8:225 Late Victorian Literature: New Women and Decadent Men
Professor Florence S. Boos
With emphasis on the explosion of fin de siècle texts which consider sexuality and women's emancipation, this course will trace the development of major issues, motifs, genres, and artistic preoccupations in British literature of period 1880-1900. In the process, we will give attention to late-Victorian poetics, realist portrayals of urban violenceearly stirrings of what critics came to call “modernism,” and new forms of social criticism, utopian literature and working-class cultural expression. We will also view a number of Victorian paintings and designs, and examine Kelmscott and other fine press books and illustrations.
I will ask students registered in the course to submit weekly web postings, and prepare a 20 page critical paper or two shorter ones.