In this course, we will examine early to middle nineteenth-century novels that grapple with a variety of issues, among them Britain’s sense of itself in relation to other European nations; Britain’s abolition of the slave trade; issues around gender, marriage, and domestic violence; class conflict; race; and the British empire. In addition to these pertinent issues, we will also explore the various tasks the novel performed as a genre, including but not limited to its cultivation of national and imperial identity, its theorization of “development” and “progress,” the function of characterization in eliciting reader responses to pressing social concerns, the role of shock or sensation, and the use of wit and humor. Be prepared to read approximately 200 pages per week and to contribute consistently to class discussion. The primary method of instruction will be class discussions connected closely with short and long writing assignments. We will explore literary criticism and some literary theory (to be made available in a photocopied course packet) in addition to the novels. You will write a short paper on each novel plus a longer final term paper.

Texts:
Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, ISBN # 0141439793
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, ISBN # 0393975428
Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, ISBN # 0199207550
Charles Dickens, OliverTwist, ISBN # 039396292X
William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ISBN # 0141439831
Photocopied course packet