The cult of poetry that emerged in British literature of the nineteenth century had great repercussions for female writers, since to write poetry was to lay claim to the highest levels of literary status. This course will study the poetry and poetics of many of the most prominent of Romantic and Victorian women poets and address what poetry meant to its practitioners and readers during this time, whether it meant something different when written by women rather than men, and whether the pedigree and the regard with which poetry was then viewed (above that of essays, novels, or short fiction) might better shape our understanding of these poets' various artistic achievements. Expect readings on women's legal situation in nineteenth-century Britain, on the Woman Question, on domestic abuse ("wife torture") and on the New Woman. Expect as well as a good deal of "feminine" poetry by Felicia Hemans, Letitia Landon, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Alfred Tennyson, George Eliot, Christina Rossetti, and Augusta Webster. The course will assume no prior expertise in poetry or in nineteenth-century literature.