The Rise of the Novel
ENGL 210
Spring 2026
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01
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What is a novel? And where did this literary form come from? This course will explore some of the complexities of the "rise of the novel," one of the most important and oft-told tales of literary history. As we read fictions full of criminals, love letters, scandals, and satirical self-referentiality, we will think about the differences between early novels and the not-quite novels that preceded them. We will focus on how novels work through plot, character, and realist prose, as we also explore the ideological work that the form does. We will ask, too, about the workings of scholarly narratives like "the rise of the novel": how do these critical narratives help us, as novel readers, understand our relationship to the past and to the novel as a form? What do we get from thinking about novels as, say, first written by white men to express the attitudes and capitalize on the reading practices of an emergent middle class? Or as evolving from a less respectable, altogether sexier tradition of romance writing by and for women? What's at stake in our tendency today to keep continually returning -- and trying to remake as our own -- the world of early English novels, in Jane Austen fan fiction and shows like Bridgerton? |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (English) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 50% - 74% |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Anon, WOMAN OF COLOUR Jane Austen, PERSUASION Henry Fielding, JOSEPH ANDREWS Samuel Richardson, PAMELA Laurence Sterne, TRISTRAM SHANDY Horace Walpole, CASTLE OF OTRANTO
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Examinations and Assignments:
Three short papers, a presentation, and a final project. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
Contributes to the fulfillment of ENGL major requirements: BL, LH2, elective. |
| Instructor(s): Smith,Courtney Weiss Times: ..T.R.. 01:20PM-02:40PM; Location: DWNY113; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 19 | | SR major: 7 | JR major: 7 | | |
| Seats Available: 0 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 0 | JR non-major: 0 | SO: 2 | FR: 3 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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