LIT 5017 Fall 2018 Kennedy

How did the novel - a relatively recent form - reach such dominance during the nineteenth century? How have scholars of narrative, history, and genre variously told the story of the novel? What is the fate of the novel now, in contemporary literature and criticism?

This course uses the British 19th-century novel as a lens through which to examine classic and new theories of this genre. We'll start with a quick survey of some of the classics of novel history and theory and then move to some of the interesting and provocative ways that scholars have been theorizing "the novel," especially the 19th-century novel, over the past decade. We'll conclude by considering "why the novel," when other forms of media also offer the pleasures and challenges of narrative. We'll use as our test cases three diverse novels from the period: Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist; George Eliot, Mill on the Floss; and Richard Marsh, The Beetle. Our contemporary critics not only extend our study of novel history and theory but also allow us to debate how to read a book (literary and critical).