ENGL 2773 X2 - Stephen Ahern

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION

In this course we will explore the "rise" of the novel from its origins to its emergence by 1800 as the dominant literary form in Britain.  We’ll consider a selection of texts that represent significant novelistic subgenres, including heroic tragedy, popular romance, domestic fiction, and the sentimental novel, and culminating in the tale of Gothic terror.  We’ll place these narratives in their contemporary cultural contexts, and consider how they dramatize Enlightenment concerns about the individual's relation to self and community.  As we explore the complex psychology of character in these narratives, we’ll discover how important a role the novel played in the development of modern notions of moral agency.  As we investigate key topics such as the relation of vice and virtue, sex and sensibility, reason and feeling, we’ll discover how these ideologically conflicted notions are in practice inflected by gender, class, and race.  Finally, I hope you will leave this course having a strong sense of the rich tradition offered by the early novel, and above all having enjoyed reading some compellingly good stories.