled.
W – Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market”; William Morris, “The Haystack in the Floods,” “The Defence of
Guinevere.”
Week 5: October 26th
M and W – The Sensation Novel: Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret. Volume 1.
Week 6: November 2nd
M – Mid-term Exam.
W – Jack the Ripper, the Whitechapel murders: Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr
Hyde.
Week 7: November 9th
M and W – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray. The 1890s: Fin de Siecle/Aestheticism/Decadence.
READ ALSO Walter Pater, The Renaissance “Conclusion” – this consists only of a page or two at the end of
this text. Available on LION.
Week 8: November 16th
M – Bram Stoker, Dracula.
W – Veteran’s Day Holiday: No Class Scheduled.
Week 9: November 23rd
M – Stoker, Dracula.
W – Gerard Manley Hopkins and “sprung rhythm”: “God’s Grandeur,” “The Windhover,” “Pied Beauty.”
Week 10: November 30th
M – Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House and the New Woman Question. Read online at Project Gutenberg website
listed above.
W - Seeing the Future, H. G. Wells, The Time Machine.
Research paper due Friday December 4th at 4pm, to be handed in to my office SH 4715.
Final Exam Schedule TBA