Module manager: Prof John Whale
Email: J.C.Whale@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable
Year running 2025/26
This module is not approved as an Elective
- To introduce students to the variety of representations of the self in the period 1790-1830;
- to enable them to explore the relationship between genre, gender, writing and identity within a limited historical period;
- to provide them with a critical understanding of Romanticism and its relationship to modern ideas of the self.
Masters (Taught), Postgraduate Diploma & Postgraduate Certificate students will have had the opportunity to acquire the following abilities as defined in the modules specified for the programme:
- the skills necessary to undertake a higher research degree and/or for employment in a higher capacity;
- evaluating their own achievement and that of others;
- self direction and effective decision making;
- independent learning and the ability to work in a way which ensures continuing professional development;
- to engage critically in the development of professional/disciplinary boundaries and norms.
The aim of this module is to examine and question some of the most significant forms of self-construction from the end of the eighteenth century until the end of the Romantic period. We will read canonical poetic texts by William Wordsworth, Byron and John Keats alongside a variety of other literary representations of the self. These include autobiography, letters, travel writing, diaries and the novel. In particular, the work of women writers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Dorothy Wordsworth and Mary Shelley, and of the Romantic essayists Charles Lamb, Thomas De Quincey and William Hazlitt, will be used to question the dominance of a male Romantic sublime.
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seminar | 10 | 2 | 20 |
| Private study hours | 280 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 20 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 300 | ||
Reading, seminar preparation, essay research: 280 hours.
One unassessed essay of 2000 words.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Essay | 1 x 4,000 word essay | 100 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
ESS
The reading list is available from the Library website
Last updated: 30/04/2025
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