Module: ENG5104-20 Gender & Fiction in the Long Eighteenth Century

Level: 5

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: Stephen Gregg

Module Tutor Contact Details: S.Gregg@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

This module aims to introduce you to a variety of novels from the late seventeenth century to the Romantic period. It will enable you to understand how writers of this new form of writing were fascinated by the period’s debates about proper – and improper – gender behaviour. The period also saw the rise of the woman writer, and the module includes novels such as the early ‘scandalous’ fictions of love, sex and desire, moral novels which were preoccupied by the conduct of modern women and men, and the varied novels of the later century which drew upon popular forms such as the Gothic and the national tale, that offset radical philosophy with reactionary discourses of nation and domesticity, and that look forward to the novels of the next century.

Aims

This module is intended to offer you the opportunity to:

1. critically analyse fiction in English during the long eighteenth century in relation to issues of gender

2. examine the novels in the light of the cultural and intellectual debates about the novel

3. demonstrate knowledge and analyse the novels the light of debates on masculinity or femininity in the period

4. engage with relevant critical opinion and modern critical theory

2. Outline syllabus:

The module will start with an introductory session introducing you to the debates surrounding the novel in the period. After that the module will proceed chronologically through around 6 key novels of the period. There will be sessions set aside to consider contemporary contexts that debate issues of gender using material accessed via the online resources JISC Historical Texts and Defining Gender 1450-1900.

3. Teaching and learning activities:

A variety of teaching and learning activities will be used, including self-directed tasks, seminar discussion, lectures, in-class and independent engagement with online resources, and assessment tutorials.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: Course Work

• Description: Essay (1,500 words)

• % Weighting: 30%

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: Course Work

• Description: Essay (3,500 words)

• % Weighting: 70%