The course covers the period of the 19th century British literature, from Romanticism to Naturalism. The goal of the seminar is to acquaint students with chief works, authors and topics of the period and to develop advanced reading skills.
1. Pre-Romanticism: Robert Burns, William Blake. 2. Lake Poets: William Wordsworth. 3. Second Generation Romnatics: P.B. Shelley, G.G. Byron, John Keats. 4. The rise of the novel: Jane Austen. 5. From Romanticism to Realism: Mary Shelley and Emily Bronte. 6. Charles Dickens. 7. Women in Victorian society: Charlotte Brontë, Anne Brontë and George Elliot. 8. Victorian mores: R. L. Stevenson, Oscar Wilde and Wilkie Collins. 9. The Empire on which the sun never sets: Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling. 10. Art for arts sake: Oscar Wilde. 11. Naturalism: Thomas Hardy, George Gissing and William Somerset Maugham. Language and society: G.B. Shaw.