106-223 Romantic Literary Celebrity

Usually 12.5 points of first year English

This subject examines celebrity as a new form of literary fame that emerges in the Romantic period, analysing key texts of Romanticism in relation to this emergent culture. With the rapid expansion of literary markets from the late eighteenth century, literary works were no longer produced for a small audience of readers often known to the author, but across a distance for a vast, anonymous body known as the reading public. A radically altered relationship between writers and readers thereby created the conditions for the culture and economy of literary celebrity, which overcame this distance by forging new reading practices and establishing an intimacy between author and public. This subject explores these changing relations. Focusing on forms of scandalous celebrity, such as Byronic Satanism, students will develop an understanding of how the author became not only the producer of a work but the owner of a personality, turned into a commodity and produced for public consumption, identification, imitation and even ritual humiliation. Against a background of theoretical readings of celebrity, publicity and authorship, students will examine the culture of Romantic literary celebrity across a range of genres, including lyric poetry, scandalous memoir, silverfork novel, roman à clef, satire and reviews.

• acquire skills in research through competent use of library, and other (including online) information sources; through the successful definition of areas of inquiry and methods of research;

• acquire skills in critical thinking and analysis through use of recommended reading, essay writing and tutorial discussion; through the questioning of accepted wisdom and the ability to shape and strengthen persuasive judgments and arguments; through attention to detail in reading material; and through openness to new ideas and the development of critical self-awareness;

• acquire skills in theoretical thinking through use of recommended reading, essay writing and tutorial discussion; through a productive engagement with relevant methodologies and paradigms in literary studies and the broader humanities;

• acquire skills in creative thinking through essay writing and tutorial discussion; through the innovative conceptualising of problems and an appreciation of the role of creativity in critical analysis;

• acquire skills in social, ethical and cultural understanding through the use of recommended reading, essay writing and tutorial discussion; through the social contextualisation of arguments and judgments; through adaptations of knowledge to new situations and openness to new ideas; through the development of critical self-awareness in relation to an understanding of other cultures and practices;

• acquire skills in intelligent and effective communication of knowledge and ideas through essay preparation, planning and writing as well as tutorial discussion; through effective dissemination of ideas from recommended reading and other relevant information sources; through clear definition of areas of inquiry and methods of research; through confidence to express ideas in public forums;

• acquire skills in time management and planning through the successful organization of workloads; through disciplined self-direction and the ability to meet deadlines.

Written work totaling 4000 words comprising a 1500 word essay 40% (due mid-semester) and a 2500 word essay 60% (due at the end of the semester). A hurdle requirement of attendance at a minimum of nine tutorials will operate in order to pass the subject.

A subject reader including theoretical and critical materials by Benedict Anderson, Marilyn Butler, Eric O. Clarke, Michel Foucault, Jon Klancher, Jacqueline Rose, Michael Warner and Raymond Williams will be available from the University Bookshop.

• Lord Byron, The Major Works. Oxford World's Classics.
• William Godwin, Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Broadview.
• John Keats, The Complete Poems. Penguin.
• Caroline Lamb, Glenarvon. Everyman.
• Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey an Crotchet Castle. Penguin.
• Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Major Works. Oxford World's Classics.
• Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman. Norton.