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The British fiction of the modern period displays a range of concerns, from the aestheticist cultivation of beauty and sensation to documentary-realist explorations of social problems. This course will interpret novels, stories and quasi-fictional reportage from the period in relation to ideas (then and now) about the social and political function of literature. Emphasis will fall equally on questions of narrative technique and thematic content. How are the diverse emphases of these works respons es to processes of modernization and the commodification of culture? How do these works depict the relation of social and historical realities to individual perception and experience? How are private desires reconciled with public responsibilities? How is literary language imagined as both rational communication and a disruption of habituated modes of thought and action? How are the pervasive anticapitalist sentiments of the period manifested in both progressive and reactionary views of culture and politics?
Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.
COURSE FORMAT: Lecture/Discussion
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ENGL Grading Mode: Student Option
Prerequisites: NONE
Last Updated on MAR-26-2001
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459