School of English
Sophister Module Description Template 2020-21
Full Name: The War of Ideas: Politics, Plebeians, and Paranoia in the 1790s
Short Name: War of Ideas
Lecturer Name and Email Address: David O’Shaughnessy / doshaug
ECTS Weighting: 10
Semester Taught: MT
Learning Outcomes:
1. Articulate the various political positions taken by key literary and political figures during the 1790s.
2. Articulate how less well known forums for political debate such as the theatre, caricature, and political societies contributed to the period’s literary culture.
3. Discuss the impact of Irish political events and writing on British literary and political culture during the period.
4. Examine the historical, political and cultural contexts informing the period.
5. Use high-level transferable skills of analytical and writing techniques in relation to chosen topics studied in the module.
Learning Aims:
The clash of liberal and conservative factions in Britain during the 1790s and beyond marks the period as one of the most contentious, fertile, and exciting of British literature.
We will begin with the Revolution Debate or what has been now termed the ‘war of ideas’, described by one historian as ‘perhaps the last real discussion of the fundamentals of politics’ in Britain. The exchange of pamphlets between Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, William Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft were only the major broadsides in a flurry of literary production in the early 1790s. These texts set in place the central thematics of the rich field of cultural production that would follow.
All too often the Romantic period is considered to be concerned solely with poetry but this course sets out to provide a holistic view of the period by considering other genres such as novels, plays, essays, lectures, and political caricature. At a time when the novel was exploding in popularity and the playhouse was a political battlefield between pro- and anti-war partisans from all strata of society, this inclusive approach is essential to understanding fully the magnitude of the debate. Moreover, this course will pay attention to the Irish dimension of the 1790s – a decade that is often considered exclusively from an Anglo-French perspective.
In addition to those named above, writers covered may include, for example, playwrights Elizabeth Inchbald and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, novelists Matthew Lewis and Mary Shelley, poet William Blake, and political caricaturist James Gillray.
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School of English
Assessment Details:
• Assessment: 2 essays. Essay 1 will be 2000 words (25%) and Essay 2 will be 4000 words (75%).
Preliminary Reading List if Available:
Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (1817
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
William Godwin, Caleb Williams (1794)
Elizabeth Inchbald, Lovers’ Vows (1798)
Matthew Lewis, The Monk (1796)
Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (1791-2)
Mary Shelley Frankenstein (1818)
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
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