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Module description

In spite of what Henry James's famously disparaging characterisation of Victorian novels as 'loose baggy monsters' might suggest, the novel was, without a doubt, the dominant cultural form of the Victorian period. From the prudent and proper to the rude and risquÚ, and from the 1830s to the fin de siecle, the Victorian novel was, in its own time, a capacious, malleable and contested form of cultural production, and one which continues to resist easy categorisation today. On this module we will explore the rich heterogeneity of the Victorian novel through close examination of works by a range of canonical and non-canonical authors. We will examine the changing shape of the novel throughout the nineteenth century (from the sprawling 'monstrosity' of the triple-decker to the compact neatness of the proto-modernist aesthetic of the 1890s), as well as the range of novelistic genres that proliferated at this time (including realism, sensation, the industrial novel, Victorian gothic, horror, adventure, and science fiction), and consider the ways in which the cultural, social and political values of Victorian Britain are both encoded and contested in the novels of the age.

Intended learning outcomes

• Demonstrate an advanced knowledge of the developments of the Victorian novel, its readers and contexts;
• Evaluate critically both current research and historical debates about the role of the novel in the Victorian period;
• Assess the relationships between a range of novel forms, such as realist, gothic, sensation, industrial, science fiction, and horror;
• Evaluate the social, technological and cultural contexts surrounding the production and reception of the Victorian novel;
• Demonstrate an understanding of the ways in which social and political values are both encoded and contested in literary texts.