Downton Abbey

You will be able to situate Downton Abbey as a prestige period drama spanning 1912–1926, identifying its core narrative arc, principal characters, and cultural reception.

You will be able to map the rigid Edwardian social-class pyramid onto the upstairs-downstairs household structure, explaining how rank, deference, and domestic labour were mutually constitutive.

You will be able to analyse how the First World War accelerated the erosion of landed-gentry power, tracing specific post-war shifts in taxation, servant culture, and gender roles as dramatised in the series.

You will be able to critically evaluate Downton Abbey using historiographical frameworks—nostalgia, selective memory, and heritage discourse—assessing where the drama illuminates or distorts the historical record.