Module Catalogue 2026/27

Pre Requisite Comment

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Co Requisite Comment

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Aims

Since the Covid pandemic, psychological research has shown that although we are more likely to remember negative events than positive ones, in our day-to-day interactions, there is much more kindness in the world than we think (Hammond, 2022). While the past might seem like a foreign country, writers were asking very similar questions in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries. The Eighteenth Century was a period in which sympathy and empathy (the idea of putting ourselves into the shoes of others) became central for writers who explored how it could be explored to represent those who were politically oppressed: a revolution of feeling which could envision a global society.

This module has two main aims: (1) to consider life's 'big' questions from the perspective of different voices, asking critically why some voices have been, and continue to be, heard above others and (2) through these voices, to consider how we, as readers, develop empathy with others and the social role.

Until recently, the version of Romanticism taught in schools was mostly confined to poetry written by middle class, white, English men. While we don't exclude these writers, we want to look at British Romanticism as a transnational movement where the idea of being a corner of an emerging Empire with a global reach was looked at critically. Some embraced it, some resisted it, and others engaged with it whilst seeking to preserve and animate their own local cultures on the page. The module takes students back to where the United Kingdom began and the diverse, and often hidden voices, who lived through these seismic changes.

A growing literary marketplace which included larger numbers of middle- and working-class readers, who desired to hear an 'authentic' voice emerge from the page, one that engaged with the deepest human questions and echoed their own human desires and aspirations. The labouring-class poet took the marketplace by storm, particularly in the glamorous ploughman-poet figure of Robert Burns whose 'heaven-taught' poetic skill seemed to offer the British public a taste of the deepest feelings of the human heart in the real language of men. But there is more to the labouring poet than meets the eye. Engaged with the philosophy and politics of their day, they took ideas to the widest possible audience, subverting audience expectations to set their own literary agenda and paving the way for the marginalised voices for centuries to come.

Outline Of Syllabus

Beginning with the latest psychological research into empathy and kindness, we will examine how the relationship between the individual and society around us has shaped and been shaped by literature.
We will look at how this expanded the literary marketplace for groups previously excluded (such as the 'self-taught' poet, the female revolutionary), how the revolutionary era provided opportunities to challenge all kinds of oppression (e.g. slavery and feminism) to the growing idea of individual genius and individual worth the changing conceptions of national and cosmopolitan identity within Britain, the individual poetic voice, the importance of sentiment and sensibility, and the growth of revolutionary writing.

The module will cover a number of general literary themes (including gender, class, place, politics, thought, colonialism, love and loss) and will include the following themed topics:

The Birth of Great Britain: Enlightenment, Nation and the Union
Self and Society
Place and the People
Letters, Epistles and Social networking
Labouring class poetry
Writing the landscape
Poetry and politics
Poetry, Patriotism and Empire
Love, Sex and the Body

As well as studying literary works, students will get to work with archival source material (the best part of academic scholarship IMHO). We will analyse essays, letters, journals and newspaper excerpts in which these writers expressed their theories of poetry and their relationships to their contemporaries.

The module will refer widely to a number of important thinkers and writers but we will focus mainly on Robert Burns, Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, James Orr, Samuel Thomson, Mary Ann McCracken and Anna Letitia Barbauld.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

To complete the module successfully, the student will be required to demonstrate:

(1) an understanding of how literature fosters empathy and how this can be used for social change
(2) an understanding of the historical and philosophical contexts in which writers of the 'long' Eighteenth Century wrote;
(3) an ability to discuss the variety and significance of literary forms deployed by the writers;
(4) an ability to discuss the diversity concerns expressed by the writers;
(5) an ability to compare and contrast the writings studied;
(6) an ability to critically re-evaluate traditional or 'standard' conceptions of 'the canon' in terms of both literary and linguistic considerations

Intended Skill Outcomes

By the end of the module, the student who has completed this module successfully will have shown the ability:

(1) to exercise sensitivity to verbal creativity both in class and in writing;
(2) to offer historically-informed insights into specific texts both orally and in writing;
(3) to assimilate information from a number of different sources;
(4) to evaluate the critical views of others;
(5) to produce with others, in small groups, notes and oral presentations;
(6) to work with scholarly sources and archival material
(7) to produce an assessed piece based on the student's own original research (primary and secondary materials) and to be able to reflect on an ethical research process

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The lectures introduce students to knowledge outcomes relevant to the module. They address themes common to the authors studied and encourage the students to think comparatively. They also provide short examples of close reading technique to be practised further in seminar.

The seminars allow for the development of knowledge outcomes through close reading of specified texts, and the practice of skills, especially oral presentation and interpersonal communication.

The extra time at the end of the lecture is budgeted for students to meet in their study groups to undertake group prep (short exercises) for the following seminars. Students can still elect to meet in their own time to do this but having a timetabled collective space, immediately following the lecture will incentivise both in-person lecture attendance and study group engagement.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Assessment takes the form of a final portfolio incorporating a formal essay supplemented with additional learning materials (with a 85:15 weighting). Supporting materials may include a research diary, notes, annotations to primary texts, or a combination of some or all of these.

The portfolio assesses knowledge of primary and contextual materials studied on the module, critical and analytical skills, close reading skills, and writing skills. The supporting materials give students an opportunity to demonstrate their engagement and learning across the full range of the module.

General Notes

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