Agnieszka Maria Serdyńska (KCL) - 2024-25 Students
agnieszka.m.serdynska@kcl.ac.uk

What's the use of books anyway? The value and purpose of literature in Victorian Britain

The question posed in the title of my project is at once facetious and urgent. To say that reading is a dying art would perhaps be an exaggeration; it is hard to deny, however, that its heyday seems to be over. The 2023 Report on children and young people’s reading conducted by the National Literacy Trust found that reading enjoyment levels in this age group are the lowest they have been in recorded history. Likewise, English as an academic subject finds itself under ever-increasing pressure to justify its place in university curricula, where it was admitted thanks to the efforts of a number of Victorian thinkers who advocated for its inclusion. If we, as modern-day literary scholars, are to assert the continued importance of literature both within and beyond the academia, we have to start by asking ourselves why it matters, and revisiting this particular historical moment can be a useful point of departure for doing just that. Thus, in my project, I will explore how the value and purpose of literature were defined in Victorian discourses of reading. Some of the key questions that I will address in my research are: what was the term ‘literature’ taken to mean in the Victorian era and how were its definitions constructed to promote the reading of certain texts and exclude others? Why was the Victorian perception of books so polarised, and what criteria determined whether a text was deemed edifying or toxic? For those who asserted the ennobling power of literature, what were the beneficial effects it was meant to confer on its readers? And finally, what were the arguments for the introduction of English studies into third-level education? By offering a comprehensive discussion of Victorian ideas around the value and purpose of literature, my project will enhance our understanding of the literary culture and intellectual climate of the period, provide new insight into the institutional history of English as an academic discipline, and explore the ways in which works of fiction responded to and shaped wider debates around reading.

Principal Supervisor: Dr Brian Murray