Romantics: Nature, Self and Society

Looking at the eighteenth century in English writing, known as Romanticism. 

This course will introduce you to the much-anthologised and widely studied period of English Literary history: the period of 1780 – 1830 which is important evolution of key ideas that we encounter in literature. These ideas, such as the the notion of authorship, the idea of a public sphere and readers, and ideas of what counts as imaginative writing, have shaped much of following periods in literary times and people outside the Canon. In addition to reading the work of English Romantics, we will also look at the contexts in which they emerged, which tells us more about the the time and the literature they wrote, and will help us probe ideas of the Romantic genius’ and historicise the ideas that supported their ideologies. A key part of this course is to see how the Romanticism of England impacted and influenced India and literature here, and nationalist and progressive literatures of the early twentieth century.