"Prose of the World": Ordinary Life & Extraordinary Subjects in Nineteenth-Century Britain & Colonial India - ENG00158M

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Module summary

Prosaic, adj.
2.a. Of language or writing: lacking in poetic expression, feeling, or
imagination.
2.b. Of a person or thing: dull, flat, unexciting; commonplace,
mundane.

(Oxford English Dictionary)

What happens when a medium that supposedly signifies the lack of
imagination and individual expression becomes the dominant
literary mode of a culture? In this module, we will investigate this
question by exploring the ascendancy of prose – as a literary
medium and as a revolutionary social and aesthetic ideal – in
nineteenth-century Britain and its key colony, India. For most of its
history, prose was viewed by writers as the lesser literary medium,
compared with poetry, due to its relatively amorphous, unversified
form, apparently only fit for conveying facts – about the
mundaneness of modern life, with its bureaucracy and its
commerce – rather than for intentional, creative expression. The
German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel memorably coined the metaphor
“prose of the world” for the shapeless mass of “external influences,
laws, political institutions, civil relationships” that entangle man in
the modern world. Yet, in depicting individuals engaging with the
prosaic contingencies and hindrances of modern life, nineteenth-
century British writers and aesthetes charged those prosaic
particulars with their subjects’ emotions, transforming them into
modes of individual and aesthetic expression. The very
shapelessness and expansiveness of prose enabled nineteenth-
century novelists, aesthetes – and poets – to centre subjects and
topics that were formerly excluded from representation, such as the

inner lives of women, queer subjects, and colonial subjects, and the
costs of capitalism and empire.
In this module, we will examine the dominance of prose forms and
prosaic themes in the works of canonical writers as well as
marginalized and diverse voices across nineteenth-century Britain
and the empire. Beginning with Wordsworth’s exhortation to write
poetry in the language of the common man – which was taken up
by Indian Romantic poets such as Henry Derozio and Toru Dutt –
we will look at George Eliot’s defence of everyday life in her
realism, the psychologically complex dramatic monologues of
Robert Browning (called “Prose Browning” by Oscar Wilde for his
jagged, irregular verse), and Wilde’s own attempts to compose the
disruptiveness of prose into a perfect style that expresses a
cosmopolitan, queer subjectivity. Moving to fringes of the empire,
we will explore how Indian writers and leaders such as Mohandas
Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, and Jawaharlal Nehru ironically
used English prose as an anti-colonial instrument, to communicate
with Indian and British audiences, and to forge the consciousness
of a modern nation. In tracing how nineteenth-century British and
Indian authors made prose the powerful cultural and political
medium it is today, we will explore the origins of modern aesthetics
in formerly excluded forms, and contribute to this ongoing change
through our own critical and creative endeavours.

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 2 2023-24

Module aims

The primary aim of this module is to enable you to explore the
richness and diversity of prose narratives in the long nineteenth-
century, both in Britain and its key colony, India. You will read these
narratives alongside nineteenth-century aesthetic philosophy, to
appreciate how extraordinary and radical it was to represent
everyday life and so-called ordinary people, and how this
representation was expanded to include racially and sexually
marginalized subjects. And you will have the option to build on this
expansion through short, weekly research-based creative writing
activities of your choice (such as a short story, or a dramatic
monologue from the perspective of a marginalized character), which
will enable you to explore the era imaginatively, and will help you
prepare for your final assessment (a 4000-4500 word research
essay).

Module learning outcomes

1. On successful completion of the module, you should be able to:
   1. Demonstrate an advanced understanding of and
   engagement with the work of canonical Victorian authors
   such as George Eliot and Oscar Wilde, as well as authors
   from marginalized and diverse backgrounds such as
   Henry Derozio and Rabindranath Tagore.
   2. Demonstrate an advanced understanding of and
   engagement with the history and theory of prose in the
   context of nineteenth-century aesthetic philosophy, and to
   apply and enrich this understanding through close reading
   of literary texts and practices.

   3. Evaluate key debates within the relevant critical fields
   dealing with modern aesthetics, the rise of modern
   subjectivity, and empire studies.
   4. Produce independent arguments and ideas which
   demonstrate an advanced proficiency in critical thinking,
   research, and writing skills.

2.  

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100.0

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100.0

Module feedback

You will receive feedback on all assessed work within the University deadline, and will often receive it more quickly. The purpose of feedback is to inform your future work; it is designed to help you to improve your work, and the Department also offers you help in learning from your feedback. If you do not understand your feedback or want to talk about your ideas further you can discuss it with your module tutor, the MA Convenor or your supervisor, during their Open Office Hours 

Indicative reading

Wordsworth, “Preface” from Lyrical Ballads (1800)
Henry Derozio, “The Harp of India” (1827)
G.W.F. Hegel, excerpts on the “Prose of the World” (Lectures on
Aesthetics, 1835)
George Eliot, Middlemarch (1871-2)
Robert Browning, “Fra Lippo Lippi” (1855)
John Everett Millais, Christ in the House of his Parents (painting,
1849-50)
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
Rabindranath Tagore, “Kabuliwala” (short story, 1892), “Nationalism
in India” (1917 lecture)