EN245 The English Nineteenth-Century Novel
Tutor: Dr Jen Baker (H518)
Office Hours: TBC
Texts to Purchase:
Below I am specifying the editions I will be using: I strongly recommend those editions because of the quality of editing and accompanying critical materials in that edition, and it keeps the class flowing if we are all on “the same page”. However, I appreciate that many of you may already own or have purchased some of the texts/different editions, or for reasons of economy will prefer a cheaper edition. If so, please be ready with page numbers of chapters, your chosen quotes, etc, to help find corresponding pages quickly.
The “Primary Texts” for week 1 and 2 will be available to collect from 27th September from the departmental office. If you find yourself unable to collect, please read them online (links on module pages). Those for week 10 will be given out in due course.
Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent (Oxford World Classics, 2008)
Jane Austen, Persuasion (Oxford World Classics, 2008)
Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South (Oxford World Classics, 2008)
Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (Oxford World Classics, 2008)
Anthony Trollope, Cousin Henry (Oxford World Classics, 2008)
Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd (Vintage, 2015)
George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (Oxford World Classics, 2008)
Charlotte Brontë, Villette (Oxford World Classics, 2008)
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oxford World Classics, 2006 or 2008)
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1874) – any unabridged edition
Henry James, What Maisie Knew (Oxford World Classics, 2008 or 2009)
H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds (Oxford World Classics, 2017)
Term One – The C19th Novel: Form and Context
Week / Primary Text(s) / Suggested Secondary Reading1. What Makes the Novel, novel? Contemporaneous Criticism / Elizabeth Inchbald, ‘Novel Writing’ (1807)
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, ‘On Art in Fiction’ (1838)
W.G. Fraser, ‘New Novels’ (1849)
G.H. Lewes, ‘Criticism in Relation to Novels’ (1865)
Besant and James, ‘The Art of Fiction’ (1884)
Vernon Lee, ‘A Dialogue on Novels’ (1885)
/ The Victorian Novel: A Guide to Criticism
edited by Francis O'Gorman (Blackwell, 2002)
2. Is the Novel, novel? The modern and post-modern lens. / F.R. Leavis, ‘The Great Tradition’ (1948)
Roland Barthes, ‘The Reality Effect’ (1968)
Mikhail Bakhtin, ‘Discourse in the Novel’ (1981)
Rita Felski, ‘Context Stinks’ (2011)
/
Heather Love, ‘Close But Not Deep: Literary Ethics and the Descriptive Turn’
Fleissner, ‘Is Feminism a Historicism?’
3. The Historical Novel: Fact or Fiction? / Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent (1800)
/ John Bowen, ‘The Historical Novel’
4. Silly Lady Novelists? / Jane Austen, Persuasion (1817) / Jane Austen, ‘Plan of a Novel’ (1816).
George Eliot, ‘Silly Novels by Silly Lady Novelists’ (1856).
5. The Reality of Social Realism / Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South (1854-5) / Marx readings from the ‘German Ideology’.
Nicholas Dames ‘Realism and Theories of the Novel’ (2012)
6. READING WEEK / NO CLASS
7. Empires of Dirt / Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (1864-5)
/ -
8. The Evolution of Dirt / Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (1864-5)
/ Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859)
9. The Inheritance of Marriage / Anthony Trollope, Cousin Henry (1879)
/ -
10. The Short Story: A Contrast / Charles Dickens, ‘The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton’ (1838)
C.L. Pirkiss, ‘The Murder at Troyte’s Hill’ (1894)
Joseph Conrad, ‘An Outpost of Progress’ (1897)
Term Two – The C19th Novel: Outsiders and Others
Week / Primary Text(s) / Suggested Secondary Reading1. The Bleak Idyll / Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd (1874)
2. Science and/of the Novel / George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (1876) / William Whewell, ‘Aphorisms Concerning the Language of Science’’
3. The Foreign / George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (1876)
/ Primary Sources on the ‘Victorian Jew’
4. Haunted Femininity / Charlotte Brontë, Villette (1853)
/ -
5. Spectral Femininity / Charlotte Brontë, Villette (1853)
/ Extracts from earlier Gothic texts
WEEK 6: READING WEEK / NO CLASS
7: Queering the Gothic Aesthetic / Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) / Ardel Thomas, ‘Queer Victorian Gothic’ (2012)
8: The Curious Case of the Child / Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1874) /
Nina Auerbach, ‘Alice and Wonderland: A Curious Child’ (1973)
9: Dark Curiosities / Henry James, What Maisie Knew (1897) / Henry James, ‘Critical Preface to Maisie’ (1909)10: Darkest Present-Futures / H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds (1898)