ENGL 4210/5210Office: 1061 9th Street
Bradford MudgeOffice hrs: Tue/Thurs 12:30-1:00
Fall
History of the English Novel II
This course is the second of a two-part history of the English novel, and although we will concentrate on the nineteenth century, we will actually cover three distinct literary movements: the Romantic, the Victorian, and the Modern. We will consider novels by Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, George Eliot, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, E. M. Forester, and Virginia Woolf, and D. H. Lawrence. We will consider the themes of love and passion, sex and marriage, gambling and thrift, virtue and vice, among others. We will also consider a variety of the novel’s sub-genres: the realist romance, the Gothic novel, the historical novel, the novel of ideas, the horror novel, the novel of empire, etc. We will pay special attention to the ways in which the novel responded (both in form and content) as the Romantic period yielded to the Victorian, and the Victorian to the Modern.
Required Texts:
Austen, Persuasion (1814).Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray (1890).
Bronte, Wuthering Heights (1847).Stoker, Dracula (1897).
Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1848).Forster, Passage to India (1924).
Dickens, Tale of Two Cities (1859).Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1927).
Eliot, Middlemarch (1871).Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928).
Selected Secondary Sources:
Watt, The Rise of the Novel; Spender, Mothers of the Novel; Lovell, Consuming Fiction; Armstrong, Desire and Domestic Fiction; Ballaster, Seductive Forms; Barker-Benfield, The Culture of Sensibility; Brantlinger, The Reading Lesson and Companion to the Victorian Novel; Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination; Clery, The Rise of Supernatural Fiction; Davis, Factual Fictions; Eagleton, The Function of Criticism; Ferris, The Achievement of Literary Authority; Gallagher, Nobody’s Story; Hammond, Making the Novel; Hunter, Before Novels; Jones, Women and Literature in Britain; Kendrick, The Secret Museum; McKeon, The Origins of the English Novel; MacCarthy, The Female Pen; Moore, The Novel: An Alternative History; Mudge, The Whore’s Story; Pearson, Women’s Reading in Britain; Richetti, The English Novel in History; and Warner, Licensing Entertainment.
Requirements
1)Preparation and Participation. Ours will be a large, intensive survey of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British novel. Students are required to prepare carefully each of the reading assignments and demonstrate that preparation in class discussion. I expect that participation will be informed not impressionistic.
2)Class Attendance. Because class discussion is so important to the success or failure of our discussions, regular attendance is required. More than three absences will automatically result in the loss of five points from the final grade; each additional absence will incur another five point penalty.
3)Position Papers. Ten. Position papers are short, one-page, single-spaced responses to the reading. Although they may "position" themselves anywhere along a continuum that begins with description and ends with analysis, they will be graded for two things: stylistic competence and the degree to which the substance of the reading has been engaged. Due at the end of the class during which the material is to be discussed. No late papers. (4 points each; 40 total) Graduate students must do at least three of the ten papers on secondary sources (of their own choosing).. N.B. KEEP ALL OF YOUR PAPERS AFTER I GRADE THEM AND TURN IN ALL TEN WITH YOUR FINAL PAPER.
4) Final Paper. One, eight to ten pages in length for undergraduates; twelve to fifteen pages for graduate students. The topics are wide open: almost any facet of our survey is fair game. The paper may, for example, be little more than a close reading of a problematic section of a single work, or it may range more largely over more distant terrain. Secondary sources (3 to 5 for undergraduates; 8 to 10 for graduates) are required. All topics should be okayed with the instructor; final papers due no later than Tuesday, December 6th, at the beginning of class. (30 points)
5) Final Exam. The final exam will cover the entire semester and will have three sections: short identifications, passage identifications, and essays. The short identifications may include names (authors or characters or historical figures), ideas (romanticism, imagination, nature, empire, etc.), events (industrial revolution, French revolution, Crimean War, etc.), or things (vampires, middle class, railroad, etc.). The passage identifications will be taken directly from those passages discussed in class. Students will be asked to identify the author, the title, and the date and to explain the significance of the passage to the work as a whole. The essays will range over topics developed during the course of the semester. (30 points)
N.B. Please familiarize yourself with the idea of, and the strictures against, plagiarism. Plagiarism may result in failing the class and may incur additional disciplinary actions.
