Gender and Imagination in Victorian Poetry

Credits: 15.0
Overlap: None
Prerequisite: None

"Gender and Imagination in Victorian Poetry' examines a variety of different approaches to the visual,
aesthetics, gender and sexuality in Victorian poetry. It explores connections between these areas and
their significance to ideas of the poet and poetry in the Victorian period.

The module focuses on major male and female poets of the period - Tennyson, Browning, Barrett Browning,
Swinburne, Christina Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Thomas Hardy - but it also examines poems by less
well-known figures such as Augusta Webster, May Probyn and Amy Levy. Related prose writings by
John Stuart Mill, Walter Pater, John Ruskin and the poets themselves are also included, and are provided in
extract form in the modulepack. Subjects for exploration include Victorian poets' treatment of the
epipsyche (the beloved as reflection of the self), the feminisation of the nineteenth-century male
poet, ideas and images of the female artist, and the significance of the figure of the I fallen woman' .

Assessment: 100.0% Coursework
Level: 6