ENROLL

Jessica Leiman

This course explores the history and form of the British novel, tracing its development from a strange, sensational experiment in the eighteenth century to a dominant literary genre today. Among the questions that we will consider: What is a novel? What makes it such a popular form of entertainment? How does the novel participate in ongoing conversations about family, sex, class, race, and nation? How did a genre once considered a source of moral corruption become a legitimate literary form? Authors include: Daniel Defoe, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Bram Stoker, Virginia Woolf, and Jackie Kay.

Peter Balaam

An exploration of drama approached as literature and in performance. New digital resources enable us to take world-class productions from the National Theatre and elsewhere as our texts. Drawing examples both globally and across time, we will consider plays and recent productions in their historical and cultural contexts. Students will develop critical vocabularies, debate interpretations, and hone their interpretive and rhetorical skills in writing reviews and essays. Additional time required for viewing performances.

Timothy Raylor

Can you serve power without sacrificing your principles or risking your life?  We examine the classic explorations of the problem--Machiavelli's Prince, Castiglione's Courtier, and More's Utopia--and investigate the place of poets and poetry at court of Henry VIII, tracing the birth of the English sonnet, and the role of poetry in the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn.

1st 5 weeks

Timothy Raylor

Spenser's romance epic: an Arthurian quest-cycle, celebrating the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I, and England's imperial destiny.  Readers encounter knights, ladies, and lady-knights; enchanted groves and magic castles; dragons and sorcerers; and are put through a series of moral tests and hermeneutic challenges.

2nd 5 weeks

Constance Walker

Jessica Leiman

Stories of virtue in distress and innocence ruined preoccupied English novelists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  This course will focus on the English seduction novel, considering the following questions: What was the allure of the seduction plot?  What does it reveal about sexual relations, gender, power, and class during this period?  How does the seduction plot address and provoke concerns about novel-reading itself during a time when the genre was considered both an instrument of education and an agent of moral corruption?  Authors include: Eliza Haywood, Samuel Richardson, Susanna Rowson, and Bram Stoker.

Prerequisite: English 295 and one 300 level English course