EN 351: From Revolution to Rupture: The Long Nineteenth Century

This course explores the extraordinary transformation and disturbance across Britain and its empire during the long nineteenth century, from the revolutionary fervor of the late-1770s to the psychological fragmentation of the fin de siècle. While we will read major authors such as Mary Wollstonecraft, William Wordsworth, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Oscar Wilde, our focus will extend beyond the traditional canon to include lesser-known women, working-class writers, and colonial subjects, whose writings and material lives illuminate the broader cultural landscape of the century. We will consider how revolutions reshape national and personal identity as well as literary form and authorship. Alongside poetry, fiction, and essays, we will examine scrapbooks, letters, visual ephemera, and personal collections to recover marginalized experiences of gender, class, race, and empire. Special attention will be paid to the intersections of literature with material culture, global exploration, and the everyday lives of those often left out of historical narratives.