Title: 18TH CENTURY ENGLISH NOVEL (3)

PRQ:

This course will study the beginnings and early development of the classical English novel and modern scholarship relating to this subject. The course will also investigate the styles and structures of particular novels and look at the ties between the novel and William Hogarth’s progresses and the graphic art of Thomas Rowlandson.

Each student is required to write a major paper (c. 3,000 words). Active class participation is required and will be graded. The class will read the novels listed below and, for each novel, one or two scholarly essays of recent vintage dealing with that work of fiction or the issues it raises. These will be posted to Blackboard, one by me and the other by each student in the class in turn. You must then be proficient in scanning and posting to electronic media to take the class. Two students, whom I will name for each class, will lead the discussion of these texts every class; these performances will be evaluated and calculated in the final course grade.

Students may be called on to solve minor bibliographic and historical problems that arise in the course of the semester.

Behn, Oroonoko or the Royal Slave, Norton Critical Edition

Defoe, Moll Flanders, Riverside

Richardson, Pamela (with Shamela by Fielding) Signet

Richardson, Clarissa, Riverside

Fielding, Tom Jones, Penguin

Sterne, Tristram Shandy, Riverside

Burney, Evelina, Norton Critical Edition

Shelley, Frankenstein, Bedford/St Martins