Course contents
The module explores the birth and evolution of the English novel in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; particular attention will be devoted to the historical and cultural context in which the novel developed and to the interaction between literary texts and critical production.
We will read extracts from novels and coeval critical texts. Students are also asked to read five novels, in English, among those listed below.
Materials for the course, to be prepared for the exam, are on sale at CLU bookstore.
Reccomended or required readings
PRIMARY TEXTS
For the exam, students are required to read 5 novels in English from this list:
Daniel Defoe, The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719).
Jonathan Swift, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver (1726).
Samuel Richardson, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740).
Henry Fielding, The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews (1742).
Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-1767).
Ann Radcliffe, The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents (1797).
William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero (1847-1848).
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre. An Autobiography (1847).
Elizabeth Gaskell, North & South (1855)
Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White (1859-1860).
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1860-1861).
George Eliot, Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life (1871-72).
Grant Allen (as Olive Pratt Rayner), The Type-Writer Girl (1897).
CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rosamaria Loretelli, L'invenzione del romanzo: dall'oralità alla lettura silenziosa (2010):
- Capitolo 4, pp. 124-183.
Michael McKeon, "Generic Transformation and Social Change: Rethinking the Rise of the Novel", Cultural Critique 1 (1985), pp. 159-181.
Terry Eagleton, The English Novel. An Introduction (2005):
- Introduction, pp. 1-21.
Gail Marshall, Victorian Fiction (2002):
- Introduction, pp. 1-18.
Deirdre David (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel (2000):
- Kate Flint, The Victorian Novel and its Readers, pp. 17-34.
The essays by McKeon, Eagleton, Marshall and David are included in the Materials.
Furthermore, non-attending students are required to add the following:
Manuale di letteratura e cultura inglese (2009):
- Lia Guerra, Il romanzo del Settecento, pp. 143-153.
- Beatrice Battaglia, La narrativa nell'età delle rivoluzioni, pp. 219-239.
- Susan Payne, Il romanzo vittoriano, pp. 283-295.
- Carlotta Farese, La New Woman, pp. 303-304.
John Richetti, The English Novel in History, 1700-1780 (1999):
- Introduction, pp. 1-16.
John Skinner, An Introduction to eighteenth-century Fiction: raising the Novel (2001).
- Capitolo 1. Critics and Theorists, pp. 3-28.
I. McCalman? (ed.), An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age (1999):
- Fiona Robertson, Novels, pp. 286-295.
Deirdre David (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel (2000):
- Capitolo 2. Simon Eliot, The business of Victorian publishing, pp. 37-60.
In addition, non-attending students will read six novels instead of five.
All students (both attending and non-attending) are required to prepare the Materials for the course.
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