ENGL 3483 X2 Nineteenth-Century Poetry
Dr. Patricia Rigg

In this course we will consider the varied genres of poetry that became increasingly popular during the Victorian period, with a particular emphasis on the ways in which gender shaped formal and thematic approaches to genre. To that end, we’ll read a variety of poetic forms by women and by men, thinking about the ways in which “feminine” and “masculine” enter into the development of specific poetic genres: sonnet sequences by women (EBB’s Sonnets from the Portuguese, Augusta Gregory’s A Woman’s Sonnets) and sonnet sequences by men (George Meredith’s Modern Love, Henry Boker’s Sonnets of Sacred and Profane Love); sections of verse narratives such as EBB’s Aurora Leigh and Tennyson’s Idylls of the King; and other poets who used poetry to address perceived threats to patriarchal values, such as Coventry Patmore’s The Angel in the House.  We will include poets who challenged patriarchal social orders by queering poetry (Michael Field) or by giving voice to outcast speakers such as prostitutes and “fallen women” (Augusta Webster, D. G. Rossetti, and Amy Levy).