British Literature II: Revolution, Reaction, Reform examines British literature from the late eighteenth century to the present, a period that witnessed the American and French Revolutions, slave revolts such as the Haitian Revolution, a “revolution in female manners,” the Industrial Revolution, the twentieth-century revolutionary wave in Europe, as well as World War I and World War II, and, of course, artistic revolutions. We will consider how the authors and literary works of this period might be reacting to change, advocating for reform, or participating in literary revolutions—whether revolution is understood in the sense of “revolving” or of “revolting,” going full circle to return to a previous (more perfect?) time or experiencing/effecting a great alteration or rupture.

We'll be using the following texts at COVE Studio in the anthology British Literature II (MSSU), Spring 2021:

William Wordsworth, "We Are Seven"
William Wordsworth, "Tintern Abbey"
William Wordsworth, "I wandered lonely as a cloud"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Eolian Harp"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Metrical Feet"
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Robert Browning, "Porphyria's Lover"
Robert Browning, "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister"
Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess"
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Lady of Shalott"
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Charge of the Light Brigade"
Thomas Hood, "The Song of the Shirt"
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "The Cry of the Children"
Rupert Brooke, "The Soldier"
Virginia Woolf, "The Mark on the Wall"
T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
W. H. Auden, "Musée des Beaux Arts"
Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"

The digital edition of North and South for the map project can be found here:

Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South