ENGL 640: 19th Century British Literature
"The Victorian Novel and the Victorian Social World"
Spring 2008 - Thursdays 4:30 - 7:10 ENT 175

Professor Rosemary Jann
Office Hours Th 2-4 Rob A425 703-993-3248
http://mason.gmu.edu/~rjann - rjann@gmu.edu

The novel was the dominant genre during the nineteenth century in large part because of its responsiveness to new conceptions of identity mobilized by rapid social change: in gender roles, in class position, in the role of Great Britain with respect to the rest of the world.. As industrialization and urbanization accentuated class conflict, novels could provide imaginary solutions to real ideological dilemmas. Victorian fiction both reflected and helped to construct changing roles for women and to advance claims for the superiority of certain forms of middle-class subjectivity. Novels registered the ambivalence of empire and the nostalgia for an idealized past. In this course we will consider the ways in which Victorian fiction both reflects and refracts the social history of the period. We will also consider the changing narrative conventions that shaped the genre. Assigned readings will include approximately seven novels and related critical essays by contemporary theorists. Victorian novels are not all "loose baggy monsters" (Henry James' slight on Thackeray's fiction), but understanding the genre means reading at least some in their typical format: the multi-plot fiction in three volumes. You should thus be prepared to read 300-400 pages of fiction per week. Required work will include regular response papers, a researched essay, and a take-home essay examination.

Note: Please read the first half of Wuthering Heights for our first class meeting.
Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Oxford World Classics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192833549.
Thackeray, William Makepeace. Vanity Fair. Oxford World Classics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192834430.
Eliot, George. Adam Bede. Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0-14-043121-6.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. Cranford. Oxford World Classics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192832092.
Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Oxford World Classics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192834010.
Trollope, Anthony. The Warden. Oxford World Classics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192834089.
Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Oxford World Classics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192840691.
Conrad, Joseph and Rudyard Kipling. Heart of Darkness, the Man Who Would Be King, and Other Works on Empire. Ed. David Damrosch. A Longman Cultural Edition. Longman Press. ISBN 978-0-321-36467-8.

Required work:
5 3-4 page response papers, 10% each
10-12 page researched essay, 25%
Take-home Final Examination, 20%
Participation, including contributions to class discussion. You cannot participate if you are not in class. 5%

Response Essays (critical readings are available either on E-Reserve [password= brits] or through the library's E-Journal databases).
You are required to complete five 3-4 page essays during the course of the semester in response to the critical readings paired with five different novels. A response essay should 1) identify the main argument presented by the critic and 2) analyze its persuasiveness by considering specific evidence from the novel. There are various ways in which you could conduct this analysis. You could choose to discuss the strong and weak points of the critic's argument, for instance, considering additional evidence that supports or refutes the critic's position. For weeks in which there are two critical essays listed, you might compare their approaches if you have time to read them both. Or you might compare one critic's theoretical approach to that taken by another critic on a novel read earlier in the semester. The important thing is to actively engage with the critic and with the primary text and demonstrate your understanding of both. Response essays are due at the beginning of the class for which the critical essay is listed in the syllabus.
Researched Essay: You are required to complete a 10-12 page essay involving research in secondary sources (historical and/or critical) on some aspect of Victorian fiction. Your essay should present and support a specific and contestable assertion about one or more novels. You should draw support from at least 3 sources outside the novel(s) you are analyzing. I will suggest various possible topics later in the semester. Preliminary topics due by March 27; essay due in class on April 24.
Take-home Final Examination: The course will end with a take-home final examination. The questions will be distributed at our last class meeting (May 1) and your responses will be due the following Thursday, May 8, by 6 pm. Exam questions with cover the entire reading list for the course and lead you to compare texts and synthesize your judgments of the semester's readings.

Paper Policies: papers are due in class on the night they are listed. Papers more than one week late will be penalized with a lowered grade. I will accept a paper via e-mail as proof that you completed it on time, but you are still responsible for giving me a hard copy to grade as soon as possible. Papers should be typed double-spaced in a 10 or 12 point font.
Plagiarism is a violation of the GMU Honors Code; I will submit suspected cases to the Honor Committee. Please see the English Department's statement on plagiarism at http://cas.gmu.edu/english/composition/f_plagiarism.html .

Email: All students need to have an internet service provider and to activate their GMU email account. Official GMU policy requires that faculty send email to students' GMU email addresses. You can set up forwarding from your GMU account to your preferred account if you wish (follow the directions on the "options" page of your mail.gmu.edu account).

Course Schedule

http://mason.gmu.edu/~rjann