Course Details in 2026/27 Session

Module Title	LH Politics and Terror in the Age of Revolutions
School	Eng, Drama, & Creative Studies
Department	English Literature
Module Code	09 27596
Module Lead
Level	Honours Level
Credits	20
Semester	Semester 1
Pre-requisites
Co-requisites
Restrictions	None
Contact Hours	Lecture-10 hours Seminar-20 hours Guided independent study-170 hours Total: 200 hours
Exclusions
Description	The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 fundamentally reshaped the political and literary culture of the British Isles, with the hopes and anxieties which it provoked triggering waves of politically radical manifestoes; a conservative backlash that sought to control revolutionary energies; an unprecedented wave of Gothic texts which reflected and responded to post-Revolutionary fears; and a startling flowering of new aesthetic ideologies which attempted to carve out a privileged position for literature above the sphere of political struggle. This module will explore the political and literary culture of this turbulent period by examining poetry, novels, plays, essays and interventions by writers including Edmund Burke, William Godwin, William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Matthew Lewis, Ann Radcliffe, Anna Barbauld, Lord Byron, William Wordsworth, Percy Shelley and Thomas De Quincey. In the texts on the course, we will consider representations of wrongful imprisonment, visionary prophecy, political apostasy, religious corruption, sexual deviance and drug-fuelled crocodile hallucinations, unpicking both the aesthetic techniques employed and their wider implications amongst shifting social, political and international contexts.
Learning Outcomes	By the end of the module students should be able to: Frame cogent discussions of the literary and political history of the Romantic era. Display knowledge of the contents, forms, paratexts and backgrounds of a wide range of novels, poetry, plays, non-fiction and essays composed in the post-Revolutionary period. Discuss the ways that revolutionary terror intersected with a spectrum of issues including gender, class, justice, national identity and personal morality. Analyse the complex relationships between aesthetic practices and broader cultural phenomena.
Assessment	27596-01 : 4,000 word essay : Coursework (100%)
Assessment Methods & Exceptions	One 4,000-word essay
Other	None
Reading List