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Campus | Haverford |
Semester | Fall 2019 |
Registration ID | ENGLH258A001 |
Course Title | The “Rise” of the Novel |
Credit | 1.00 |
Department | English |
Instructor | Diamond,David |
Times and Days | MW 11:15am-12:45pm
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Room Location | LUT230 |
Additional Course Info | Class Number: 2849 Thanks in large part to Ian Watt’s foundational study, the eighteenth century has become synonymous with the “rise” of the novel as a literary form. This course introduces both the early history of the novel and the tradition of criticism that seeks to explain it. What is a novel, exactly, and what are the cultural conditions that give it definition? What are the stakes of the idea, posited by Watt and then reformulated in several ways over the second half of the twentieth century, that the novel originates in eighteenth-century Britain? Reading fiction by Eliza Haywood, Henry Fielding, and Frances Burney in tandem with modern scholarship, we evaluate the persuasiveness of Watt’s account and of those that build on or respond to it. We also investigate the assumptions underlying the persistent characterization of the eighteenth century as a period of rising action, marked by the emergence of new aesthetic forms and forms of thought. Major assignments include two formal essays (one five to seven pages long, the other eight to 10 pages), a small-group presentation, and a final examination. Students are also assigned grades for their participation and for low-stakes, in-class writing. Humanities, A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts) (Hav: HU, A) |
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