This course is meant to be a survey of the literature and culture of a period that spans over 200 years, from Romanticism to the Victorian Age to our own present moment. In order to make such a survey more manageable, we will focus our study on a series of texts that ask a similar question: What makes “good” literature? In order to grapple with that question, we will divide our time between close readings of fiction and investigations of these texts’ cultural and historical contexts. In all of the literature we read together, we will focus on the social, political, and philosophical implications of writing as they change from the Romantic to the Modern periods. Along the way, we will read accompanying works of literary criticism by authors of fiction themselves, all of whom grapple with the possibilities of literature as representative of human experience.
Course requirements include a demanding reading schedule, short reading responses, active in-class participation, an annotated bibliography of critical sources, a midterm paper, and a final paper. Writing requirements will include bi-weekly 1-page responses, and two 5-7 page analytical papers, one involving research. This course fulfills both VLPA and W credits

Texts:

• Jane Austen. Northanger Abbey.
• Emily Brontë. Wuthering Heights.
• George Gissing. New Grub Street. Penguin Classics edition. [9780140430325]
• James Joyce. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
• Willa Cather. The Professor’s House.
• John Fowles. The French Lieutenant’s Woman.
• photocopied course packet containing short fiction and critical essays.