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2022/23 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

ENGL32114 Forming Victorian Fiction

20 creditsClass Size: 20

School of English

Module manager: Dr Richard Salmon
Email: r.salmon@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable

Year running 2022/23

This module is mutually exclusive with

ENGL3351	Forming Victorian Fiction
ENGL3875	Victorian Modernity: Literature and Politics in the 1840s

Module replaces

ENGL3875 & ENGL3351

This module is not approved as a discovery module

Objectives

The module aims to examine the development of the novel during the early-Victorian period. Focussing primarily on the decade of the 1840s, it traces the emergence of some of the most distinctive and influential forms of Victorian fiction, including the serialized novel, realist fiction (so-called 'industrial' or 'social-problem' novels), the bildungsroman (novel of education) and related forms of auto/biographical fiction, and the gothic romance. The module also considers the first generation of Victorian novelists in terms of their transitional significance as post-Romantic writers.

Learning outcomes
The module will provide students with a detailed understanding of the emergence of the Victorian novel as a literary form, encompassing a variety of genres. It will also provide an extensive knowledge of the early-Victorian period (1830s to 1850s), both in terms of its major literary concerns and its relation to earlier and later periods of the nineteenth century.

Skills outcomes
- Skills for effective communication, oral and written.
- Capacity to analyse and critically examine diverse forms of discourse.
- Ability to acquire quantities of complex information of diverse kinds in a structured and systematic way.
- Capacity for independent thought and judgement.
- Critical reasoning.
- Research skills, including information retrieval skills, the organisation of material, and the evaluation of its importance.
- IT skills.
- Time management and organisational skills.
- Independent learning.

Syllabus

This module explores the development of the novel and other forms of prose fiction during the early-Victorian period (c.1837-1855). Focussing primarily on the 1840s, one of the richest and most innovative decades in the history of the English novel, the module traces the emergence of distinctive and influential modes of Victorian fiction, such as serialized narrative, social realism, the historical novel, and gothic fiction. It considers the expansion of print culture and the literary market during the mid-nineteenth century, and the diversity of new fictional genres to which this led. The module also situates the first generation of Victorian novelists (including such writers as Dickens, Gaskell, Thackeray, and the Brontës) within a broader historical context, where issues to be discussed include the representation of urban and rural environments, the natural and the supernatural, critiques of commerce and capitalism, class and gender politics, and the representation of the self.

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Lectures	5	1.00	5.00
Seminar	10	1.00	10.00
Private study hours			185.00
Total Contact hours			15.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			200.00

Private study

Private study time will be focussed on reading primary and secondary material to prepare for seminars (a secondary reading list is provided in addition to the list of set texts) and the required assessment.

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

- Seminar contribution.
- Feedback on unassessed essay.

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Essay	4000 words (including quotations and footnotes). One unassessed essay of 1000 words is required which may include an extended plan for the assessed essay. This does not form part of the assessment for this module, but is a requirement and MUST be submitted. Students who fail to submit the unassessed essay will be awarded a maximum mark of 40 for the module (a bare Pass).	100.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		100.00

One unassessed essay of 1000 words is required which may include an extended plan for the assessed essay. This does not form part of the assessment for this module, but is a requirement and MUST be submitted. Students who fail to submit the unassessed essay will be awarded a maximum mark of 40 for the module (a bare Pass).

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 29/04/2022 15:24:12

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