Episodes

Continuing our exploration of Canto 1 of Don Juan, with examples of Byron's wordcraft.

Don Juan is Byron's epic and comic masterpiece. We will begin to explore Canto 1 in detail.

Introduction to Lord Byron, the poet (in)famously "mad, bad, and dangerous to know," and the concept of the Byronic Hero.

Coleridge's unique and fascinating exploration of the Imagination.

Wordsworth's theories of poetry, in comparison to those of his friend and collaborator, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Introduces William Wordsworth and his landmark poem known as "Tintern Abbey."

Continuing the exploration of the work of William Blake and his interest in "contraries."

Introduction to the printer and poet, William Blake, and his remarkable multi-media work.

Continues our exploration of the slave trade and slave narratives.

Begins an exploration of the debate over slavery and the slave trade in the British Empire.

Introduces one of the key figures of the feminist movement.

More discussion of the French Revolution and its impacts.

The French Revolution upended the established order and precipitated debate about "the rights of man."

Wordsworth's lengthy autobiographical poem, The Prelude: or Growth of a Poet's Mind, gives us another opportunity to explore the concept of the sublime.

An examination of a poem that is an excellent representative of the concept of the sublime.

Introduces some key aesthetic concepts of the Romantic period.

Description of some of the general characteristics of much of the literature of the Romantic Period.

A brief overview of the history and social contexts of the Romantic Period in England.

Course introduction. This is a course in British literature from about the time of the French Revolution through the mid-twentieth-century, covering three literary periods, the Romantic period, the Victorian period, and the twentieth century.