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ELIT 510 The Rise and Development of the English Novel
When: Thursdays 1440-1730 Where: Z18 in the Department of Foreign Language Education Who: Instructor: Margaret J-M Sonmez Students: MA and PhD students of English Literature What: Starting with an example 17th century Romance, and paying attention to its many roots in the drama as well, we trace the development of the novel through the 18th century and discuss what happened to these developments in the following centuries. How: As students in this course you will be required to read a lot. Early novels are long and without having read a minimum of the 6 set texts/writers you will not be able to contribute to discussions or write the graded assignments. Each student will be given a particular thematic or technical 'angle' to follow through all the novels s/he reads, and the final exam grade will be given to the long term paper that is written as a result of this research. (The list of topics with comments is given below, keep scrolling!) Because we are concentrating on very specific and focused topics you will work closely with the texts, so even if you have read them before you will find yourself re-reading them all through. Class presentations and discussions will be opportunities to share what this research has brought to light, and to look at the novels in the light of separate, broader categorizations.
Grading: Presentations 30 Mid Term 30 Final/Term paper 40 Attendance: Students absent for more than 3 lessons without a medical report will fail the course.
Set texts: (All of these texts are available through the internet as etexts) Eliza Haywood Idalia [http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/haywood/idalia/idalia.html] Daniel Defoe Robinsoe Crusoe [1719-robinson-crusoe.html] [this is the first edition] Samuel Richardson Pamela [Samuel_Richardson at Project Gutenberg] Henry Fielding Joesph Andrews [Henry+Fielding at Project Gutenberg] Isaac Sterne Tristram Shandy [Laurence+Sterne at Project Gutenberg] EITHER a gothic novel or Gullivers Travels or a novel by Smollett or another Romance/early novel or a novel by an 18th century woman novelist . . .
[Eliza Heywood]
List of Research Topics/Areas * Travel *Physical description of characters *Places *Conflicts and resolutions *Love/Lust *Economics *Indoors/Outdoors *The Uncanny (see book by Nicholas Royle) *Parents/substitute parents/parental figures (Include a consideration the family as a metaphor for the state) *Knowledge (Like money, knowledge is unequally distributed among characters. Knowledge withheld and revealed is also one of the fundamental elements of many plots. Consider this and other aspects of knowledge/ignorance/naivete in your novels. Is there an economics of knowledge, is knowledge a form of capital in the world of the novel?) *Leisure *Art and Beauty *Comments directly addressed to the reader *Social gatherings Useful links (this list will grow during the semester): Defoe—The Newspaper and the Novel Richardson [from the Cambridge History of Eng Lit] Fielding and Smollett [from the Cambridge History of Eng Lit] [the hypertext Tristram Shandy] page1.html Sterne, and the Novel of His Times [from the Cambridge History of Eng Lit] Swift [from the Cambridge History of Eng Lit] http://www.aellam.net/ts/ [the visual in Tristram Shandy] The Bluestocking Archive (contains links to articles and texts from and about the 18th century; especially good on women writers) http://www.british-fiction.cf.ac.uk/ (bibliography, links and texts; the production, circulation and reception of literature 1800-1829) A Celebration of Women Writers
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