The following materials are drawn from a Romantic literature course I recently designed for English majors. This course had several practical and pedagogical goals: first, it needed to provide a broad introduction to Romanticism for students who may have had no previous introduction to the period; second, as a non-required elective (subject to cancellation for under-enrollment), it had to appeal to students and engage even those who believed they had little interest in historically-focused classes. I chose to approach both of these goals by structuring the class around the idea of Romantic relationships; that is, the interlocking web of connections—between friends and lovers, writers and publishers, artists and scientists; authors and readers—that so much recent scholarship has illuminated but which, in my experience, is less commonly explored in the undergraduate classroom.

In order to bring my own sense of a richly interconnected Romantic period to my students, I made two major changes from past versions of Romantic survey courses I’ve taught: 1) In addition to the major primary texts, I added substantial readings from two group biographies, Hays’ Young Romantics and Holmes’ Age of Wonder, to the syllabus, carefully selecting the timing and content of the excerpts to illustrate or problematize key ideas from the readings and/or lecture. We also reflected explicitly on the genre of biography and considered how (and whether) biographical information should affect our understanding of literary works through discussion and written assignments. 2) I added a substantial archival research project, which allowed students to learn more about the research process, encounter Romantic print culture in a more direct way, and have the experience of making their own discoveries about the way that key events were discussed in the period.

I found both parts of this experiment to be highly successful: students loved the biographies, and while I had some concerns that their preoccupation with topics like the love lives of the poets might distract them from actually reading these authors’ works, this did not prove to be the case. They were extremely engaged with all of the readings and, over the course of the semester, became strong critical readers of biography as well as poetry, debating questions like, “what kinds of sources would the biographer have used to uncover this anecdote?” and “should this change the way we think about the poetry the author wrote around this time?” The excerpts from The Age of Wonder, in addition, allowed them to think about Romantic writing not as literary work in isolation, but as part of a broader project of knowledge production and exploration in the period. In a lecture pairing Blake’s “Chimney Sweeper” poems with a chapter on Humphry Davy’s groundbreaking invention of a non- flammable mining lamp, for instance, we considered the different ways that Romantic culture discussed workers’ rights; and students were easily able to perceive the connections between Romantic writings against the British slave trade and the rhetoric of empire used to justify Mungo Park’s African explorations. The Byronic hero made sense to them within the context of periodical celebrity gossip, but also as a figure—the solitary, brooding adventurer—relating to English Romantic interest in travel and the celebrity status of explorers like Joseph Banks. Students interested in human and civil rights were fascinated by the way these discourses were developing in the Romantic period; having the additional biographical and print cultural background seemed to allow them to draw more connections between nineteenth-century poems and their own experiences than I’ve observed in the past.

By the time we arrived at the “Romanticism In the News” assignment, students were well-accustomed to lectures featuring images from first editions of texts, Romantic magazine articles, and similar sources, and they had a solid historical grounding in the major events of the period. As they began their research and carried out the assignment [see assignment sheet appended below] they quickly gained a whole new perspective on dealing with historical sources (this in turn vastly increased their appreciation for the accomplishments of the biographers) and felt the thrill of making their own discoveries, as well as the inevitable frustration of digging through sources without success. They produced an array of fascinating and largely very successful papers, on topics ranging from the critical reception of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano to discussions of medical issues such as smallpox inoculation and opium addiction, to English news coverage of the execution of Marie Antoinette.

While I will continue to make adjustments to future iterations of the course, both the biographical and archival focus will remain: they were successful in engaging my students, but also in giving them a more compelling and nuanced view of the Romantic period, its literature, and the original sources from which we learn about the lives and works of influential historical figures. In other words, these approaches helped the class to read Romantic literature as deeply imbedded in a fascinating cultural context, and to become more critical readers, ones who constantly question not just what we know about the past, but how we know it, and what we might do with that knowledge.

W Sep 6 Welcome and Introduction to the Romantic Period

I: Romantic Revolutions

M Sep 11 Thomas Paine, from Common Sense and The Rights of Man, pp. 24–28; Mary Wollstonecraft, from Vindication of the Rights of Man & V. of the Rights of Woman pp. 281–89.
W Sep 13 William Godwin, from Political Justice, 155–59, A.L. Barbauld, The Rights of Woman, pp. 44–45.

M Sep 18 Ann Yearsley, “A Poem on the Insensibility of the Slave Trade,” pp. 165–74; A.L. Barbauld, “Epistle to William Wilberforce, Esq.” pp. 41–44. Olaudah Equiano, from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (BB, 5 pp.)
W Sep 20 Holmes, “Mungo Park in Africa,” Age of Wonder (AOW), pp. 211–34.

M Sep 25 William Wordsworth & S.T. Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads (1798) pp. 333–415
W Sep 27 Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800), pp. 506–18.

II: Romantic Print Culture

M Oct 2 Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, pp. 186–212
W Oct 4 Holmes, “Davy and the Lamp” AOW pp. 351–75
PAPER 1 DUE FRIDAY, OCT 7 at 5 pm

M Oct 9 John Thelwall, pp. 322–26, Leigh Hunt, “to Percy Shelley” p. 826, Hay, Young Romantics (YR), “Husbands” and “Wives and Mistresses” pp. 3–68
W Oct 11 Byron, Don Juan, Canto 1, pp. 959–1015; excerpts from Childe Harold (BB)

M Oct 16 Mary Robinson, from “The Wild Wreath” 261–5
W Oct 18 Holmes, “Joseph Banks in Paradise” pp. 1–59

M Oct 23 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein Vols. 1 & 2
W Oct 25 Frankenstein Vol. 3

M Oct 30 Holmes, AOW, “Dr Frankenstein and the Soul,” 305–36
W Nov 1 Digital Database Workshop – No reading, bring your topics and sources

III: Romantic Imagination

M Nov 6 S.T. Coleridge, “The Eolian Harp” 621–25 + Charlotte Smith, Sonnet I, p. 88
W Nov 8 Shelley, Mont Blanc, pp. 1104–7 + Edmund Burke, from A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (BB)
PAPER 2 DUE at 5 pm

M Nov 13 Keats, Odes, pp. 1462–90 & Charlotte Smith, Sonnet III, p. 89
W Nov 15 Hay, YR, “Counts and Cockneys” and “Exiles,” pp. 141–94

M Nov 20 Hogg, Confessions of a Justified Sinner, “The Editor’s Narrative,” pp. 5–72
W Nov 22 HOLIDAY, UNIVERSITY CLOSED: Watch Bright Star on your own and bring completed film reflection sheet to class on the 27th.

M Nov 27 Hogg, Confessions of a Justified Sinner, “Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Sinner Written by Himself” pp. 73–177
W Nov 29 Hogg, Confessions of a Justified Sinner, “The Editor’s Narrative,” pp. 178–end.
PAPER 3 DUE FRIDAY, DEC 1 at 5 pm

M Dec 4 Thomas De Quincey, from Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, 835–44
W Dec 6 Romantic Generations (no reading)

M Dec 11 Course Wrap-Up and Celebration Thursday, December 14: Final Exam