Literature 1700 – 1830

This Course aims to give a knowledge of a range of texts from 1700-1830, an understanding of their social and cultural contexts, and the interpretative skills necessary to give sophisticated descriptions of them.  This period is taught immediately after the nineteenth century.

Like the nineteenth century, students tend to be relatively unfamiliar with the literature of this period, except for those who have studied Romantic period poetry or novels by Jane Austen. The period has traditionally been characterised as split between the Augustan age and the Romantic period; by emphasising continuities as well as breaks, the validity of those distinctions are questioned, partly through an investigation of the mid century culture of Sensibility.

Students are encouraged to think themselves into the period by visiting the many Georgian spaces, museums, collections and buildings that help shape modern London, and the course includes organised visits where appropriate, for example to the British Museum, Kenwood House, the Foundling Hospital and the British Library.