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Latest Module Specifications

Current Academic Year 2025 - 2026

Module Title 19th Century Literature
Module Code LIT1025 (ITS: EL204)
Faculty English School Humanities & Social Sciences
NFQ level 8 Credit Rating 5
Description

This course aims to introduce students to literary works of the nineteenth-century by exploring predominately British and American works of fiction, poetry and drama of the period. This module will contextualize selective writers and works in terms of the historical and social context from which they emerged, and explore what they reveal about the anxieties and aspirations of the nineteenth century – from Romanticism to Victorianism.

Learning Outcomes

1. Outline the main thematic concerns of nineteenth-century British and American literature.
2. Recognise the variety of forms adopted by British and American literary artists of the period.
3. Compare and contrast nineteenth-century literature with literature of earlier and later eras.
4. Relate individual novels, poems and plays to the historical, cultural and socio-political context of nineteenth- century Britain and America.
5. Discuss literary developments of the period such as romantic subjectivity and idealism; individualism; gothic-revivalism, aestheticism and decadence; melodrama, realism and naturalism; ratiocination and detective fiction.


WorkloadFull time hours per semester
TypeHoursDescription
Lecture21Lectures
Tutorial3Tutorials
Independent Study101Independent Learning
Total Workload: 125
Section Breakdown
CRN20650Part of TermSemester 2
Coursework0%Examination Weight0%
Grade Scale40PASSPass Both ElementsY
Resit CategoryRC1Best MarkN
Module Co-ordinatorJames ShanahanModule TeacherAllison Hudson, Michael Hinds
Section Breakdown
CRN21315Part of TermSemester 2
Coursework0%Examination Weight0%
Grade Scale40PASSPass Both ElementsY
Resit CategoryRC1Best MarkN
Module Co-ordinatorModule Teacher
Assessment Breakdown
TypeDescription% of totalAssessment Date
EssayEssay25%n/a
Formal ExaminationExam75%End-of-Semester
Reassessment Requirement Type
Resit arrangements are explained by the following categories;
RC1: A resit is available for both* components of the module.
RC2: No resit is available for a 100% coursework module.
RC3: No resit is available for the coursework component where there is a coursework and summative examination element.

* ‘Both’ is used in the context of the module having a coursework/summative examination split; where the module is 100% coursework, there will also be a resit of the assessment

Pre-requisite None
Co-requisite None
Compatibles None
Incompatibles None

All module information is indicative and subject to change. For further information,students are advised to refer to the University's Marks and Standards and Programme Specific Regulations at: http://www.dcu.ie/registry/examinations/index.shtml

Indicative Content and Learning Activities

Jane Austen Mansfield Park (1814)

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)

Charles Dickens Oliver Twist (1838)

Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol (1843)

Edgar Allan Poe, Selection of Short Stories (1840s)

Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights (1847)

Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter (1850)

Dion Boucicault, The Colleen Bawn (1860)

George Eliot, Middlemarch (1871)

Mark Twain Huckleberry Finn (1884)

Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘No worst, there is none’ (1885)

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)

.---The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

Stephen Crane The Red Badge of Courage (1891)

H.G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895)

Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897)

Kate Chopin The Awakening (1899)

Arthur Conan Doyle, Selection of Sherlock Holmes Stories (1890s-1905)

Indicative Reading List

Books:
  • Arata, Stephen D.: 1990, ‘The Occidental Tourist: Dracula and the Anxiety of Reverse Colonization’,, no. 4, Victorian Studies 33,,
  • Armstrong, Nancy: 1987, Desire and Domestic Fiction: a Political History of the Novel, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
  • Craft, Christopher: 1984, “Kiss Me with those Red Lips”: Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker’s Dracula’, Representations, No. 8,
  • David, Deirdre: 2000, The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
  • Eagleton, Terry: 2005, The English Novel: An Introduction, Blackwell, New Jersey,
  • Eagleton, Terry: 2005, Holy Terror, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
  • Gilbert, Sandra M.: 1978, ‘Horror’s Twin: Mary Shelley’s Monstrous Eve’ Feminist Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2, Toward a Feminist Theory of Motherhood,
  • Hogle, Jerrold E.: 2002, The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
  • Moretti, Franco: 1982, ‘The Dialectic of Fear’, New Left Review 136,
  • Moretti, Franco: 2006, The Novel (2 vols), Princeton University Press, Princeton, NY,
  • Powell, Kerry (ed): 2004, The Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
  • Richards, Bernard Arthur: 1988, English Poetry of the Victorian Period, 1830-1890, Longman, Harlow, United Kingdom,
  • Stevens, David: 2000, The Gothic Tradition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
  • Tucker, Herbert F.: 1998, A Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture, Blackwell, New Jersey,
  • Wheeler, Michael: 1994, English Fiction of the Victorian Period, 1830-1890, Longman, London,


Articles:
None
Other Resources

None

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