Browse Hierarchy ESH7030: Aestheticism and Fin de Siecle Literature

"This module introduces students to developments in the literature of the late Victorian period with an eye to its possible influences on modernist writing. Students are encouraged to explore such issues as the construction of the self and personality, representation of the body, the role of the artist with reference to gender and sexuality, Decadence, and the 'New Woman', as well as making a more general survey of aesthetics, style, and the visual and literary imagination in the writings of the period. Students study a variety of different kinds of writing including poetry, drama, art and literary criticism, and the novel. Writers included are Swinburne, Pater, Wilde, and Hardy, and lesser known figures such as Vernon Lee and Charlotte Mew."