ENGL 7056 Victorian Crises

We tend to regard Britain in the nineteenth century, with its economic success and imperial expansion, as a time of stability and prosperity. But its own people regarded it quite differently: as a time of rapid and confusing change in class structure, gender roles, education, literacy, religious faith, and the fabric of the nation. Literature sought to explain and discuss these changes. The course reads a broad swath of these Victorian materials--not just poems and fictions, but letters, autobiographies, diaries, and polemic writing--to investigate this period.