Sensibility Romanticism

AY2020/2021 Semester 1

The Age of Sensibility and Romanticism witnessed a surge of interest in emotional responsiveness, imagination, and individual subjectivity. These inward explorations coincided with a series of political, cultural, and philosophical debates that reconfigured public life and continue to shape our modern sensibilities. Taking taxonomy as an overall theme, this course begins by delineating approaches to perception, articulation, and emotion that emerged during the long eighteenth century. Following this, we will examine seminal texts by William Wordsworth and Jane Austen before embarking on a series of thematic lectures on the city, education and children's books, and the pleasures and pains of opium. In order to reflect the diversity of print culture between 1740 and 1820, this course explores a variety of primary source material. Literary works, such as poetry and fiction, will be examined alongside pedagogical theory and discourses on elocution and aesthetics. Throughout the course, we will consider our own experience as readers of eighteenth-century and Romantic texts in relation to reading practice during the period. How did rising literacy rates and innovations in textual production and circulation influence literary form, genre, and taste?