Spring 2005

E 327 • The English Novel in the Eighteenth Century

Course Description

This course will explore the variety of 18th-century novel forms through the works of the authors listed below. We will be looking both at the kinds of subjects (private, public, legal, gendered) and the kinds of narratives (romance, journal, sensational, quixotic) that successfully engaged the attention of the 18th-century reading public. We will also be asking why certain forms of the novel became representative, while other forms languished, critically speaking, outside the official "history of the novel."

Grading Policy

Three papers (4-5 pp. each) 15% each
Final paper (minimum 6 pp.) 50%
Attendance and participation 5%

Texts

(subject to change)
Various short stories and novellas by Aphra Behn, Eliza Haywood and Delarivier Manley
Daniel Defoe, Journal of a Plague Year
Henry Fielding, Tom Jones
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

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