English 190

Book List

Austen, Jane: Mansfield Park; Austen, Jane: Persuasion; Godwin, William: Caleb Williams; Hogg, James: Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner; Scott, Walter: Redgauntlet; Scott, Walter: Waverley; Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein

Description

Readings in the “novelistic revolution” (Franco Moretti’s phrase) of European Romanticism. With our main focus on the establishment of  “the classical form of the historical novel” in Scott’s Waverley, published two hundred years ago in 1814, we’ll look at a range of novelistic experiments and genres in British fiction between 1794 and 1824, following two interwoven threads:

• Comedies of national and conjugal union, in the historical and marriage plots of Walter Scott (Waverley, Redgauntlet) and Jane Austen (Mansfield Park, Persuasion)
• Gothic scenarios of homosocial obsession, persecution, fanaticism, and monstrous secrets, in tales by William Godwin (Caleb Williams), Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), and James Hogg (Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner).

Students will attend the symposium on 1814, taking place at Berkeley on the weekend of September 20, and write a 20-25 research paper.

Please read the paragraph on page 2 of the instructions area of this Announcement of Classes for more details about enrolling in or wait-listing for this course.