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English Romantic Literature

Objectives

a) To acquire a wide-range, in-depth knowledge of the main guidelines of English Romantic literature.
b) To relate authors in the programme to the historical, social and cultural contexts.
c) To develop the student´s capacity to analyse and critically read relevant texts of the Romantic Period, in the fields of lyrical poetry (Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats) and the novel (Matthew Gregory Lewis, The Monk; or Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho; or Mary Shelley, Frankenstein).
d) To acquire knowledge of different theoretical and critical approaches in the field of Romantic Studies.
e) To develop the student´s competence to carry out bibliographical research, to elaborate one written essay, in two different presential tests (a midsemester test and a second one at the end of the same) (80%), as well as to participate in class discussions and analysis of pre-selected texts (20%).

General characterization

Code

01101098

Credits

6.0

Responsible teacher

João Paulo Ascenso Pereira da Silva

Hours

Weekly - 4

Total - 168

Teaching language

Portuguese

Prerequisites

Available soon

Bibliography

Curran, S. (ed.) (2010). The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Day, A. (2011). Romanticism. 2nd ed. London , New York: Routledge.
Kelly, G. (1989). English Fiction of the Romantic Period 1789-1830. London, New York: Longman.
McCalman, I. (ed.) (2001). An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age. British Culture 1776 - 1832. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
Moore, J. & Strachan, J. (2010). Key Concepts in Romantic Literature. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Punter, D. (ed.) (2001). A Companion to the Gothic. Oxford, UK/Malden, Massachussets USA: Blackwell.
Spooner, C. & McEvoy, E. (eds.) (2007). The Routledge Companion to the Gothic. London, New York: Routledge.
Wu, D. (ed.) (1999). A Companion to Romanticism. New ed. Oxford, UK/Malden, Massachussets USA: Blackwell.
Wu, D. (ed.) (1996). Romanticism: A Critical Reader. Oxford, UK/Malden, Massachussetts USA: Blackwell.

Teaching method

Theoretical presentation to provide a historical, philosophycal and critical context for subsequent approaches to the literary texts (40%). Practical application of the knowledge obtained through textual analysis of the works on the reading list; group debate on the critical bibliography (60%). Students’ study will be guided and supported with a view to preparing them for the tests.

Evaluation method

Método de avaliação - Oral interventions and spontaneous class participation(20%), Two presential tests(80%)

Subject matter

Curricular unit contents:

1. Theoretical:
a) Neoclassicism and the dawning of new sensibilities.
b) Problematization of the concepts of Pre-Romanticism and Romanticism.
c) Characterization of romantic aesthetics: Romanticism or Romanticisms?
d) A general overview of English romantic poetry: the authors and their works; literary themes and myths; literary theory and theoretical essays or “manifestoes”. The first and second generations of romantic poets.
e) The romantic novel: a general overview of the authors, texts and subgenres (the gothic novel, the sentimental novel and the historical novel).

2. Practical:
a) Reading and analysing poems by poets of the 1st and 2nd romantic generations (Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron e Keats).
b) Critical reading of excerpts of Mary Shelley´s novel (Frankenstein).
c) Reading and discussing excerpts of critical studies on the poems and novels under analysis.