This class is a very reading and writing intensive course. We will focus on the practice of close reading, particularly as it relates to the historical, political, and cultural contexts of the literature. Students will improve their writing skills with regard to writing about literature and culture, fulfilling the University of Washington’s W-requirement. It will include 10-15 pages of graded, out-of-class writing, in the form of two 4-6 page papers and three 1-page response papers. The course will also include a small group discussion-led component as well as in-class debates.

Through literary fiction, film, and critical theoretical essays, our readings will explore middle-class women’s effects on shaping reform to the social, political, and religious culture of Victorian England. Readings will be drawn from the works of Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre), George Eliot (Middlemarch), and Elizabeth Gaskell (Cranford). We will take up questions of imagery/characterization/narrative while comparing the novel as a literary form to sections of the later BBC movie representations. We will also examine how contemporary feminist critics including Deirdre D’Albertis, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Suzanne Graver, and Elizabeth Langland question the feminism of Brontë, Eliot, and Gaskell through their various female characters.

The three required novels are Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, 1847; Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford, 1851; and George Eliot’s Middlemarch, 1871. All other materials will be available on-line or in the course reader.