ENGL 3470

The Victorian Novel

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2023-2024.

Jane Austen and zombies, A Christmas Carol in 3D, PBS miniseries: why is nineteenth-century fiction so un-dead? The plot of the Victorian novel—sexual betrayal, pathological greed, the sadistic damage wrought on helpless children—reflects wrenching social, scientific, and technological transformations whose global sweep rivals that of our own era's conflicts. Intertwining domestic and imperial spaces, realistic fiction embodied the most innovative attempt to grasp and contain such seismic shifts in an entertaining idiom for a rising mass readership. These works refract the cultural debates of the age and suggest sources of redemption. We can take pleasure in them even as we critically analyze how the Victorians live now. Likely authors include: Dickens, Gaskell, Brontë, Eliot, Collins, Schreiner, and Hardy.

When Offered Fall or Spring.

Breadth Requirement (HB)
Distribution Category (ALC-AS, LA-AS)

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