EN245 2013–14
Please note this blog isn't running this year as I no longer teach the course - see the new English Nineteenth-Century Novel blog run by Dr Gemma Goodman. Posts from previous years will remain on this blog.
Please note this blog isn't running this year as I no longer teach the course - see the new English Nineteenth-Century Novel blog run by Dr Gemma Goodman. Posts from previous years will remain on this blog.
If you've misplaced the handouts on essay writing and referencing from last term, you can find copies on this blog post (sign in to view).
Questions for the week 10 seminar:
You might also find Henry James's essay The Art of Fiction useful reading
This is quite an old Radio 4 discussion from 2003 about Jude the Obscure and the university system, but nonetheless raises some interesting and pertinent issues about the novel in the context of our focus on Culture and Change, and on the idea of the University more broadly.
The programme explores the historical context around university admissions and the cost of education, and uses this to explore the more recent debates about university tuition fees. The first part focuses on university admissions, and looks at a "real-life" Jude, Ernest Barker, the son of a farmer, who was successful in obtaining a place at Oxford and went on to become a very successful figure. The second part looks at the financial cost of education, whilst part 3 focuses on contemporary issues around university tuition fees (back in 2003 discussions about the change to university tuition fees were just getting started with moves towards the £3000/year rate being planned).
In addition to the preparation questions I suggested, you might also want to think about the relevance of Jude today and the various questions it raises around university education as part of its wider debates around "culture".
Questions to prepare for the seminar on Jude the Obscure:
Writing about web page http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01ddxcq/Great_Lives_Series_27_Oscar_Wilde/
This edition of Radio 4's Great Lives series features Oscar Wilde, with discussion by Will Self, Matthew Parris, and Franny Moyle, the biographer of Wilde's wife Constance. The programme is fairly predictably but nonetheless informative in its focus on Wilde's later years, and the 1895 trial in particular, with some focus on The Picture of Dorian Gray. It's also interesting to hear the perspective of Wilde's wife being raised - and if you want to know more about Constance Wilde then Franny Moyle's biography Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs Oscar Wilde is well worth reading.
Two topical pieces of reading if you'd like some extras to make up for the postponed class this week:
In "Marry me, Bosie!" Dr Thomas Dixon offers some alternative perspectives on the criminal trial of Oscar Wilde in 1895 and the concept of "the love that dare not speak its name". We'll cover some of the trial and background on Wilde in the next class, so this piece offers some useful additional context.
If you bemoaned the over-commercialisation of Valentines Day last week then you might enjoy From Sentiment to Satire in which Dr Alice Crossley blogs about the Victorian origins of Valentine's cards - this also raises some interesting ideas around culture and cultural access from our week 5 reading.
In preparation for the seminar on The Picture of Dorian Gray, think about:
Alongside this week's reading on culture and change, you might find this recent BBC radio 4 series The Value of Culture interesting. In the first of the 5-part series, Melvyn Bragg discusses Arnold's Culture and Anarchy and looks at its influence on later thinkers. The programme provides some useful contextualising of Arnold within Victorian social reform and education debates, and draws out some of the links to Ruskin's Nature of the Gothic. There's also some discussion of the idea of the university, which sets out a few issues in advance of Jude. Episode 1 is the most relevant to what we'll be discussing on Monday but episode 3 on "two cultures" will also be useful, and episode 5 returns to Arnold to explore his notion of culture in the context of today's society.
In preparation for the seminar in week 5 think about the following questions on the Ruskin, Arnold and Pater extracts, drawing out comparisons between each critic's handling of these ideas: