Department of English and Humanities
Module Information Sheet
©Birkbeck, University of London
Victorian Emotions
Module Code
Credits/Level
Module Convenor
Department
AREN002S7
30 credits/ Level 7
Dr Carolyn Burdett
English & Humanities
Term and Class Times
Wednesday 6.00-7.20pm
Synopsis
Learning Aims and Objectives
This course will explore a range of ways in which
emotions are important in studying the Victorian
period. It will consider the extent to which
emotions are historical: what evidence is there
that emotions are experienced, discussed, or
represented in historically specific ways? What
are the languages of feeling which the Victorians
inherit, and how are these languages
transformed? How are key terms like sentiment
and sympathy deployed and discussed? How do
the processes of secularization taking place
during the nineteenth century shape ideas about
and experiences of feeling? How do Darwinian
and other forms of scientific thought affect the
ways in which emotions are understood?
For the Victorians, as for us, cultural forms are
often the means through which emotions are
given shape and made communicable. The
course also investigates the diverse ways in
which the Victorians articulated and shared
emotional experience, as both producers and
consumers of culture. In examining the
Victorians’ emotional responses we will also
need to consider what methodologies of reading
or viewing are at work when studying emotions,
including the effects of our own emotional
responses.
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Examine diverse ways in which ‘emotion’
emerges as a historical category in the
Victorian period;
Understand that this is an interdisciplinary
process by reading a variety of scientific,
philosophic, literary, periodical and other
texts;
Examine how the Victorians debated and
contested the moral, intellectual and other
values/meanings of emotions;
Examine how the Victorians used art and
literature to produce feeling/emotion;
Explore the methodological challenges and
possibilities of ‘feeling’ as a form of critical
response to literature and art
Coursework/Assessment
Component
Essay
Basic Requirements
5,000 words
Weighting
100%
For primary and secondary reading list please refer to the programme handbook.