English - Free topic E: Gender and Wilde Victorian verse: Oscar Wilde and the Poetry of his Contemporaries

Course content

This elective course consists of two parts. The first part focuses on the writings of Oscar Wilde, while the second part hones in on some of Wilde’s most important near-contemporaries and how they shaped the nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century poetry. The two parts are taught by Lene Østermark-Johansen and Charles Lock respectively.

 

Part 1: The Writings of Oscar Wilde (Lene Østermark-Johansen):

The general view of Oscar Wilde is that he was one of the wittiest dandies of the late nineteenth century, known for his epigrams, his comedies, and his charismatic public persona. This course aims to give students an introduction to the complexities of Wilde’s writing and his engagement with the literature both of the past and of fin-de-siècle Europe. We will study a broad range of Wilde’s writings: his poetry, his short fiction, his journalism, his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, his plays and his autobiographical De Profundis, written while he was imprisoned in Reading Gaol. Issues such as hellenism, renaissance revival, new men and women, cosmopolitanism and the complex interrelationship between art and life will be discussed, as we position Wilde in a decadent European context which has plenty of resonance with issues of gender, identity, the relation of art in society which engage us today.

 

Part 2: Gender in / verse (Charles Lock):

A study of nineteenth century and early twentieth-century poetry by near-

contemporaries of Oscar Wilde. We will look at selected poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61), Robert Browning (1812-89), Walt Whitman (1819-92), Emily Dickinson (1830-86), Christina Rossetti (1830-94), Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89), Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) and others. The emphasis will be on close reading, with attentiveness to gender: pronounswill not be ignored. Critical and theoretical texts will be used throughout.

Education

Engelsk

Lectures, class discussions, student presentations, pair work, group work, writing exercises

The basic course book for Lene’s course will be:
The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, introduction by Merlin Holland (London: HarperCollins, 2003) ISBN 0007144350 (ISBN13: 9780007144358)
In addition, students are also asked to purchase
Walter Pater, Studies in the History of the Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), ISBN: 9780199535071
Joris-Karl Huysmans, Against Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), ISBN: 9780199555116


For Charles’s course all material will be available online.

This course only leads to exams Free Topic 4 with Written and Oral Proficiency in English.

Kurset kan også bruges som Frit emne under Kandidatdelen af sidefaget i engelsk 2020.

Oral
Individual
Collective
Continuous feedback during the course of the semester
Feedback by final exam (In addition to the grade)
Peer feedback (Students give each other feedback)
ECTS
15 ECTS
Type of assessment
Other
Examination prerequisites
This course only leads to exams Free Topic 4 with Written and Oral Proficiency in English.
Aid
Only certain aids allowed (see description below)

HENK04494E: Alle, dog ikke internet, digitale noter eller andre former for tekst, der kan kopieres og indsættes digitalt i eksamensbesvarelsen.

HENK04495E: Alle, dog ikke internet, digitale noter eller andre former for tekst, der kan kopieres og indsættes digitalt i eksamensbesvarelsen.  

HENK04496E: Alle.

Criteria for exam assessment

Single subject courses (day)

  • Category
  • Hours
  • Class Instruction
  • 56
  • Preparation
  • 353,5
  • English
  • 409,5

Kursusinformation

Language
English
Course number
HENKE2505U
ECTS
15 ECTS
Programme level
Full Degree Master
Master’s minor subject
Duration

1 semester

Placement
Autumn
Price

Dette er et kursus via tompladsordningen mod betaling på Åbent Universitet. Tilmeld dig og se aktuel prisoversigt på denne side.

Schedulegroup
See schedule
Studyboard
Study board of English, Germanic and Romance Studies
Contracting department
  • Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies
Contracting faculty
  • Faculty of Humanities
Course Coordinators
  • Charles Lock   (4-6f72666e436b7870316e7831676e)
  • Lene Østermark-Johansen   (7-756b797a6b7873466e7b7334717b346a71)
Saved on the 08-05-2025

Are you BA- or KA-student?

Are you bachelor- or kandidat-student, then find the course in the course catalog for students:

Courseinformation of students