This course surveys the new forms of English poetry, essay, and narrative that came to prominence during Queen Victoria’s long reign (1837-1901). The dramatic monologue, for instance, grounds lyric perceptions in a particular set of circumstances, while the bildungsroman shows how the self is formed in response to the pressures of the world. We examine how novelists and poets grappled with economic and evolutionary ideas, considering how the self might be determined by economics or biology. Authors include Robert Browning, Alfred (Lord) Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Charlotte Brontë, Henry Mayhew, John Stuart Mill, Christina Rossetti, Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, and Thomas Hardy. This course counts toward the Gender Studies minor.