From the 1760s, we shall explore the first Gothic novel: Horace Walpole’s pioneering The Castle of Otranto (1764). We shall begin in the 1750s with Samuel Johnson’s remarkable oriental tale, Rasselas (1759). Attention will be paid to gender issues, as well as to genre, style, and thematic concerns. Regular attendance is required for a passing final grade (a maximum of two absences will be allowed except for documented medical or similar emergencies).ĮNGL 304 The Later Eighteenth-Century NovelĮxpected Student Preparation: Previous university-level course work in literature or cultural studies.ĭescription: This course will study developments in the English novel from the mid-eighteenth century until the early 1800s. Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews and Shamela (Oxford)Įvaluation: Paper (50%), tests (40%), participation (10%). Madame de Lafayette, The Princess of Clèves (Norton)Įliza Haywood, Love in Excess (Broadview) Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quijote (Norton) The Letters of Abelard and Heloise (Hackett) Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur (Oxford) Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, The Romance of the Rose (Oxford) (The list of texts below is tentative and incomplete, to be confirmed in September 2017.) Texts: The required reading for this course will include most or all of the following books, which will be available at The Word Bookstore (469 Milton Street, 51). Our work together will aim at a critical analysis of the textual ideologies articulated in this experimental process of historical combination.
We will consider the novel as responding to a network of interrelated problems – of the self and its imaginative politics – at the representational crossroads of medieval epic, courtly romance, spiritual autobiography, picaresque satire, colonialist adventure, gallant intrigue, baroque casuistry, bourgeois conduct book, sentimental love story, moral treatise, psychological realism, and mock-heroic “comic epic in prose.” As the emerging literary “form of forms,” the early modern novel vibrantly juxtaposes and interweaves all these different generic strands. Our readings and discussion will refer to the European context of the evolution of this narrative form in England. Description: This course will canvas some of the “origins” of the English novel and trace its development (particularly as anti-romance satire and realism) up to the mid-eighteenth century.
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