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Imagine yourself waking up one morning and realizing that in your sleep you were teleported back in time. Looking around you realize you are in 19th Century England. Your survival now depends on how well you can blend in with that culture and how well you can navigate the pitfalls of social etiquette and everyday habits. Apart from the more imminent necessities, such as avoiding prison and the workhouse, in order to be able to earn some money, it is necessary to know how to behave properly in society, how to operate in a 19th Century household and, fundamentally, how to be a member of 19th Century English society and how to manage the massive transfomational changes of the industrial revolution that turned Regency England into the Victorian Age.
In this seminar, we will look at English culture in Regency and the Victorian times. Did Regency people really have so much sex as the Netflix hit series Bridgerton suggests? (Apparently, YES!) and were the Victorians really a bunch of no-sex-please-ascetics? (Yes and no!). Looking at everyday habits and cultural discourses around such fields as ‘Clothing and Proper Behaviour’, ‘Food and Drink’, ‘Hygiene, Illness and Death’ (and ghosts, of course), “Love and Marriage” as well as ‘Work and Leisure’, we will develop an understanding of Regency and Victorian life and culture and the developments and challanges that turned the former into the latter. Focussing not merely on the rich and prosperous, but also the common person, we will read a combination of secondary texts and original sources from the time to build up our knowledge of the essential aspects ofEnglisch culture of the 19th century.
A reader will be provided at the beginning of the seminar. |
