In today's popular imagination, it often seems as if to be Victorian was to be scandalized by something— by lapses in religious orthodoxy, by representations of sexuality, even (apocryphally) by uncovered piano legs. In this course we will examine the literature and cultures of Victorian Britain through the lens of scandal. We will explore the representation of different types of scandal in literature, as well as some representative historical episodes of scandal. We will ask why some kinds of transgressions become scandalous, while others are merely "problems," and will explore what kinds of social reactions and responses are evoked and foreclosed by the rhetoric of scandal.

Readings may include works by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Henry Mayhew, Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, George Eliot, the "fleshly school" of poets, Oscar Wilde, and Thomas Hardy, as well as journalistic sensations such as "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon" and "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London."