Victorian Radicals, Revolution & Reform (ENGL20025)

This subject introduces nineteenth century political writing, tracing the cultures of radicalism, reaction and liberal reform that punctuated Queen Victoria’s reign. It focuses on the age of mass resistance, and the often fearful reactions that dissent inspired in social and political elites. Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities exemplifies the terror reverberating throughout the Victorian period, with its graphic crowd scenes and depictions of an underclass in revolt. We will examine literary responses to political issues including Chartism, European Revolutions, the Indian Mutiny‚ working-class radicalism, the Irish Question, and the emergence of the women’s movement. Students will address the rise of realism and its overtly political agenda. They will consider fiction, poetry and political prose to discover how these different media informed each other. Students will encounter polemical writing alongside well-known canonical texts to gain an overview of the political climate of the long Victorian period. On completion of this subject students will have gained an understanding of how this time of great change and uncertainty was captured in poetry and prose.