Unit name | Novel Territories: Eighteenth-century Prose Fiction |
---|---|
Unit code | ENGL30115 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | H/6 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
Unit director | Dr. Rosalind Powell |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of English |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit will introduce students to a range of experimental forms that trace the rise of the novel through the long eighteenth-century. The unit will enable students to engage with such themes as literary experimentation, reason, sensibility and sexuality, class, personal identity, science and medicine, slavery and emancipation, and to access a range of forms from travel narrative to parody. Rather than tracing a passage through a succession of canonical “greats”, the course will address (and question the separation between) “high” and “low” forms of narrative fiction, introducing students to historical and modern critical debates. The unit raises important questions about the origins of the novel; the evolution and popularity of literary genres in relation to their social and intellectual contexts; the relationship of the novel to other forms of writing (romance, newspapers, letters, or political pamphlets); the impact of literacy; and the significance of the gender of both authors and readers.
The aims of the unit are for students to develop a sophisticated, critically reflective understanding of these phenomena, based on research and study including digital archives and other online resources; and to enhance skills of analysis and communication.
Students will practise their close reading skills in small groups, and will work together on a group presentation.
At the end of the unit a successful student will be able to:
1 x 1 hour seminar
1 x 1 hour lecture
1 x 1 hour discussion/workshop
1 x 2000 word essay based on research derived from special collections and/or online databases. 33% (ILOs 1-5)
1 x summative one-week take-home exam 67% (ILOs 1-5.)
Indicative texts:
Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews (1742)
Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy (1859-67)
Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote (1752)
Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771)
Frances Burney, The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (1814)
Nancy Armstrong, Desire and Domestic Fiction (1987)