HI4313 Romance before Romanticism: Life, Love and Death in Ancien Régime and Revolutionary France

Module Organiser: Dr. Linda Kiernan
Duration: Hilary term
Contact hours: 2 hours per week
Weighting: 10 ECTS
Assessment: 20% Essay; 80% Examination

This module will introduce the student to the private and family life of the ancien régime subject and revolutionary citizen, from the lower classes to the royal court. It will explore marriage, motherhood, fatherhood, childhood and death among others. But it will also introduce the student to the underbelly of the Enlightenment, the sexual underworld of Paris, infidelity and adultery, prostitution and licentiousness. The student will gain an understanding of the quotidian existence of men and women at many levels during this period of intellectual, cultural, religious and political upheaval.

Select bibliography to include:

• Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason.
• Suzanne Desan, The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France.
• Lynn Hunt, The Family Romance in the French Revolution.
• Olwen Hufton, The Poor of Eighteenth Century France.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:

• Analyse life, love and death in pre-revolutionary and revolutionary France
• Identify and search for relevant secondary literature
• Engage with relevant theoretical and critical approaches to the social history of France during this period
• Apply different techniques of evaluation and interpretation to relevant primary sources
• Critique relevant historiography in the light of study of primary sources
• Present and discuss analysis of questions relating to the social history of France during the early modern period
• Analyse the social impact of different political and cultural developments in eighteenth-century France