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.

Knowledge:

After having completed the course the student will:

- be familiar with chosen canonical !9th century poems whose subject revolves around the representations of women in literature.

- will know the cultural and social context of q9th century literature, in particular in relation to so-called "The Woman Question" debate and the concept of "separete spheres."

Skills:

The course participant will:

- know how to interpret, analyze, synthesize and summarize his or her knowledge of British culture and literature of the 19th century in its linguistic, cultural, social and historical dimension

- be able to apply the definitions and terms acquired in the course to the analysis and discussion of literary texts

- connect analytical observations to synthetic knowledge of British literature

In class discussions students acquire skills of expressing their thoughts in a clear, coherent, logical and precise manner, with the use of language which is correct grammatically, lexically and phonetically.

Social Competence:

The course participant will:

- be aware of the social and cultural importance of the knowledge of British literature of the 19th century

- learn how to respect and study the European literary tradition and cultural heritage,

- understand diversity and complexity of other cultures and points of view.