Victorian Poetry

Catalog description

This course explores British poetry from 1830 to 1900 as a literature of crisis and transformation. The Victorian period is not stable. Faith begins to fracture, science reshapes belief, empire expands with real human cost, and gender roles tighten even as they are challenged. We will read both canonical poets and voices often pushed to the margins, treating ideas like “separate spheres” and emerging concepts of sexuality as contested spaces where identity and power are actively negotiated. Along the way, we ask: how do poets write under pressure, and what does it mean to speak ethically inside unstable systems? This is a discussion-driven class built on close reading, real debate, and collaborative thinking, where Victorian poetry becomes a way to test urgent questions that still press on us now.