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ENGL 385: Literature and the Visual Arts

Course Convenor: Dr Andrew Tate

Seminar Time and Venue: Thursday 9am – 11am, Bowland North SR14 (Tern 1)

Course Aims and Objectives
Is it possible to ‘read’ a painting? Can an artist interpret a poem in paint? This course addresses the complex relationship between literature and the visual arts, tracing key debates in aesthetic theory from Romanticism to the twenty-first century.  Literature and the Visual Arts will begin with an introduction to key critical terms and an examination of the painting-inspired poetry of, for example, John Keats and W. H. Auden.  Subsequent seminars will explore the work of figures such as William Blake, John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites who blur the distinction between literature and art; the nineteenth-century revolution in book illustration; the revival of the Pop Art tradition and postmodern narrative practices; and, finally, the fusion of word and image in graphic novels.  The course will draw on the unique resources of the University’s Ruskin Library and rare book archive.

Set Texts:

Benjamin, Walter, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, trans. by J. A. Underwood (London: Penguin, 2008)
Blake, William, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell [Facsimile edition], ed. Sir Geoffrey Keynes (Oxford: OUP, 1975)
Birch, Dinah, (ed.) John Ruskin: Selected Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)
Dickens, Charles, Oliver Twist (any illustrated edition)
Spiegelman, Art, The Complete MAUS (London: Penguin, 2003)

Other seminar material will be made available as handouts and via Moodle

Assessment: 1 x 1,500-word essay (40%) Deadline: 12 noon, Friday, Week 7/Term 1; 1 x 3,500 word essay (60%) Deadline: 12 noon, Monday, Week 1/Term 2

Learning Outcomes:

• demonstrate a detailed understanding of the historic relationship between literature and the visual arts
• show an advanced awareness of narrative style and genre in ‘image texts’ and other media inspired by the visual arts
• display an awareness of the philosophical, cultural and social contexts that inform texts studied on the course
• construct clear and critically informed interpretations of literary texts that engage with visual media and visual texts that  engage with literature

Seminar Topics:

Week 1
Introduction: The Seen and the Written
Poetry, prose and theory handout (extracts to be circulated in class)

Week 2
Ekphrastic Poetry
Handout of poems by Keats, Browning, Christina Rossetti and others

Week 3
Blake’s Visionary Writing 
William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Week 4
Ruskin’s Aesthetics
Extracts from John Ruskin: Selected Writings

Week 5
Ruskin and the Victorian Visual Economy
Visit to the Ruskin Library
Extracts from John Ruskin: Selected Writings

Week 6
Independent Study Week

Week 7
Illustration and Victorian Fiction
Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

Week 8
Postmodernism and Pop Art
Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Links to work by Douglas Coupland and others via Moodle; handout

Week 9
The Graphic Novel
Art Spiegelman, The Complete MAUS

Week 10
Conclusion
Short fiction, extracts of prose (handout)

Back to: ENGL 380

Forward to: ENGL 387

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