Teaching nineteenth-century aesthetic prose

Abstract

This article reviews a writing-intensive course on nineteenth-century aesthetic prose devised for the undergraduate curriculum of the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary, University of London, and considers the results to date. Using examples of students’ coursework, the article examines the use of logbooks and creative exercises, considers their effectiveness, and attempts to elucidate their advantages over the traditional essay format. A major premise of the course and the article is that appreciation and understanding of literature is enhanced and expanded by the students’ mediation of the texts through their own writing, allowing them to think with and through the literary matter they are exploring and so to extend themselves as writers and thinkers. Writing is thus seen as an essential part of the disciplinary study of literature.