Femme fatale in 19th century English poetry

elective courses

This course intends to deal with the recurrent topos of the femme fatale as present in the poetry of the Romantic and Victorian periods. Particular emphasis will be put on the mode in which the fatal woman theme was exploited by various 19th century poets and how this topos evolved and transformed itself, at times subverting traditional perception of destructive, cruel, self-engrossed female in order to reveal gender anxieties inherent in the culture of the times. The reading list of the primary texts will include poems by W. Blake, S.T. Coleridge, J. Keats, P.B. Shelley, L. Landon, A. Tennyson. D.G. Rossetti, Ch. A. Swinburne.

The course is offered for the second cycle (MA) students.

This course intends to deal with the recurrent topos of the femme fatale as present in the poetry of the Romantic and Victorian periods. Particular emphasis will be put on the mode in which the fatal woman theme was exploited by various 19th century poets and how this topos evolved and transformed itself, at times subverting traditional perception of destructive, cruel, self-engrossed female in order to reveal gender anxieties inherent in the culture of the times. This will lead into a broader discussion about concepts of femininity and masculinity, female and male roles as they were conceived of in the 19th century. We will read chosen excerpts of non-literary texts related to these problems, by such authors as Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, Sarah Stickney Ellis, John Ruskin and W.M. Greg. We will also trace the connections between the literary topos of the femme fatale and the emergence of the New Woman in the second half of the 19th century, which influenced the Woman’s Liberation Movement. Reading list of the primary texts will include poems by W. Blake, S.T. Coleridge, J. Keats, P.B. Shelley, L. Landon, A. Tennyson. D.G. Rossetti, Ch. A. Swinburne.

The understanding of the subject of the course will be further facilitated by the discussion of such concepts as Romantic beauty, the sublime, characteristic 19th century fascination with ways of seeing, the Victorian polarisation of women into angels and demons. Additionally, the analysis of the topos will be aided by visual representations of the poems by Pre-Raphaelite painters.

Looking at William Blake’s poems we will see how the Romantic myth of psychic reintegration of man was impeded by the feminine principle of Female Will and Vala, the Natural Religion, which assume the identity of the femme fatale in Blake’s poetry. Next, we will consider contrastive readings of Coleridge’s ‘Christabel’ and Keats’s ‘La belle Dame sans Merci’ (or ‘Lamia’) to alert the students to different directions of criticism. Less known poems by Keats and Coleridge (‘Love’ and ‘Time’s Sea’) will also be discussed. The case of rehabilitating the femme fatale will be considered in Shelley’s ‘On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci’. Victorian fatal women will be exemplified by Venus and Dolores (Swinburne), Astarte Syriaca, Sister Helen, Lilith (Rossetti) and Lilian, Kate, Rosalind and Guinevere (Tennyson). Poems of L. Landon will complete the course, offering a fatal woman character created by the female author.

Additional reading will be assigned for each week of the course.

The course will prioritise text analysis (close reading), feminist and gender readings.

The course is offered for the second cycle (MA) students.

Ahern, Stephen. “Listening to Guinevere: Female Agency and the Politics of Chivalry in Tennyson's Idylls.” Studies in Philology. Chapel Hill: Winter 2004.Vol. 101, Iss.1.

Binias, Silke (2007) Symbol and Symptom: the Femme Fatale in English poetry of the 19th century and feminist criticism. Universitatsverlag Winter

Berger, John (1972) Ways of Seeing. London: BBC and Penguin Books.

Christ, Carol ‘The Feminine Subject in Victorian Poetry’ ELH, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Summer,1987), pp. 385-401

Hedgecock Jennifer (2008) The Femme Fatale in Victorian Literature: the danger and the sexual threat.Cambria Press.

Hoeveler, Diane (1990) Romantic Androgyny University Park: Penn State Press.

Jacobs, Carol (1985) "On Looking at Shelley's Medusa." In: Yale French Studies 69 (1985): 163-79

Mash, J. (1995) The Pre-Raphaelite Women: Images of Femininity in Pre-Raphaelite art. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Maxwell, Catherine (2001) The Female Sublime from Milton to Swinburne. Bearing blindness. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.

Pearce, Lynne (1991) Woman/Image/Text. Readings in Pre-Raphaelite Art and Literature. Toronto and Buffalo:Toronto University Press.

Peterson, Linda H.‘Tennyson and the ladies’. Victorian Poetry (West Virginia University Press) (47:1) [Spring 2009] , p.25-43

Psomiades, Kathy Alex (1992) ‘Gender Ideology and British Aestheticism’ Victorian Studies Vol. 36, No. 1 (Autumn, 1992), pp. 31-52

Riede, David (1992) Dante Gabriel Rossetti Revisited. New York: Twayne Publishers (ed)(1992) Critical Essays on Dante Gabriel Rossetti. New York: G.K. Hall & Co.

Learning outcomes for courses approved in academic year 2022/23

Knowledge

Student will be able to:

K_W01 Identify and characterize on an advanced level the place and status of literary studies within the humanities, particularly in relation to 19th century poetry and gender studies.

K_W02 Describe on an advanced level the current trends in literary and cultural studies research within English studies in the areas discussed during the course

K_W04 Characterize on an advanced level the principles of research design in literary and culture studies with special focus on the application of methods and tools in formulating research problems

K_W08 Identify the notions and principles pertinent to intellectual property and copyright

Abilities

Student will be able to:

K_U01 Apply advanced terminology and notions pertinent to literary studies, with special focus on terminology and techniques relating to close reading of a literary text, feminist and gender theories.

K_U02 Apply advanced research methodology within literary and culture studies and English studies, respecting ethical norms and copyright law

K_U03 Apply knowledge obtained during the course of studies to account for and solve a problem, thereby completing a research task related to the discipline literary studies and/or culture and religion studies

K_U04 Analyze linguistic, literary and cultural phenomena and draw generalizations on their basis in the context of societal, historical and economic factors particularly pertaining to 19th century on an advanced level

K_U05 Discern alternative methodological paradigms within a discipline

K_U06 Find information in various sources and critically assess its usefulness for research related to the topic of the MA project

Social competences

Student will be able to:

K_K02 Apply knowledge and skills obtained during the course of studies to undertake lifelong learning, as well as personal and professional development

K_K03 Take responsibility for performing one’s professional duties, with due respect for the work of others, obey and develop the ethical norms in professional and academic settings related to the disciplines included on the curriculum of English studies

K_K04 Assess critically one’s own knowledge and skills related to the studies

K_K06 Value cultural heritage and cultural diversity as well as individual opinions

The credit on the basis of students' performance during the semester (participation in class discussions, 2-3 short response papers) and an end-of-semester test (in class or on Moodle).

The form of the retake test will be specified by the course instructor.

No more than three absences in the semester are acceptable.