Romanticism, Feminism, Revolution

This subject maps the intertwined (and sometimes antagonistic) trajectories of Romanticism and early Feminism, as they emerge in Britain in the wake of the American and French Revolutions. Drawing on prose, poetry and drama from this period (including texts by Byron, Blake, Bronte, Hays, Radcliffe, Robinson, Mary Shelley, P. B. Shelley and Wordsworth), it studies the construction of modern notions of literature, culture, sexuality, emancipation and revolution. In so doing, the subject brings into dialogue late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century philosophies of imagination and reason, accounts of the artist as Satan/Prometheus and Sappho, and myths of the lover as Don Juan and femme fatale. Students completing this subject should have a firm understanding of the literary, philosophical and cultural foundations of Romanticism and early Feminism, movements that have played key roles in the construction of the modern world.

• 1Discuss some of the key texts, genres, interpretative strategies, and textual strategies of Romanticism and early Feminism.
• 2Relate the ideas and practices of Romanticism and early Feminism to the revolutionary social, economic, and political changes of the 1790s.
• 3Articulate the roles played by Romanticism and early Feminism in the construction of the modern world.
• 4Apply recent arguments from the study of Romanticism and early Feminism in the interpretation of literary texts.
• 5Generate original critical readings of Romantic and early Feminist texts and communicate these in extended argumentative prose.