ENG 391, 392 - Decadence: The Literature of the 1890s

Course unit(s): 1
Meets requirement: W when offered as 392
England in the 1890s was a place of great anxiety about a number of explosive issues. The power of the old imperial regime - and the stability of the Victorian ethos - were increasingly threatened by colonial insurrections; advancements in science, technology, and psychology; the collapse of a puritanical sexual order and the emergence of new sexualities; the political and social empowerment of women; various social and economic uncertainties; and the radically new aesthetic politics of the “art for art’s sake” movement. The course will focus on cultural texts such as Max Nordau’s Degeneration and various tracts about the “New Woman,” popular novels like Grant Allen’s The Woman Who Did, as well as more canonical literature like Conrad’s Heart of Darkness; Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds; and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Salomé. Satisfies departmental Poetry or Prose requirement.