This course will introduce students to the political, economic, religious and social contexts of a wide range of literature written during the Victorian and Modern periods. After surveying relevant background material, we will cover major texts of different genre of these periods so that students will learn through guided close reading and training of critical thinking the significant Victorian issues, tastes and classics. Students will also come to grasp and appreciate the challenges modernity faces and the innovation and revolution modernism has produced in response to the challenges.
