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Meet Johnson, Addison, Austen, Wilde and Many More on ‘Literature of
the English Country House’!
By Dr Adam James
Smith, Co-Lead Educator on the Literature of the English Country House
The School of English at the University of Sheffield have just launched
‘TheLiterature of the English Country House’, a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) tracing the literary history of the English
country house through over 450 years of writing. This free course explores the
literature of some of our most celebrated authors. These include famous authors
like Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, as well as writers you might be less
familiar with, like Joseph Addison and Georgina Duchess of Devonshire. It has
been written and presented by a team of researchers in the School of English,
and we’ll all be taking part in online videos, discussions and live-broadcasts
over the next six weeks.
The course first ran in 2014, but
this time round we’ve been able to add a wealth of new material. Last time, the
emphasis on the course was firmly on developing skills in literary analysis. This
time we also want to demonstrate some of the ways you can build on this initial
interpretation. Each week we’ll be exploring a different ‘Research Approach.’
We’ll also be regularly consulting material in the University Library Special Collections Archive to find out what
this literature looked like when it was first published (click here to get a closer look at these
Special Collection).
Beginning our journey in the
sixteenth century, we first approach the country house from the perspective of
the tenants, learning that the country house at this time was more than a
building. We’ll then consider the country house from the contrasting
perspectives of servants, travelling players and residents: a task which
requires learners to examine less familiar forms of literature, such as
play-texts, manuscripts and literary letters.
It is likely the third week (starting
13th July), however, that will most excite guests at Madame Gilflurt’s
Salon. We’ll be stepping outside of the country house to explore the world that
it occupied and discovering what it was that the aristocracy was reading at the
dawn of the 18th century. We learn all about the politeness, politics and
sociability that dominated the coffee houses of the city and trace their
influence back to the country house through the writing of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. On the 16th July there
will a special live broadcast
during you’ll have the opportunity to
pose questions to both Professor Susan Fitzamaurice and myself on the subject
of politeness and sociability in the 18th-century country house (bookmark this page if you’d like to join us).
From there we’ll see how the
periodical and serialised print of eighteenth-century London informed the emergence
of a new kind of literature: the novel. We’ll spend a week with Jane Austen,
exploring the role of the country house in Pride
and Prejudice. An appreciation of Austen’s use of intertextuality will lead
us to Ann Radcliffe and the Gothic
novel, Mysteries of Udolpho, where we’ll
find the country house and its malevolent owner taking on a more sinister
aspect. Likewise, in Charles Dickens’s
Great Expectations we’ll meet met the
haunting Miss Havisham, whose insistence on stasis won’t hide the fact that rot
has begun to set in at the English Country House. Antiquated and in decline, we’ll
finally see the country house become host to an actual haunting in Oscar
Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost.
If you like reading and
discussing literature and you have an interest in the fascinating literary
history of the English country house then this is doubtlessly the course for
you, I look forward to meeting you on the platform!
To sign up for free, click here: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/country-house-literature
To view the first step, click
here: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/country-house-literature-2/steps/24832?utm_campaign=Share+Links&utm_medium=futurelearn-open_step&utm_source=twitter
This post copyright © Adam Smith, 2015.
Sounds wonderful! I wish someone would invent the teleport machine! :-(
ReplyDeleteIt's an online course and you can join at anytime, so no teleport required! :-D
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