HENA0363EU Engelsk - Frit emne: Romanticism

This course will explore the literature of Romanticism, which arose in the context of the revolutions in America and France. The Romantic era was not only an age of revolutions in a political sense, however; it also ushered in a fascination with various forms of transgression: religious, social, sexual, aesthetic, and mental. For example, we will look at the prophetic art of William Blake, whose attacks on conventional religion (through a highly original combination of text and picture) shocked his contemporaries. Like Blake, a number of Romantics fell under the spell of fantastic ideas and visions. In a number of the texts to be examined, the opening up of a creative channel finds a focus in the use of drugs or other ways of inducing a heightened state of consciousness. We will also have a chance to familiarise ourselves with the psychological and moral destabilisation of norms in the Gothic novel and the confessional autobiography. In relation to these and other controversial works, we will discuss questions of female delinquency and gender transgressions. Throughout the course, the reading of texts and pictures will be supported by researches into the historical and cultural currents that underpinned the rise of Romanticism.