The Comic Novel in the Long Nineteenth Century
ENGL 255
Spring 2022 not offered
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This course examines the tradition of the comic novel from the origins of the novel itself to the early twentieth century. We will begin by examining the two models for the comic novel that emerged at the beginning of our period, Fielding's TOM JONES and Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: a narrator who is colloquial and digressive or reclusive and ironic; a plot that is episodic and fragmentary or unified and spare; an ethical scheme that relies on satire and social commentary or on poetic justice and the implications of theme. We will then trace the ways later writers drew on and rebelled against those two modes. While enjoying these very funny books on their own terms, we will also take seriously their experiments with narrative form; their complicated relationship to the categories of "the novel," comedy, realism, and modernism; and their engagement with the social, economic, and political tensions of the world they depict, however hilariously. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (ENGL) |
Major Readings:
Austen, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE; Byron, DON JUAN; Dickens, DAVID COPPERFIELD; Forster, A ROOM WITH A VIEW; Gaskell, CRANFORD; Gilbert and Sullivan, PIRATES OF PENZANCE; Trollope, BARCHESTER TOWERS; Wilde, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST; Wodehouse, THE CODE OF THE WOOSTERS
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Examinations and Assignments:
Several papers and reading exercises |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
Class of '22: This course fulfills the Literary History 2 requirement and contributes to the British Literature and Theory & Literary Forms concentrations of the English major
Class of 23 & beyond: This course fulfills the British Literature and Literary History 2 requirements of the English major.
This course provides a Research Option for fulfillment of the Honors research requirement. |
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