Literature and Politics in Britain 1890-1940 William Roberts, The Vorticists at the Restaurant de la Tour Eiffel: Spring, 1915 Dr Tom Villis
This course will engage with the ways in which British writers both shaped and reflected the politics of their country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Necessarily interdisciplinary, this course will provide fascinating insights into the ways in which the modern nation was imagined. We will investigate the difficulties in using literary documents as historical sources and discuss the ways in which scholars have tackled this subject. The course as a whole will engage with wider questions which have been the focus of academic controversy in a number of disciplines such as the role of literary intellectuals in British culture, the making of literary reputations, the responsibilities of the writer and the influence of extraparliamentary ideas on the formation of political debate. Introductory Reading List P. Fussell, The Great War in Modern Memory (Oxford, 1981) J. Giles and T. Middleton, Writing Englishness 1900-1950 (London, 1995) A. Julius, T.S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism and Literary Form (Cambridge, 1995) W. Martin, The New Age Under Orage: Chapters in English Cultural History (Manchester, 1967) V. Cunningham, British Writers of the Thirties (Oxford, 1989) S. Collini, Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain (Oxford, 2006) T. Villis, Reaction and the Avant-Garde: the revolt against liberal democracy in early twentieth-century Britain (London, 2005) J.M. Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: the Great War in European cultural history (Cambridge, 1995) Schedule Lecture 1 Introduction to the course; ways of studying literature and politics; introducing the state and the nation Lecture 2 British political traditions Seminar 1 Visions of the state: the Fabian Society and its critics G.B. Shaw, Fabian Essays Twenty Years Later (Reader) Lecture 3 The New Age and The New Witness: literary periodicals and politics Articles on the Chesterbelloc controversy (Reader)
W. Martin, The New Age Under Orage: Chapters in English Cultural History (Manchester, 1967) T. Villis, Reaction and the Avant-Garde: the revolt against liberal democracy in early twentieth-century Britain (London, 2005) Articles by Hulme in the reader Lecture 4 T.E. Hulme and the politics of literary modernism Seminar 2 The New Age and literary politics Presentation on the political themes in any article chosen from the New Age digital archive Lecture 5 Vorticism and Futurism Extracts from Blast and The Futurist Manifesto (Reader) Poems in the reader Seminar 3 Poetry and the First World War The Waste Land (reader) Lecture 6 Britain and the First World War Seminar 4 Eliot and politics (1): The Waste Land Lecture 7 Eliot and politics (2): Anti-Semitism
Selected poems (reader) K. Asher, T.S. Eliot and Ideology (Cambridge, 1995) Seminar 5 Yeats, nationalism and fascism Selected poems (reader) E. Cullingford, Yeats, Ireland and Fascism (London, 1981) C.C. O Brien, Passion and Cunning and Other Essays (London, 1988) Lecture 8 MIDTERM TEST Lecture 9 The Spanish Civil War from the Left Selected poems from the reader T. Buchanan, Britain and the Spanish Civil War (Cambridge, 1997) G. Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (any edition) V. Cunningham, British Writers of the Thirties (Oxford, 1989) Extracts from Flowering Rifle (Reader) Lecture 10 The Spanish Civil War from the Right Seminar 6 Fascism and Communism in inter-war literature Seminar 7 Interwar visions of national identity
Selected extracts (reader) R. Colls, Identity of England (London, 2004) J. Giles and T. Middleton, Writing Englishness 1900-1950 (London, 1995) Selected extracts (reader) Lecture 11 1940 and national identity Lecture 12 Papers due; discussion of the evolution of British national identity Seminar 8 Revision Exam
Essays Write 2000 words on one of the following questions: How were early twentieth-century politics of state intervention reflected in the arguments between the Fabians and the Distributists? Trace the evolving conception of the relationship between the individual and the nation in the poetry of the First World War. To what extent is The Waste Land an entirely pessimistic vision of western culture? To what extent is T.S. Eliot s anti-semitism irrelevant to his poetry? Is it in any sense fair to call Yeats a fascist? Analyse the ways in which support for either side in the Spanish civil war was reflected in British poetry of the nineteen-thirties. Analyse the competing images of national identity in inter-war British literature. Alternatively, you can choose you own topic relevant to the themes of the course. If you do this, please agree the subject with me by mid-term. The essay in due at the beginning of the final week of term Calculating the Overall Final Grade: Term paper: 45% Final exam: 45% Attendance and mid-term: 10% Grading Scale: Cambridge % US Equivalent First 70-100 A Upper Second 65-69 A- 60-64 B+ Lower Second 55-59 B 50-54 B- Third 45-49 C+ 40-44 C