FREE Online Course: Literature of the English Country House

For those of you who haven't heard of FutureLearn, it is essentially a free open university: universities from all over the UK run courses for learners all over the world, for free!

I've taken a few courses with FutureLearn over the past few months, and today came across another exciting one: Literature of the English Country House. This is how FutureLearn describe the course:

"A journey through the literature of English country houses from the time of Thomas More to Oscar Wilde.
On this course, we’ll be introducing you to literature from 450 years of English country-house history and we’ll be seeing together how that literature shapes our understanding of country houses. We’ll be joined on the way by guest experts from the University of Sheffield School of English and tapping into their specialist knowledge.
We’re going to travel on a historical journey through literature, visiting notable country houses around Yorkshire and Derbyshire. You’ll gain insight into life in these country houses and will learn about some common misconceptions. You will see the magnificent seventeenth-century wall paintings at Bolsover Castle, often held to be the best of their kind in England. You will visit Haddon Hall, a house frozen in the time of William Shakespeare and an inspiration for the great Gothic novelist, Ann Radcliffe.
We’ll be using a wide range of texts spanning the history of literature from Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’ to Oscar Wilde’s ‘Canterville Ghost’. Along the way we will examine sections from a play by Shakespeare, poetry by Margaret Cavendish, and brief passages from novels by Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens. We will even look at fiction by a country house resident Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.
During this course you’ll learn to analyse literature using a technique called ‘close reading’. It will help you to make your own connections between country-house literature and its historical backgrounds."

If this sounds like your thing then give it a go. There's no obligation to finish the course, and I'm weeks behind on the other courses that I'm taking so don't worry if you have a busy schedule.

Literature of the English Country House starts on June 2nd. Click here to sign up and take the course with me!