Course: English 375: The Nineteenth-Century British Novel

This class on the Victorian novel focuses on women writers in order to see how finding a female authorial voice is central to understanding not only how the Victorian novel became the dominant literary genre for the century, but also how it mutated into something different from the realist novel altogether—the novels of the 'decadent' male writers of the Late-Victorian era. One strain within the transformation we will trace is the use of the supernatural tale as a Gothic or Romantic representation of gender, sexuality, Orientalism, and addiction—those things Victorian novels both suppress and emphasize and that are key to understanding the complex nature of Victorian culture.
 

Texts: 

1. The following books are available from the USM bookstore:

Austen, Jane. Emma. Ed. Stephen M. Parrish. 3rd edition. New York: Norton, 2000.

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Ed. Beth Newman. New York: Bedford, 1996.

Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Ed. Linda H. Peterson. New York: Bedford, 1992.

Eliot, George. The Lifted Veil. New York: Penguin, 1985.

Freedman, Jonathan, ed. Oscar Wilde: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1996.Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Ed. Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal. New York: Norton, 1997. 

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Ed. Isobel Murray. New York: Oxford UP, 1994.

2. The following essays are on reserve at the Glickman Library:

Booth, Wayne C. From The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961. 242-66.

Gaskell, Elizabeth. "The Old Nurse's Story." Nineteenth -Century Stories by Women. Ed. Glennis Stephenson. Lewiston, NY: Broadview, 1993. 248-309.

Stewart, Garrett. "Film's Victorian Retrofit." Victorian Studies 38.2 (1995): 153-198.

Requirements:

Class will consist of lectures and discussion. Note that in addition to reading the assigned novels, you will be required to read at least 2 critical essays on each novel as well. Other requirements include: 1. a midterm examination (30%), 2. a final examination on material not covered on the midterm (30%), 3. a critical paper of no fewer than 10 pages in length on a topic approved by me (35%), 4. a short exercise on one of the novels (5%). Up to three points may be added to or subtracted from the final averaged grade to reflect the quality of class participatio and attendance.. Please note that essays must be documented according to the latest edition of the MLA Handbook.

Reading Schedule: 

January
16: Introduction to the class; student information and surveys completed; syllabi distributed; Introduction to the Victorian Period.

23: Part One: Women Writing Women: Emma; essays in Norton edition of Emma by Maggie Lane and Suzanne Ferriss; essay by Booth (reserve).

30: Cont.; screening of Clueless (1995).

February
6: Jane Eyre; essays in Bedford edition by Sandra M. Gilbert and Elsie Michie.

13: Cont.

20: Winter Break.

27: Wuthering Heights; essays in Bedford edition by J. Hillis Miller and Terry Eagleton; chronology of events from Norton edition (handout).

March
6: Continued.

13: Midterm Exam.

20: Part Two: Old Stories: The Victorian Gothic: "The Old Nurse's Tale" and The Lifted Veil.

April
3: Part Three: The Novel Inside Out: The Picture of Dorian Gray; essays in Freedman by Ed Cohen and Rachel Bowlby; screening of Biography episode on Wilde.

10: Cont.

17: Dracula; essays in Norton edition by Phyllis A. Roth, Franco Moretti, Christopher Craft, Stephen D. Arata, and Talia Shaffer; essay by Garrett Stewart (reserve); research paper due.

24: Continued.

May
1: Screening of Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).

Exam day: final exam.
 

Exam day: final exam.