(Tentative course model.  Content may change.)

ENGLISH 364/564

COURSE TIME:

Course Objectives

We will find a focus for our survey of Victorian literature in gender and sexual politics of the period, working from the assumption that gender is not biologically determined and therefore static but rather constantly defined and redefined through social practice and language.  We will question the idea that differences between men and women arise from natural causes and look instead for ways in which the history and culture of nineteenth-century Britain create particular and contending ideas of “man” and “woman.”

Specifically, we will read novels, poems, plays and essays to address such constructions of women as the “angel of the house,” the “fallen woman,” and the New Woman and constructions of manhood like the “manly man” and the “muscular Christian.”

Texts

Dracula, Bram Stoker (1897)

Mill on the Floss, George Eliot (1860)

Norton Anthology of English Literature (rental)

The Odd Women, George Gissing (1893)

Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Thomas Hughes (1857)

Course Assignments

Class Presentation/Facilitation--15%

Exams:  Midterm—20%

                 Final—25%

Class Participation—10%

Two three-page essays—15% each

Work produced for this class must be original; you may not use essays or portions of essays from prior classes without the express consent of the instructor.  Papers are due on time; late papers will be subject to a grade reduction.

* Attendance is required.  More than six absences may result in failure. *