123210 VO Literatures in English (2023W)

Each lesson of this lecture will come in three acts. Act I will introduce you to one key event or concept or invention or theory or phenomenon or discourse or person or phantasma that helped shape (an aspect of) Victorian culture. (i.e. Darwinism; the phonograph; entertainment; the Indian 'Mutiny'/Sepoy Rebellion; the concept of the 'eminent Victorian'; spiritualism; entertainment; hysteria; photography; concepts of non-heteronormative desire etc.). Act II will discuss one or more Victorian literary text/s, which comment/s on or stage/s or touch/es upon whatever has been discussed in Act I. Finally, Act III will put a Neo-Victorian text or film (written/shot in the late 20th/21st century but set in the 19th) with a strong connection to the topic of the lesson centre stage, and explore how 19th century history and/or literature are portrayed, taken up, re-written, commented on, distorted, criticised or re-framed from a contemporary perspective.

We will discuss the following texts/films either in their entirety or in excerpts:

In Act I: Lyell, Principle of Geology (1830); Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859); Freud/Breuer, Studies on Hysteria (1895); Symonds, A Problem in Greek Ethics (1893); Carpenter, "Homogenic Love" (1894); Disraeli, "Crystal Palace Speech" (1872); Chamberlain, "The True Conception of Empire" (1897); Nordau, Degeneration (1892).

In Act II: Tennyson, "In Memoriam" (1850) [excerpts]; Arnold, "Dover Beach" (1867); Kendall, "The Lay of the Trilobite" (1885); "Ballad of the Ichtyosaurus" (1887); Buckley, Life and her Children (1880) and Winners in Life's Race (1883) [e]; Naden, "Natural Selection" (1887); Robinson, "Darwinism" (1902); Conan Doyle, The Lost World (1912); Tennyson, "Charge of the Light Brigade" (1854); Conan Doyle, "The Sign of Four" (1890); Dickens, Oliver Twist (1837-39); Gilbert & Sullivan, The Mikado (1885); Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper" (1892); Frederick Treves, The Elephant Man (1923); Stoker, Dracula (1897); Douglas, "The Two Loves" (1894); Morton Stanley, Through the Dark Continent (1878); Isabel Burton, The Life of Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, (1893); Mary Kingsley, Travels in West Africa (1897); Kipling, "The White Man's Burden" (1899); Lambouchère, "The Brown Man's Burden" (1899); Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847); Collins, The Woman in White (1860); Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret (1862).

In Act III: Chevalier, Remarkable Creatures (2009), 284-331; _ODNB_-article on "Mary Anning"; Gilbert, The Signature of All Things (2013); Fraser, Flashman at the Charge (1973); Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur (1973); Sarah Waters, Fingersmith (2002); Mike Leigh, Topsy-Turvy (1999); Tanya Wexler, Hysteria (2011); David Lynch, The Elephant Man (1980); Sarah Waters, Tipping the Velvet (1998); Trojanov, Collector of Worlds (2006); Hodder, Strange Affair (2010); Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White (2002); John Harwood, The Asylum (2013); Lucas, The Book of Renfield (2005).