This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
This module gives an opportunity for intensive study of one of the major novelists of Victorian England. There are many different views and interpretations of Dickens circulating in our culture. He has been dismissed as a writer of cosy sentimentality, celebrated as a radical critic of his age, and admired for his prodigious output and creative innovation.
Studying a selection of his fiction, we will consider a wide variety of interpretations, in the light of the most current literary criticism of Dickens's works. We will analyse Dickens’s texts in terms of narrative method, genre, characterisation, imagery and book history and – in the process – we will examine how the novels respond to, or challenge, significant aspects of Victorian culture and society such as class, gender, family, nation, childhood, the city, empire, industrialisation, and modernity.
Total contact hours: 32
Private study hours: 268
Total study hours: 300
Main assessment methods
Learning Journal - 2,000 words (30%)
Essay 4,000 words (50%)
Seminar Participation (20%)
Reassessment methods
100% coursework
The University is committed to ensuring that core reading materials are in accessible electronic format in line with the Kent Inclusive Practices. The most up to date reading list for each module can be found on the university's reading list pages: https://kent.rl.talis.com/index.html
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
The intended subject specific learning outcomes.
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
1. demonstrate an informed understanding of the diverse literary achievements of Charles Dickens and of the cross-fertilisation of literary genres in his work
2. distinguish between different modes of writing and develop critical approaches appropriate to each mode
3. demonstrate a deepened understanding of the culture of Victorian England,
4. demonstrate an ability to communicate the results of their critical reading, to argue a point of
view with cogency and clarity, and to offer persuasive textual analyses in a variety of formats.
The intended generic learning outcomes.
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
1. apply the techniques and terminology of close reading to a range of novels
2. apply understanding of historical context to the interpretation of literary texts
3. undertake self-directed research and critically evaluate secondary theoretical and historical perspectives in that research
4. construct coherent, articulate and well-supported arguments in a variety of formats.
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