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Victorian Britain is the time and place of realistic representation. Critics applaud novelists for the lifelike fidelity of their representations of contemporary life, wherein the literate public discovered recognizable cityscapes and rural scenes, and familiar characters whose lives unfold in chronological sequence as they pursue their familiar occupations. Novels are sometimes compared to photographs, a new technology of visual representation that seems to hold up a mirror to the world. Nonfictional writing declares itself to be realistic, too: writers commissioned by newspapers sent back reports on "London labor and the London poor" which in their elaborate investigative detail and evocation of character are not unlike novelistic fictions. In this course we will read Victorian novels, non-fictional essays, and 19th-century literary criticism to ask what makes a work "realistic" and will read recent theoretical and critical work on realism as well. Our project will be to study both the formal elements of realistic representation and the effects such representations have in the world.
COURSE FORMAT: Discussion
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
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459