Taking Pleasure in the Eighteenth-Century: England, 1650-1800 - HIS00184M

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Module summary

This module will explore both how eighteenth-century people enjoyed themselves as well as how the eighteenth century is enjoyed in the present. We will have a series of seminars on eighteenth-century pleasures including gambling, gardens, sex and music. We will look at a huge array of eighteenth-century primary sources ranging from satirical prints, jest books, ballads, playing cards, diaries, letters, newspaper advertisements and court records. There will also be opportunities to engage in some practice-based research including playing eighteenth-century card games and preparing eighteenth-century recipes.

Thinking about pleasure in eighteenth-century England will give us significant insights into some of the broader trends of the period particularly the urban renaissance, the consumer revolution and changing patterns of work and leisure. Pleasure troubled people in the eighteenth century, whether that was concerns about proper ways to spend time and money, that some people’s pleasures were at the expense of others, or that pleasure couldn’t always be reconciled with virtue and piety. Moreover, pleasure isn’t always an easy topic for modern scholars: can we understand eighteenth-century jokes? Should pleasure be treated as an emotion? Why might we want to try and play eighteenth-century card games? Throughout the module we will also be exploring how the eighteenth century, and its pleasures, still provide modern entertainment, enjoyment and fun. In particular we will be critically examining the value of ‘taking pleasure in the eighteenth century’ through some of our own practice-based research.

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 2 2025-26

Module aims

The aims of this module are to:

• Develop skills of source analysis and interpretation
• Assess a range of source material and relevant secondary works; and
• Develop students’ powers of evidence-based historical argument, both orally and in writing.

Module learning outcomes

Students who complete this module successfully will:

• Demonstrate a knowledge of a specialist historiographical literature;
• Present findings in an analytical framework derived from a specialist field;
• Solve a well-defined historiographical problem using insights drawn from secondary and, where appropriate, primary sources.
• Set out written findings using a professional scholarly apparatus.

Module content

Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1. Students will then attend a 2-hour seminar in weeks 2-4, 6-8 and 10-11. Weeks 5 & 9 are Reading and Writing (RAW) weeks during which there are no seminars, and during which students research and write a formative essay, consulting with the module tutor. Students prepare for eight seminars in all.

Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:

1. Gambling
2. Humour
3. Food and Drink
4. Sex
5. Gardens
6. Child’s play
7. Music
8. Topic chosen by students

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

Students submit a 2,000-word formative essay in week 9.
A 4,000-word summative essay will be due in the assessment period.

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100

Module feedback

Students will typically receive written feedback on their formative essay within 10 working days of submission.

Work will be returned to students in their seminars and may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss the feedback on their formative essay during their tutor’s student hours—especially during week 11, before, that is, they finalise their plans for the Summative Essay.

For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.

For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 25 working days of the submission deadline. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.

Indicative reading

For reading during the module, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:

• Mark Rothery. “Emotional economies of pleasure among the gentry of eighteenth-century England.” Social History 49 (2024): 294-315
• Hannah Greig, “‘All Together and All Distinct’: Public Sociability and Social Exclusivity in London's Pleasure Gardens, ca. 1740–1800.” Journal of British Studies 51 (2012): 50-75.
• Roy Sydney Porter and Marie Mulvey Roberts, ed., Pleasure in the eighteenth century. Basingstoke and New York: Macmillan and New York University Press, 1996.