MA Literary Studies: Pathway in Romantic & Victorian Literature and Culture

This pathway of the MA in Literary Studies aims to enhance your knowledge and understanding of the literature of nineteenth-century Britain and its relationship to a wide variety of cultural, intellectual, geographic and historical contexts.

Why study the MA Literary Studies: Romantic and Victorian Literature pathway at Goldsmiths?

• You will compare texts which are closely connected yet often taught as the products of two distinct periods; you’ll see how genres and themes develop and explore relationships between authors and texts.
• You’ll study literary elegies and the afterlife of Romanticism; Wordsworth’s influence on the fiction of Eliot and Hardy; connections between the conversation poem and the dramatic monologue; London in literature; what Gothic and sensation novels tell us about the anxieties of the period.
• We’ll help you understand the impact of cultural, intellectual, and historical contexts: the reception of classical antiquity; the emergence of realism; radicalism and the French Revolution; Orientalism; urban Romanticism and Decadence.
• Our flexible pathway system enables you to focus on Romantic and Victorian literature and culture, with a related option module in European Decadence and the Visual Arts which will introduce you to the work of the Decadence Research Centre.
• You can also choose modules in other areas of literary studies, such as American literature, Caribbean writing, modern and contemporary literature, comparative literature or critical theory.
• You'll be able to further develop your interest in Romantic and Victorian literature and culture through a 15,000-word dissertation to be submitted at the end of your programme of study.

Skills

You'll develop transferable skills, including:

• enhanced communication and discussion skills in written and oral contexts
• the ability to analyse and evaluate different textual materials
• the ability to organise information; the ability to assimilate and evaluate competing arguments

Careers

Graduates of this programme have gone on to pursue careers in:

• publishing
• journalism
• public relations
• teaching
• advertising
• the civil service
• business
• industry
• the media

Students should have (or expect to be awarded) an undergraduate degree of at least upper second class standard in a relevant/related subject. Students might also be considered for some programmes if they aren’t a graduate or their degree is in an unrelated field, but have relevant experience and can show that students have the ability to work at postgraduate level.