English syllabus - Gauhati University

8SEMESTER IIIPAPER 5The Social and Literary Context: The Victorian WorldMarks 100 (80+20) [20 Marks Internal Assessment]. Credits: 8This paper seeks to acquaint students with the contexts of the English literary tradition as it developsin the Victorian age. Students are expected to study the social and literary history of the Victorianworld as a necessary preparation for the texts that they will encounter in Paper VI. They will answer 4questions of 14 marks each (14×4=56) and 4 questions of 6 marks each (4x6=24) based on thethemes, topics and literary movements identified below.The literary history and its context from 1830 to the present times will be studied with special referenceto the following: The Reform Act 1832 ‘The Condition of England’ – Carlyle and Dickens Victorian fiction with reference to the works of Charles Dickens, the Bronte Sisters, GeorgeEliot and Thomas Hardy Prose: Matthew Arnold and John Ruskin Poetry: Tennyson, the Brownings, Arnold, D.G. Rossetti and Christina Rossetti, G. M. Hopkins The Oxford Movement and the Crisis in Religion The Consolidation of the British EmpireRecommended Reading:Alexander, Michael. A History of English Literature, Basingstoke Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000Birch, Dinah ed. The Oxford Companion to English Literature, Oxford: OUP, 2009Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature, Oxford: OUP, 2004Widdowson, Peter . The Palgrave Guide to English Literature and its Contexts 1500-2000, BasingstokeHampshire:Palgrave Macmillan, 2004