During Semester 1 students take Life, Text, Afterlife. This module examines the processes of 19th-century literary production and reception, studying the lives of authors and cultural figures; the conditions of publication of their work and the challenges of presenting modern editions of that work; and the reception of Romantic and Victorian texts in later works of literature and in various forms of publication and dissemination. Subjects likely to be covered include:

• the adaptation of Jane Austen in the 20th century
• Romantic celebrity culture
• periodical publication
• 19th-century definitions of the figures of the author and the poet
• the construction of female subjectivity in letters and fiction
• editorial and biographical theory and practice.

Students also take Literary Research: Skills and Resources; this module equips students with the advanced skills needed to pursue independent research in preparation for seminars, assessments, and particularly for the MLitt dissertation.

During the second semester, students take the module Literary History, Politics, Culture. This module explores the interactions between literature and its various historical, philosophical, cultural, and political contexts in the Romantic and Victorian periods. Many of the authors we study as producers of imaginative literature also engaged in polemical, historical, or philosophical writing. Literary works could make decisive and poignant contributions to particular political debates, and the literary sphere itself had its own politics. Subjects likely to be covered include:

• Romantic medievalism
• literary writing about war and empire
• socialism, aestheticism and decadence
• anti-Semitism and Englishness
• literature and the slave trade
• literature and science.

The two core modules will study a range of Romantic and Victorian texts, which may include works by:

• Jane Austen
• Charlotte Brontë
• Maria Edgeworth
• Felicia Hemans
• John Keats,
• Olive Schreiner
• Alfred Tennyson
• Oscar Wilde
• William Wordsworth.

Students are encouraged to develop their own research interests via a final optional Special Topic module. This gives students the opportunity to develop as researchers within a specific area of study, combining students’ individual interests with staff research expertise. Previous available topics have included:

• Difference and Dissensus: Postcolonial Studies in-between Literature and Politics
• ‘Musical’ Fiction
• Modernism and Nature
• W.B. Yeats
• The Short List: World Lit and International Prestige
• Caribbean Literature
• Literature and Environment.