Module: ENG6107-20 More than Muses: Literary Women, Work and the Arts

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: Dr Kyriaki Hadjiafxendi

Module Tutor Contact Details: k.hadjiafxendi@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

Gendered notions of creativity in literature and the visual arts have often defined or restricted the subjects women could cover, the tools they could work with, and the genres they could employ. By contesting the idea of women as being inspirational muses rather than creators in their own right, this module offers a broad and in-depth understanding of the aesthetics and economics of female artistic labour between the 1850s and 1950s. The syllabus provides the opportunity to explore, through case studies of women writers such as Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Virginia Woolf and Stevie Smith, how women’s negotiation of the feminine ideal in the Victorian period helped to lead to the evolution of a range of professional identities by the mid twentieth century. The set reading includes literary texts (both fiction and poetry) as well autobiographies, conduct manuals, diaries, periodical articles, prefaces and travelogues. Through the 3 units on this module, you will become more aware of different positions surrounding literary women, their creative achievements and practices, and the changing ways in which they responded to dominant ideologies of gender and sexuality.

2. Outline syllabus:

Unit 1: What is a Woman to Do? From Pastime to Profession

This unit will engage with the Woman Question in the Victorian period by looking at the status and suitability of artistic professions for middle-class women, their engagement with new forms of work and their changing relationship to the public sphere. The set texts will offer examples of how Victorian women made the transition from idleness to serious occupation, crafted professional identities for themselves and searched for spaces to work.

Unit 2: Women, Publishing and Criticism

This unit focuses on Modernist women as publishers, editors and critics. Key figures such as Virginia Woolf, Rebecca West, Katherine Mansfield, Dora Marsden, Harriet Weaver were not only writers, but also editors, publishers and critics. They produced not only novels, but also drama, short fiction, essays, journalism, diaries, memoirs and letters. Woolf’s seminal essay on women as writers, A Room of One’s Own, may act as a starting point for our exploration of women as both professional critics and creative writers.

Unit 3: Not Waving But Drowning? Intermodernism and the ‘middlebrow’

The final section of the module will look at the contentious category of ‘middlebrow’ artistic production, which was seen as the province of many successful women artists and writers from the 1920s until the 1950s. Through case studies that bring together text and image – such as the work of novelist, graphic artist, and poet Stevie Smith – we will explore the line women trod between the light-hearted and the deadly serious, wit and tragedy in an explosive political era after the vote was won, but when the battle for women’s rights was far from over.

3. Teaching and learning activities:

• Seminar discussions and small group work

• Lectures

• Presentations

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Presentations (equivalent of 1500 words)

• % Weighting: 30

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Essay (3,500 words)

• % Weighting: 70