This
is a course description for informational purposes only. When this course
is next offered, a full syllabus will be available via Blackboard to students registered in the course.
The Victorian Novel (ENG 3113/5113)
course description:
This seminar will explore the variety in subject matter and style offered by authors in what is often considered the golden age of the British novel, the Victorian period (1837-1901). We will begin with two “condition of England” novels from the middle of the nineteenth century: Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton (1848) and Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley (1849), both of which attempt to balance a critique of industrialism with conventional sentimentalism and romance. We will next look at the development of detective and “sensation” fiction, as represented by Charles Dickens’ masterpiece Bleak House (1853) and Wilkie Collins’s serialized shocker The Woman in White (1860). Finally, we will consider the fictional representation of the liberated “New Woman,” through George Gissing’s The Odd Women (1893).
Brief readings included in the editions assigned for the course will help us consider each novel in the context of contemporary social debates as well as in terms of its publication history (including serialization, if applicable) and critical reception. We will also examine innovations in literary techniques such as characterization and narrative; changes in conceptions of the roles of authors and readers; distinctions between “literary” and “popular” writing; and treatment of such topics as social class, “Englishness,” and gender.
ENG 3113 (undergraduate level) counts towards the English major as a genre course. In keeping with English department policy regarding 3000-level seminars, a prior English literature (ENG) course is required of all undergraduate students enrolled in this course.
Brontë, Charlotte. Shirley. Ed. Jessica Cox. New York: Penguin, 2006. (ISBN: 0141439866)
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. Ed. Maria K. Bachman and Don Richard Cox. Peterborough: Broadview, 2006.
Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Norton. (ISBN: 9781551116440 or 1551116448)
Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton. Ed. Jennifer Foster. Peterborough: Broadview, 2000. (ISBN: 1551111691 or 9781551111698).
Gissing, George. The Odd Women. Ed. Arlene Young. Peterborough: Broadview, xx. (ISBN: 9781551111117 or 155111111X)
course
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active, informed participation in discussion
three discussion questions submitted weekly before class
a brief analytical paper (2-3 pages for undergrads, 3-4 pages for grads) submitted after discussion of every novel except The Odd Women
final synthesizing essay incorporating The Odd Women (6-8 pages for undergrads, 10-12 pages for grads)
for graduate students only: an annotated critical bibliography on one of our novels