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Academic Year 2005/2006

Reading the Victorians
ENGL 245 SP
Crosslistings:
WMST 255

Why read the Victorians? To know more about how an industrial, urban, commercial, imperial nation imagines itself; to understand better how middle-class culture is established and comes to work all by itself; to explore the power of representations of sexual difference--the famous separate spheres for 19th-century men and women--and of the great divide which opens between the public and the private. In other words, to better know ourselves. Our primary focus will be on novels; we will read other kinds of Victorian texts as well, and current literary criticism and historical studies. Why study literature to address these questions? To understand better the complex pleasures of novelistic representation, to learn how novels work.

MAJOR READINGS

Novels by Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot and others. Selections from newspaper journalism, including Henry Mayhew's letters on "London Labour and the London Poor." Essays, including selections from Carlyle. Readings from the critical literature on the Victorian novel, including Nancy Armstrong, Mary Poovey, and Catherine Gallagher.

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

One 8 page paper; one 15 page paper.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

This course will depend on class discussion and oral presentations. You must be prepared to keep up with a heavy reading load.

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture/Discussion

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ENGL    Grading Mode: Student Option   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-30-2006

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