ENGL45030: Adventures in Reading: Romantic Books and Political Possibilities

• Students must hold a good BA degree in English or a related subject to be eligible for entry onto the MA programmes in the Department of English Studies

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• To explore the question of what is lost if we read Keatss or Landons poems only in a Norton Critical paperback or a Broadview editionor on one of the many literature websites (e.g. poetryfoundation.org)
• To ask why might it have mattered to Romantic-period authors and readers in what kind of formatmagazine, codex, pamphlet, gift booktheir poetry and prose appeared
• To consider to what extent Romantic texts themselves ask, and propose answers for, these very questions
• Methodologically, to combine rigorous close reading and formal analysis with theories of the book and histories of reading in order to illuminate the play of meaning between poetics and format
• To examine how the meanings of texts shift as they move from one material format to another, as well as how the texts themselves encode such movements, while focusing on the place of the codex book in the textual ecology of the Romantic period
• To track how Romantic writers, in a transatlantic age of revolutions and abolitionist movements, understood the technology of the book to participate in the perception and creation of political possibilities.

• Readings for this module range across the genres of poetry, essay, letter, and novel and may include work by such authors as William Blake, Lord Byron, Olaudah Equiano, William Hazlitt, Felicia Hemans, Leigh Hunt, John Keats, Charles Lamb, Letitia Landon, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Prince, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Henry David Thoreau, Phyllis Wheatley, and William Wordsworth. Topics covered may include the technology of the book, the talking book trope, the unfinished book, resistance to the materiality of books, remediation and poetic figuration, repeat reading, relations between reading and walking, the snug study versus the public library, and ruination by books.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• On completion of this module, students will possess:
• Knowledge of the conditions of mass print in the Romantic period
• Knowledge of the range of writing about the book as a physical object in the Romantic period
• Knowledge of various Romantic perspectives on the benefits and dangers of reading books
• Knowledge of Romantic-period practices of remediation
• Knowledge of methodological possibilities for combining close reading with book historical approaches to texts
• Knowledge of how writersin an age of political revolutions, reform movements, slavery, and abolitionimagined the political implications of the book as a reading technology

Subject-specific Skills:

• Students studying this module will develop:
• Advanced critical skills in the close reading and analysis of literary and historical texts;
• An ability to offer advanced analysis of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature;
• An ability to articulate and substantiate at a high level an imaginative response to literature;
• An ability to demonstrate an advanced understanding of the cultural, intellectual, socio-political contexts of literature;
• An ability to articulate an advanced knowledge and understanding of conceptual or theoretical literary material;
• An advanced command of a broad range of vocabulary and critical literary terminology.

Key Skills:

• Students studying this module will develop:
• an advanced ability to analyse critically;
• an advanced ability to acquire complex information of diverse kinds in structured and systematic ways;
• an advanced ability to interpret complex information of diverse kinds through the distinctive skills derived from the subject;
• expertise in conventions of scholarly presentation and bibliographical skills;
• an independence of thought and judgement, and ability to assess acutely the critical ideas of others;
• sophisticated skills in critical reasoning;
• an advanced ability to handle information and argument critically;
• a competence in information-technology skills such as word-processing and electronic data access;
• professional organisation and time-management skills.

• Students are encouraged to develop advanced conceptual abilities and analytical skills as well as the ability to communicate an advanced knowledge and conceptual understanding within seminars; the capacity for advanced independent study is demonstrated through the completion of two assessed pieces of work.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning student(s) an issue, theme or topic that can be independently or collectively explored within a framework and/or with additional materials provided by the tutor. This may function as preparatory work for presenting their ideas or findings (sometimes electronically) to their peers and tutor in the context of a seminar.

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