Victorian Femininities: the Myths, the Power, the Politics

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
• Convenor and tutor: Dr Victoria Mills
• Assessment: a 5000-word essay (100%)

In this module we will study a range of sources including novels, poetry, essays and paintings to explore debates about the Woman Question as they developed during the second half of the nineteenth century.

The module is divided into four blocks. The first explores two Victorian female archetypes - the Fallen Woman and her ‘ideal’ counterpart - and introduces you to some critical methodologies for studying the representation of women in both Victorian literature and art. Block two considers the relationship between women and work and includes a visit to Senate House Library to explore Victorian periodicals, while block three examines the emergence of women writers linked to the decadent movement in art and literature. Block four explores the late-Victorian marriage question and related debates about female sexuality through a range of periodical material (letters and essays) and through a reading of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles and some New Woman short stories.

Indicative syllabus

• Elizabeth Gaskell’s Ruth (1853)
• A selection of paintings depicting the ‘ideal’ and ‘fallen’ woman
• Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891)
• Periodical essays and letters by Francis Power Cobbe, W.R. Gregg, Harry Quilter, Mona Caird
• A selection of Vernon Lee’s ghost stories

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• understand how the Victorians debated and contested female identity and how this changed across the nineteenth century
• examine a range of nineteenth-century art and literature and show how it represents femininity
• understand femininity in the context of important Victorian debates about evolution, new technologies, politics, art, design and literature
• recognise and understand key critical and interdisciplinary approaches to studying Victorian femininity, including queer theory and recent work on gender and performativity
• undertake independent research into Victorian periodicals using online databases and archival collections.