We will explore texts from a variety of genres in British and North American Romantic writing. The module focuses on concepts of Romanticism and Anglo-American literary relations c.1790-1890. You will begin by reading a set of recent essays on theory and practice in transatlantic studies.
For example, Wai Chee Dimock`s “Through other Continents” discusses a notion of deep time that reconsiders national literary boundaries, whilst Kevin Hutchings discusses Romantic Niagara in terms of environmental aesthetics, indigenous culture, and tourism, Margaret McFadden looks at women's writing and transatlantic sympathy in “Golden Cables of Sympathy”, and Lawrence Buell enquires about the terms “place” and “space”.
The module is in two parts: Visionary Imaginings (part 1) and Fractures, Connections, and the Imagination (part 2). All the set and recommended texts are provided electronically via Moodle and in Talis, and many are available in printed form in the University’s Albert Sloman Library. We will spend one seminar in the Library’s Special Collections, working with our outstanding, visually spectacular William Blake archive. The syllabus includes some visual works of art. You will participate in the compilation of an electronic glossary of terms and words associated with transatlantic Romanticism.
Research tips each week will help you to develop your investigative skills. Module Supervisor`s Research into the Subject Area: Professor Susan Oliver is a leading scholar in Transatlantic and Romantic studies. Her books include Walter Scott and the Greening of Scotland (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and the British Academy prize-wining Scott, Byron, and the Poetics of Cultural Encounter (Palgrave, 2006). She has published journal essays and book chapters on many of the writers and texts taught on this module (e.g., Charles Brockden Brown, Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson). Professor Oliver is currently completing a book on 19th Century Transatlantic Periodical Culture, her research for which informs this module.