19C Novel in English

Whether British
or American, the novel in the nineteenth century was primarily important for
its impact in exposing social corruption and affecting social change.  In this course, the major focus is on how
nineteenth-century novels are explore many of the same issues that preoccupy us
politically today—principally power differentials of race, gender, and class.  A major part of the experience of reading
these texts is in dismantling the rhetorical and representative systems set up
the to promote new moral and social ideas, in direct opposition to established
conventions, so we will also look at narrative strategies about political
ideology and  about the
Nineteenth-Century novel as a genre into the language and structure of their
works.  Novels include Charlotte Brontë’s
JANE EYRE, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s UNCLE TOM’S CABIN, Mark Twain’s HUCKELBERRY
FIN, Charles Dickens’ GREAT ECPECTATIONS, Henry James’ THE AMERICAN, Thomas
Hardy’s JUDE THE OBSCURE, and Oscar Wilde’s PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY.  This is a lecture/discussion class.   The writing requirement is a series of
three-part exams. The first two parts will be IDENTIFICATION, which primarily
involves the students responding in paragraph form to selected passages from
the reading, and the third  will be ESSAY
where students will bring in works of their own choosing from the material
studied in response to a comprehensive question about the period.