q33391 the self & the world - nottingham

Q33391

The Self & the World: Writing in the Long Eighteenth Century

The years from 1660 to 1830 are enormously important for the

representation of the self in literature: Milton promoted the idea of the poet inspired by God; the eighteenth-century mocked the possibility of anyone truly knowing their self; the

Romantics celebrated the self, and Byron and Austen provided ironic commentaries on such self-obsessions. This period also saw the rise of the novel, a flourishing trade in biography, and

the emergence of a new genre, autobiography. This module will look at some of the most significant works of the period with particular reference to the relationship between

writers and their worlds. Topics might include: the emergence, importance and limitations of life-writing; self-fashioning; the ‘Romantic’ author; transmission and revision; translation and

imitation; ideas of the self and gender; intertextuality, adapta-tion, and rewriting.

Texts studied will range across poems, novels and prose, from Paradise Lost (1667) to Frankenstein (1818). Authors studied might include Milton, Rochester, Dryden, Fielding, Johnson, Austen, Coleridge, Wollstonecraft, Byron, Keats, Hemans, Mary

and Percy Shelley.

The module is taught by 2-hour workshops and tutorials in the spring semester. The module is assessed by a 3500 word essay (100%).

For more information contact Adam Rounce or Lynda Pratt: Adam.Rounce@nottingham.ac.uk; A