EL5026 - Literary Revolutions, Eighteenth Century to Romanticism

Learning and teaching will be through a combination of lectures and seminars. Lectures will introduce you to key concepts and critical approaches, and illustrate how they might be applied to literary texts. Seminars will be student-led and encourage debate and discussion. The aims of the module will be consolidated by a combination of formative and summative modes of assessment facilitating students’ awareness of the relevant issues in writing of this period, while also encouraging self-assessment and reflexive learning.

Lectures are supported by PowerPoint presentations and handouts; by a dedicated eLP site; by a detailed module guide that clearly sets out in detail the structure of formal teaching; detailed bibliographies that draw upon the latest scholarship in the field of eighteenth-century and Romantic literature; by discussion with the module tutor and in the development of speaking, listening, and critical skills gained through participation in classroom activities.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:
1. An enhanced knowledge and understanding of issues raised by a range of literary texts and contexts from the eighteenth century and the Romantic period

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
2. enhanced intellectual skills in employing historical and critical material in relation to literature
3. enhanced abilities in close and interdisciplinary textual analysis

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
4. understanding of debates around class, race, gender, religion, nationality and empire and literature’s intervention in those debates
5. skills conforming to relevant standards of good academic conduct in the expression of an informed argument in written forms through completing the various activities prescribed.

Formative: an oral presentation on a selected critical essay relevant to one of the texts on the module, delivered during a seminar. (MLO 1, 2, 5)

Summative:

1.
1500-word essay referring to at least two texts on the module (MLO 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) 40%

2.
2500-word essay referring to at least two texts on the module
(MLO 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) 60%

Feedback on formative presentations will be delivered with comments on feedback sheets designed specifically for presentation work. Feedback on summative work will be delivered according to the existing protocols of the Humanities Department on feedback sheets. Feedback on the first summative assignment will help students prepare for the longer assignment at the end of the module. In addition, students will be encouraged to reflect critically on their own work by completing a self-evaluation sheet to accompany submitted work asking them to identify strengths and weaknesses and to request specific feedback in key areas.

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The eighteenth century and the Romantic period transformed literature in revolutionary ways. With the rise of the novel, the establishment of journalism, the birth of modern feminism, the growth of trade and empire, the development of literary celebrity, responses to political revolution, and protests against the slave trade, the module allows you to encounter a fascinating period that gives shapes to many of our modern ideas about literature and society. This module presents a diverse range of texts from this period, and helps you explore the rich historical contexts of this revolutionary era.