Premise:
I could have said “Hopes and Fears” but the simple premise of the course would be the same: that the hopes and fears, the anxiety and aspiration of entire societies emerge from the same source. Utopian hopes are inspired by the same stimuli that inform most dire anxieties of the age. Each reveals the other, and each will give us access to the common culture of a period. In this case our subject is England in the 19th century when that small island of the NW coast of Europe owned the largest empire and the most powerful navy in the world; it was home to the largest city, and it was the primary source of new technologies, industrial production and fossil fuels in the world. And, as we know, all of those claims come with a penalty. We will look to the rich literary production of the period for demonstration of our premise . . . and for the pleasure that comes with reading its major authors. Lecture, discussion, and short essays written in and out of class.

Texts:

• Mary Shelley. Frankenstein. Dover Thrift Ed. [0 486 28211 2]
• Charles Dickens. Great Expectations. Penguin Classics. [0 141 43956 4]
• John Ruskin. On Art and Life. Penguin Books: Great Ideas series. [0 14 303628 9]
• R. L. Stevenson. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dover Thrift Edition. [9780486 266 886]
• John Stuart Mill. On Liberty and other writings. Cambridge U Press. [0 521 37917 2]