ENG 3061: The English Novel

ENG 3061/5061: The English Novel

This is a course description for informational purposes only. A full syllabus will be available via Blackboard to students registered in the course in spring 2007.

Please note that, according to new departmental policy, only those who have previously taken an ENG course are eligible to take a 3000-level ENG seminar.

Course Description:

This seminar will examine the history and evolution of the novel in English from its emergence in the early eighteenth century to the present day. Through reading representative and important novels from the neoclassical, Romantic, Victorian, modern, and contemporary periods, we will explore changes in authors' techniques and concerns. We will pay particular attention to styles of narrative; approaches to psychological characterization; novelists' response to contemporary conventions of fiction; and representations of "Englishness." ENG 3061 counts towards the English major as a genre course. It is strongly recommended that undergraduates have already completed at least one core course in the periods covered by this seminar (i.e. ENG III, ENG IV, and ENG V).

Readings (in chronological order):

Defoe, Daniel. Roxana. 1724. Penguin. 0140431497
Burney, Frances. Evelina. 1778. Penguin. 0140433473
Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey. 1818. [written 1798-99] Penguin. 0141439793
Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. 1847. Penguin. 0141439556
Eliot, George. The Mill on the Floss. 1860. Oxford. 0192833642
Forster, E. M. A Passage to India. 1924. Harcourt. 0156711427
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. 1927. Harcourt. 0156907399
McEwan, Ian. Atonement. 2001. Anchor. 038572179X

Course requirements for ENG 3061 (undergraduate level):

preparation for class
active participation in discussion
weekly reading journals
leading the beginning of one class discussion (including preparing questions and passages)
one short paper (5-6 pages; option to revise) and one long paper (8-10 pages; drafts and other in-process work will be required)

Course requirements for ENG 5061 (graduate level):

preparation for class
active participation in discussion
weekly reading journals
leading one class discussion (including preparing questions and passages and also researching and presenting a critical article)
one long paper (15-20 pages) on a topic of your choice that incorporates secondary sources and criticism; individual consultations, drafts and other in-process work will be required

course objectives:

to deepen your understanding of the concerns exhibited and techniques deployed by English novelists
to provide you with a framework for understanding key ways in which those concerns and techniques have changed in the history of the genre
to acquaint you thoroughly with the eight novels we will read, as well as with selected biographical and historical context
to introduce you to some of the principal questions critics and readers have asked regarding these novels since their publication
to draw connections between these novels and other English novels you have read and studied, in order to reinforce your sense of the genre's historical evolution
to develop advanced skills in critical reading—particularly close reading, making connections within a literary work, and generating thought-provoking questions—through active reading and guided class preparation
to develop advanced skills at presenting questions and ideas verbally, and at responding to those of others, through seminar-style class discussions, one of which you will lead
to develop advanced skills as critical writers about literature, through analytical paper assignments, including an opportunity for revision

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