Syllabus
August 23– Introduction: The Industrial Revolution and the Rise of the Novel. What was the industrial revolution and how did it change Britain in the years between 1750 and 1850? Why is it important to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature? What was the impact of the industrial revolution on the middle class? On literacy rates? On the availability of novels? Why were novels particularly important to the rising middle class? What was the connection between the industrial revolution and the French revolution? Why do we need to think about high and low culture and the evolution of ideas about literature?
25– Introduction: The Rise of the Novel and the Masquerade. What was the masquerade? Why was it popular? Why was it controversial? What were the connections between the masquerade and the novel? What were the perceived dangers of fiction? How were those fears related to other fears about class and politics and social instability? How was this debate engendered? Of what significance is this engenderment?
Graduate Students: Acquire a copy of Eagleton’s The English Novel (2005) and read pp. 1-93.
30– Austen, Persuasion (1814). What is English Romanticism? Is Jane Austen a “romantic” figure? If so, why? If not, why not? What kind of heroine is Anne Elliot? What is unusual about her? What is her family like? How does the novel establish the defining problems of the plot? Can you describe the narrative strategies? How do we learn information about the various characters?
Sept1– Austen, Persuasion (1814). How does “persuasion” function as a theme? Who is persuaded to do what? What kind of virtue does the novel extol? What kind of vice does it condemn? Of what does Anne’s temptation consist? How does the novel engage the epistemological dilemmas posed by the lover’s need to know the beloved?
Graduate Students: Eagleton, pp. 94-122.
6– Bronte, Wuthering Heights (1847). What do you find odd about the beginning of this novel? Is it hard to follow? Why? How would you describe the structure of the narrative? Which characters do you find sympathetic? Why? How does this novel compare and contrast to Austen’s Persuasion? What do you make of these literary and philosophical differences? Would you rather be a character in a novel by Austen or a novel by Bronte? To what degree is the novel a meditation on female identity and gender? Why does the novel pay so much attention to Cathy’s transition from girlhood to womanhood?
8– Bronte, Wuthering Heights (1847). What is the Gothic novel? What are its concerns? its strategies? In what ways is Bronte’s story Gothic? According to the novel, are ghosts real or not? What is the role of the landscape in the novel generally and in its Gothicism specifically? How is love itself redefined as a Gothic event?
Graduate Students: Eagleton, 123-42.
13– Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1848). Read the first half. In what ways does Vanity Fair mark a significant departure from the literary styles of both Persuasion and Wuthering Heights? How would you characterize those differences: more or less sophisticated, more or less effective, more male than female? What do you make of Thackeray’s characters? What is he doing with Becky, Amelia, and Dobbin? To what end is Thackeray playing the race card? What role does money play in the drama? Debt? What do we learn when George marries Amelia?
15– Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1848). Still the first half. Of what significance is the historical setting? Why the Napoleonic Wars? Why Waterloo? What is Thackeray doing with his anti-heroine heroine? How does she get worse and worse (or is that better and better?) as the novel progresses? Is this a romance novel? If so, how so? If not, why not?
20--Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1848). Second half. Is there a single likeable character in this entire novel? Is there a different kind of novelistic pleasure here? What is the role of the narrator? How is this structure fundamentally and profoundly different from that of Wuthering Heights? What, actually, does Thackeray mean by “vanity”? Why does Becky do what she does? What can we not help liking about her?
22–Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1848). Second half. How do the themes of the novel intensify in the last quarter? Why is it that we go from vanity to debt to gambling to prostitution? After all is said and done, what is the argument that Thackeray seems to be making about love and romance?
27– Dickens, Tale of Two Cities (1859). How would describe the atmosphere of the beginning? What key thematic notes are sounded? How are they picked up as the novel progresses? How does Dickens treat class? Is aristocracy (for Dickens) truly evil? How are the British contrasted to the French?
