MA English Literature student Priyodarshini tells us about the favourite things she’s read on her course.
Every module in the MA English Literature course is designed to provide students with an opportunity to engage with a wide range of texts within the time period it explores. Over the past two terms, I have come across quite a few texts under compulsory seminar readings that have made my chosen modules very dear to me. Not only was I introduced to new authors, but the student-led discussions on texts that I might have read beforehand, greatly assisted me in developing my readings and interpretations in a critical vein.
From Bath Tangle to Bridgerton
The penultimate seminar on the “Evolutions of Popular Literature” module was held on regency romance. We were asked to read Georgette Heyer’s Bath Tangle and Julia Quinn’s The Duke and I, and watch the first episode of Bridgerton as preparation for the seminar.
As someone who had previously read Quinn and watched Bridgerton for pleasure, engaging with it from a critical perspective was a completely different experience. I loved how the seminar discussed the history of popular romance and the recurrence of medieval romantic themes and imagery in them. The tutor also explained how such romances follow an exact “formula” which might’ve dashed the hopes of the romance lover in me but certainly made the literary critic re-evaluate her stance on popular romantic fiction.
Lesbian Voices in the 19th Century
For the “19th Century Voices” module, I had to study one short story (Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’ “Since I Died”), and three poems (Amy Levy’s “Borderland,” Michael Field’s “The Mummy Invokes His Soul,” and Angelina Weld Grimké’s “Where Phillis Sleeps”) addressing the issue of lesbian voices during that period. These authors were completely new to me despite having done a module on Victorian Literature before. This speaks for the course’s commitment to introduce students to peripheral voices from a particular literary period.
Most of the texts mentioned above merely allude to lesbianism and it is only via understanding the author’s biographical context that I could spot them. It made me rethink the issues of censorship and moral scrutiny that authors might have had to take into consideration then, the rules of which are considerably lax now.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Kite Runner is a novel almost unanimously acknowledged as one of the greatest works of fiction in the 21st century. Most of us have probably read this book and shed tears over the fate of its characters. However, the “Contemporary Literature” module helped me look at this text from a different perspective.
The discussion in the seminar made me understand how often despite being a Muslim writer, Hosseini’s writing can express a tacit endorsement of the American War on Terror regime. Seminar discussions pointed towards the various problematic depictions of Islam and also certain historical anachronisms of the text. This opened up quite interesting possibilities for further research that I would love to explore in the future.
I’m currently working in my dissertation towards popular fantasy, I cannot wait to contribute to a field that has always valued originality, authenticity, and creativity.