ENGL34071
Romantic Venice
20
Semester 1
Undergraduate
Level 3
Alan Rawes
Unit coordinator
English and American Studies
1
FHEQ level (Framework for Higher Education Qualifications) ' Last part of a Bachelors '
European Credit Transfer & Accumulation System Rating : 10.0
<p>Venice today is a manifestation of Romanticism’s continuing influence on modern-day culture: Romantic-period literature transformed the city from an almost forgotten backwater into the iconic city of modern tourism. This course is focused on the international re-imagining of Venice by Romantic-period writers such as Goethe, Radcliffe, de Staël, Byron and P. B. Shelley, and the influence of this re-imagining across Europe and beyond. However, this international focus on ‘Romantic Venice’ will also enable students to re-think Romanticism in Britain, in terms of its inherently international nature and its international impact. It will do this by foregrounding Romanticism’s interest in urban as well as natural worlds; its reinvention of literary genres to address new aesthetic, social and political objectives; the importance of writers (especially women writers), and kinds of writing (especially travel writing), often marginalised in scholarly accounts of Romanticism; and the influence of ‘Romantic Venice’ on writers such as Dickens, George Sand and Henry James.</p>
<p>Venice today is a manifestation of Romanticism’s continuing influence on modern-day culture: Romantic-period literature transformed the city from an almost forgotten backwater into the iconic city of modern tourism. This course is focused on the international re-imagining of Venice by Romantic-period writers such as Goethe, Radcliffe, de Staël, Byron and P. B. Shelley, and the influence of this re-imagining across Europe and beyond. However, this international focus on ‘Romantic Venice’ will also enable students to re-think Romanticism in Britain, in terms of its inherently international nature and its international impact. It will do this by foregrounding Romanticism’s interest in urban as well as natural worlds; its reinvention of literary genres to address new aesthetic, social and political objectives; the importance of writers (especially women writers), and kinds of writing (especially travel writing), often marginalised in scholarly accounts of Romanticism; and the influence of ‘Romantic Venice’ on writers such as Dickens, George Sand and Henry James.</p>
<p> The aims of this course are:<br />- to analyse representations of Venice, as a case study of Romanticism’s engagement with place, in a range of texts;<br />- to introduce students to the comparative analysis of texts (in translation where necessary) from different national traditions;<br />- to introduce students to key Romantic-period texts and the influence of these on later texts;<br />- to analyse the ways in which texts interact with their cultural and historical contexts;<br />- to consider issues such as gender and nationality as they affect the texts studied;<br />- to compare texts across a range of different genres (including drama, poetry, prose fiction and travel writing), especially in terms of their formal and thematic innovations;<br />- to develop skills of critical thought, speech and writing in relation to Romantic and later texts;<br />- to develop skills of independent research and persuasive argumentation.</p>
<p>By the end of this course, students should be able to:<br />- demonstrate a good familiarity with a range of texts and contexts;<br />- demonstrate a good understanding of some of the dialogues between these texts;<br />- demonstrate a good understanding of the developing representation of Venice, c1790-1890, and some of the wider literary, social, political and historical implications of this;<br />- demonstrate an ability to critically compare texts (in translation where necessarily) from different national literary traditions;<br />- demonstrate a critical knowledge of, and engagement with, the existing critical debate about individual texts, their inter-relation, and Romanticism’s engagement with place.</p>
<p>By the end of this course, students should be able to:<br />- think critically, and make critical judgments, about a wide range of Romantic and post-Romantic representations of Venice in particular, and of place more generally, and the wider literary, social, political and historical implications of these;<br />- critically compare texts from different periods and (national/international) contexts;<br />- analyse course texts in a detailed, critical and persuasive manner, orally and in writing;<br />- identify, and critically engage with, key claims, issues and problems in existing scholarly debates about Romantic literary traditions and legacies.</p>
<p>- plan, execute and present independent research on topics relating to the course;<br />- make good use of library, electronic, and online resources pertaining to the course;<br />- speak and write clearly and persuasively about literary and other texts;<br />- critically assess the language of both primary and secondary texts relating to the course.</p>
<p>- retrieve, sift, organise, synthesise and critically evaluate material from a range of different sources, including library, electronic and online resources;<br />- deliver oral presentations in front of a lecturer and a seminar group;<br />- produce written work, in language appropriate for an academic audience, that collects, integrates and presents evidence to persuasively formulate/test a critical argument;<br />- display basic negotiating skills in understanding, working and debating with others;<br />- improve one’s learning through reflection, self-evaluation and time management.</p>
0
Other
100%
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse;width:134pt" width="178"> <tbody> <tr height="96" style="height:72.0pt"> <td class="xl68" height="96" style="height:72.0pt;width:67pt" width="89">Seminar Presentation (including Powerpoint slides)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-left:none;width:67pt" width="89">20%</td> </tr> </tbody></table><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse;width:134pt" width="178"> <tbody> <tr height="96" style="height:72.0pt"> <td class="xl67" height="96" style="height:72.0pt;width:67pt" width="89">Comparative Close Reading</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-left:none;width:67pt" width="89">30%</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="xl67" height="96" style="height:72.0pt;width:67pt" width="89">Comparative Essay</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-left:none;width:67pt" width="89">50%</td> </tr> </tbody></table><p> </p>
N
<p>David Barnes, <em>The Venice Myth: Culture, Literature, Politics, 1800 to the Present</em> (London: Routledge, 2014)</p><p><br />John Julius Norwich, <em>Paradise of Cities: Venice And Its Nineteenth-Century Visitors</em> (New York: Viking, 2003)</p><p><br />John Pemble, <em>Venice Rediscovered</em> (London: Faber and Faber, 2009)</p><p><br />Tony Tanner,<em> Venice Desired</em> (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992)</p><p><br />Michael O'Neill, Mark Sandy and Sarah Wootton (eds), <em>Venice and the Cultural Imagination: 'This Strange Dream upon the Water'</em> (London: Routledge, 2012)</p>
Lectures
11
Seminars
22
0
200