This course explores the literature as well as the cultural, historical, and socio-political contexts of the period ranging from 1830 (when Tennyson’s first volume of poems was published) to 1900 (the last months of Queen Victoria’s reign before her death in January 1901). Often described as ‘the Age of the Novel’, the course naturally devotes considerable space to nineteenth-century fiction, but also pays close attention to the directions taken by poetry and non-fiction.

Autumn term lectures include overviews of the period and cover all the set texts. Seminar groups study at least four of the set texts. (In 2022-23, the set texts are Tennyson’s selected poems, Brontë’s Villette, Dickens’s Great Expectations, Browning’s selected poems, Eliot’s Middlemarch, Christina Rossetti’s selected poems, Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Hopkins’s selected poems, and Wilde’s plays. Set texts are subject to change.)

In the Spring term, lectures focus on major generic and thematic approaches, such as condition of England writing, nonsense poetry, sensation fiction, decadent writing, the international novel, and the fin-de-siècle. Writers explored through these lectures include Thomas Carlyle, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Henry James, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Wilkie Collins, and many others.

Spring term seminars are sign-up options; options in the past have included ‘Romance in Poetry', ‘Great Victorian Novels’, ‘The Victorians and Art’, ‘How to Do Things with Books’, ‘Colonial writing and fictions of Empire’, ‘People Behaving Badly’, and ‘Exoticism and the Supernatural’.

Examination is by means of written exam paper, or by Course Essay, if preferred and if no other Course Essay is being submitted by the candidate in that year.

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School of European Languages, Culture and Society

Module description

This module aims to give students insight into the Icelandic language, its structure and history. The module equips students with a basic...

Module description

This module aims to give students insight into the Icelandic language, its structure and history. The module equips students with a basic knowledge of Icelandic, both written and spoken, so that they will be able to read elementary texts, engage in simple daily conversation, and pursue further studies in the modern language.
Students will gain knowledge of the fundamentals of Icelandic grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure and pronunciation. Modern texts will be studied as well, and students will practice both spoken and written Icelandic to develop their skills in expressing themselves in Icelandic. In addition, the module will cover in broad outline the history of the language and contemporary ‘language politics’ (loan-words, neologisms etc.).

Preparatory Reading

Dictionaries

ISLEX Orðabókin (http://islex.hi.is/)
 Sverrir Hólmarsson, C Sanders & J Tucker, Íslensk-ensk orðabók (1989).
 Jón Skaptason et al., Ensk-íslensk skólaorðabók (1998).
 Íslensk-ensk ensk-íslensk vasaorðabók (Forlagið 2012)
Readings, Grammar and Exercises

Sólborg Jónsdóttir og Þorbjörg Halldórsdóttir, Íslenska fyrir alla (2011)
 Þorbjörg Halldórsdóttir, Litli málfræðingurinn (Mímir)
 Icelandic Online I
Please note: This module description is accurate at the time of publication. Minor amendments may be made prior to the start of the academic year.