The Comic Novel from Fielding to Fielding
ENGL 312
Fall 2010 not offered
|
This course examines the tradition of the comic novel from the origins of the novel itself--in Henry Fielding's TOM JONES and Jane Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE--to Helen Fielding's blockbuster BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY. We will trace the ways later writers drew on and rebelled against the two models for the comic novel that TOM JONES and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE established: 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 upon poetic justice and the implications of theme. 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. |
|
Essential Capabilities:
Writing
This is a writing-intensive course.
|
| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
|
Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
Major Readings:
Fielding, THE HISTORY OF TOM JONES, A FOUNDLING
Austen, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Dickens, LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY
Trollope, BARCHESTER TOWERS
Forster, A ROOM WITH A VIEW
Wodehouse, THE INIMITABLE JEEVES
Waugh, THE LOVED ONE
Fielding, BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY
|
Examinations and Assignments:
Several very short essays (1-2 p.); final paper (10-12p.) |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course meets the English Department's Research Option requirement for senior thesis writers. |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
|
|