ENGL53830: Literary Masculinity at the Fin-de-Siecle

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• to examine the different ways in which masculinity might be 'performed' in literature from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth;
• to investigate the nature of the construction of such categories as 'masculine' and 'effeminate', focusing particularly on the association of the former with imperialism, violence and sport, and the latter with high culture;

• Britain in the 1890s contained, for instance, both Oscar Wilde and Rudyard Kipling, and the module will consider a range of texts from decadent poetry to adventure stories, alongside such historical and cultural themes as Empire, violence, pathology, homosexuality and sport. Other writers that might be considered include Edward Carpenter, Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stephenson, George Gissing, E M Forster, John Buchan and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
• Texts - and given the nature of this topic, fiction in particular - will be read from the point of view of how versions of masculinity are created textually. The role that literature has played in the history of English masculinity will also be investigated, such as the literary afterlife of Oscar Wilde, or the relationship between the creation of Imperial ideology and boys' stories. It is not necessarily intended to reach a consensus on the 'essential nature' of Late Victorian and Edwardian masculinity, but rather to plot the movements and strategies of this textual aspect of gender within the works and historical period examined

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• to possess detailed knowledge of a literary topic across a fixed historical period;

Subject-specific Skills:

• to assess and deploy a range of theoretical approaches to the study of gender;
• to synthesise a critical reading from non-fictional discourses both historical and theoretical alongside imaginative literature;

Key Skills:

• Through a variety of teaching activities and approaches, seminars will facilitate the development of communication and critical skills. Sessions will introduce broad topics and genres, contexts and frameworks to aid conceptual understanding and specific texts for analysis as well as encourage individual interpretation and enquiry. Two summative assignments will assess the competencies and outcomes outlined above and foster advanced independent study.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning student(s) an issue, theme or topic that can be independently or collectively explored within a framework and/or with additional materials provided by the tutor. This may function as preparatory work for presenting their ideas or findings (sometimes electronically) to their peers and tutor in the context of a seminar.

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