29– Dickens, Tale of Two Cities (1859). What is sentimentalism? How does it work? Is it a new (or just a different) kind of verisimilitude? How would you contrast the world of Dickens to that of Thackeray? As a reader, do you prefer the world of the sentimental or the world of the vain and hypocritical?
Graduate Students: Eagleton, 143-62.
Oct4– Eliot, Middlemarch (1871). First half. Why does Dorothea marry Casaubon? Why do you think Eliot begins the novel with this marriage? How do Dorothea/Casaubon complement Lydgate/Rosamond? What is Eliot doing with Rosamond (and her brother Fred)? What role does money play in these relationships? Class? Describe the narrator and the quality of the narration. What is different about the texture of this novel? Is it similar in intention and scope to its predecessors?
6– Eliot, Middlemarch (1871). First half. How does the novel treat a group rather than a pair of characters? Why does the novel treat the entire community? What are the connections that unify this particular group of characters? How do Casaubon and Lydgate become the failures that are corrected by Ladislaw and Dorothea?
Graduate Students: Eagleton, 163-186.
11– No Class: Independent Study. I expect that graduate students will make significant progress on additional secondary sources (beyond Eagleton) and that undergraduates will take this opportunity to get ahead on their reading assignments.
13– No Class: Independent Study. This would also be a good opportunity to think about a possible paper topic. Which areas of our discussion interest you? Which authors? Can you get started on some background research?
18– Eliot, Middlemarch (1871). Second half. Why does Will Ladislaw strike out on his own? What is his attraction to radical politics? Why does Eliot set the novel in this time period? What is the connection between the micro and the macro levels? Between the characters themselves and the larger time period in which their lives occur? How is Eliot’s view of marriage similar to or different from that of her predecessors?
20– Eliot, Middlemarch (1871). Second half. How is Eliot’s view of marriage similar to or different from that of her predecessors? What is the role played by “the greater good”?
25– Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). How is this novel different from the others? What does it mean to be a “novel of ideas”? What is “aestheticism”? What is the Gothic? How is this novel Gothic? Do you agree with Wilde: “There are no moral or immoral books?” What is the nature of evil in this book? What is the nature of beauty? What are the connections? What of love and lust? The imagination?
27– Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Consider Wilde’s treatment of homosexuality. How dangerous was it for its time? How does it fit into or react against the traditional romance novel? What do you think is Wilde’s final thematic message?
Nov 1– Stoker, Dracula (1897). How does this novel create an atmosphere of suspense and fear? How would you describe the manner of narration? How does sexuality function? What is vampirism? How does it work symbolically? Of what larger fears does it bespeak?
3– Stoker, Dracula (1897). Consider the novel and its relationship to empire. What does it say about British nationalism and colonial conquest? Of what is it afraid? How does the novel structure its concerns about Britain’s larger geopolitical situation? Is there an analogy here between body and state?
8– Forster, Passage to India (1924). What does India represent to the various characters? How do male and female and love and lust get mixed up with Western and Eastern? Of what importance is the theme of communication? Why is everyone confused about the intentions of the other? What does Forster seem to be saying about empire and the problem of knowledge?
10– Forster, Passage to India (1924). What is the famous “Caves Section” about? Why is the visit planned? What seems to happen? What do the various characters think has happened? What actually happened? How does the trial scene embody the key themes of the novel as a whole?
15– Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925). What is this novel about? How is it different structurally? How is your experience of it different from the other novels? How does Woolf manipulate time and space? What particular sections did you find pleasurable? Why? Is there a new kind of beautiful here? Of what does it consist?
17– Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925). Who realizes what as the novel progresses? Is it possible that everything and nothing “happens” at the same time? What do you think are the philosophical truths that emerge at the novel’s end?
22– Fall Break
24– Fall Break.
29– Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928). What does Lawrence appear to be criticizing? How does he use character to indict the political and social environment in which that character appears? How is this strategy different from (or similar to) what we saw in Austen or Bronte or Thackeray or Eliot?
Dec1– Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928). This book was indicted for obscenity when it first appeared. What might appear “obscene” about it? What does that tell you about where we are now? About the evolution of ideas about obscenity in the modern marketplace?
6–Review for Final Exam.
8–No class.
13–Exam Week.