How do siblings, sibling relationships, and conceptions of brotherhood and sisterhood figure in Romantic-period authorship and texts? What is particularly Romantic about sisters and brothers? We'll consider such questions from several different angles, looking, for example, at the following: representations of siblings in literary texts; sister-brother writers (but also the importance of non-writing siblings); the relation of genius to genes; the complications of step-siblings, half-siblings, and siblings-in-law; the overlap or conflict of sibling relationships with friendship, marriage, romantic love, and self-love; and brotherhood as metaphor (revolutionary, abolitionist, Christian). Texts by Joanna Baillie, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Coleridge, Charles and Mary Lamb, DeQuincey, Byron, Austen (Sense and Sensibility), M. Shelley (Frankenstein), P. Shelley, Keats.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 18

Prerequisites: Open to all students who have taken two literature courses in the department, at least one of which must be 200 level, or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.

Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature

Typical Periods Offered: Spring

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered; Spring