Library

Course Description:

The Industrial Revolution, the entrenchment of the bourgeoisie, and the two Reform Bills made possible tremendous transformations in the social worlds of Victorian Great Britain. This course will examine how these changes were both documented and re-imagined in the novels of five seminal writers of the period: William Makepeace Thackeray, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, and Anthony Trollope. We pay particular attention to the ways these novelists figure communities around the factory, the home, the beau monde, the church, and the legal system. There will be substantial historical, critical, and theoretical readings in addition to the novels. Prerequisites: two English courses at the 200 level or the instructor’s permission. Conference.

Texts:

Charles Dickens, Bleak House (Oxford World’s Classics)

George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (Oxford World’s Classics)

Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South (Oxford World’s Classics)

William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair (Norton Critical Edition)

Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers (Penguin)

(recommended) Daniel Pool, What Charles Dickens Ate and Jane Austen Knew (Simon and Schuster)

(optional) Patrick Brantlinger and William Thesing, eds., A Companion to the Victorian Novel (Wiley-Blackwell)

***required and optional reserve readings in Hauser Library

Requirements:

You are expected to attend every class discussion on time, and to participate in a lively and informed manner. The only exceptions for missing class are illness or (in rare cases, negotiable only with me) personal emergency. In either case I must be notified via e-mail or at my office phone before the class meeting. More than one absence for illness requires a doctor's note. Any unexcused absence will affect your final grade for the course; after four unexcused absences you will not be allowed to pass the course.

There are two required papers for the course. I allow extensions for papers so long as you meet with me by the last class meeting before the paper is due to request your extension. You must have a set date for the extension to which I agree and you will not get another extension for that paper beyond it. Papers turned it late are marked down one-half grade per day; I will not accept late papers after a certain amount of time (and never after Dean's Date). I am the only person who can grant an extension for a paper. Papers must be turned in to me in hard copy format only to my faculty mailbox in Eliot; I do not accept papers via electronic submission.

Each student will be asked to circulate two discussion questions (each in thoughtful, developed paragraph form) based on the required reading for one class session via e-mail at 9PM the night before the class meets.

There is no exam for this course.

Schedule:

[n.b.—An asterisk— * —indicates optional reading.]

WEEK 1

Beginnings

T Sept.1: Introduction

• William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, "Before the Curtain" [handout]

Th Sept. 3

• William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, through ch. IV: “The Green Silk Purse”
• Walter Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1830-1870, “Preface” and ch. 1: “The Character of the Age,” pp. xiii-xvii, 1-23 [reserve]
• *Kelly J. Mays, Chapter 1: “The Publishing World,” and Jonathan Rose, ch. 2: “Education, Literacy and the Victorian Reader,” in Patrick Brantlinger and William B. Thesing, A Companion to the Victorian Novel, pp. 11-47 [reserve]

WEEK 2

The Beau Monde (I)

T Sept. 8

• William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, through ch. XVIII: “Who Played on the Piano Captain Dobbin Bought?”
• Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public Man, "The Turmoil of Public Life in the Nineteenth Century" and "The Impact of Industrial Capitalism on Public Life," pp. 125-49 [reserve]
• *Richard D. Altick, The Presence of the Present, ch. 11: "The Great Metropolis," pp. 382-444 [reserve]

Th Sept. 11

• William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, through ch. XXII: “A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon”

WEEK 3

The Factory

Th Sept. 17

• Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South, through vol. I (all)
• William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, through ch. XXIX: “Brussels”
• Regenia Gagnier, “Money, the Economy, and Social Class,” in Brantlinger and Thesing, A Companion to the Victorian Novel, pp. 48-66 [reserve]

WEEK 4

T Sept. 22

• Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South, through vol. II, ch. XIX
• William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, through ch. XXXII: “In Which Jos Takes Flight, and the War Is Brought to a Close”
• Deirdre David, ch. 6: “Empire, Race and the Victorian Novel,” in Brantlinger and Thesing, A Companion to the Victorian Novel , pp. 84-100

Th Sept. 24

• Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South (all)
• William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, through ch. XXXV: “Widow and Mother”
• Raymond Williams, Culture and Society 1780-1950, ch. 5: "The Industrial Novels," pp. 87-109 [reserve]
• *James Richard Simmons, ch. 19: “Industrial and ‘Condition of England’ Novels,” in Brantlinger and Thesing, A Companion to the Victorian Novel, pp. 336-52 [reserve]

WEEK 5

The Beau Monde(II)

T Sept. 29

• William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, through ch. L: “Contains a Vulgar Incident”
• Karl Marx, “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof,” in The Marx-Engels Reader , 2nd Ed., ed Robert C. Tucker, pp. 319-29 [reserve]

Th Oct 1

• William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, through ch. LVI : “Georgy is Made a Gentleman”

WEEK 6

T Oct. 6

• William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, all
• Patricia Meyer Spacks, Gossip, "Its Problematics," pp. 3-23 [reserve]

Th Oct. 8

• George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, through Book I: "Boy and Girl"
• William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair (finish)

WEEK 7

M Oct. 12

• Paper #1 (5-7 pp.) due 5 p.m. my faculty mailbox in Eliot

The Family

T Oct. 13

• George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, through Book III: "The Downfall"
• Raymond Williams, The Country and the City, ch. 16: "Knowable Communities," pp. 164-81 [reserve]
• *Ian Duncan, ch. 18: “The Provincial or Regional Novel,” in Brantlinger and Thesing, A Companion to the Victorian Novel, pp. 318-35 [reserve]

Th Oct. 15

• George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, through Book IV: "The Valley of Humiliation"
• Friedrich Engels, "The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State," in The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd Ed., ed Robert C. Tucker, pp. 734-59 [reserve]

 

F A L L B R E A K

(keep in mind you have a considerable amount of reading due for the first class meeting after break!)

WEEK 8

T Oct.27

• George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, through Book VI: "The Great Temptation"
• Charles Dickens, Bleak House, through ch. IV: “Telescopic Philanthropy”
• Hilary Schor, ch. 10: “Gender Politics and Women’s Rights,” in Brantlinger and Thesing, A Companion to the Victorian Novel, pp. 172-88 [reserve]

Th Oct. 29

• George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (all)
• Harriet Martineau, "On the Advantages of Not Marrying" [handout]

WEEK 9

The Legal System (I)

T Nov. 3

• Charles Dickens, Bleak House, through ch. 16: “Tom-all-alone’s”
• Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader, “The Body of the Condemned,” pp. 170-8, and “Panopticism,” pp. 206- 13[reserve]

Th Nov. 5

• Charles Dickens, Bleak House, through ch. 19: “Moving on”
• F. S. Schwarzbach, ch. 13: “Newgate Novel to Detective Fiction,” in Brantlinger and Thesing, A Companion to the Victorian Novel, pp. 227-43 [reserve]

WEEK 10

The Church

T Nov. 10

• Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers, through vol. II, ch. 3: “The Thornes of Ullathorne”
• Charles Dickens, Bleak House, through ch. 22: “Mr Bucket”
• Hilary Fraser, ch. 6: “The Victorian Novel and Religion,” in Brantlinger and Thesing, A Companion to the Victorian Novel, pp. 101-18 [reserve]

Th Nov. 12

• Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers, through vol. II, ch. 8: “A Love Scene”
• Charles Dickens, Bleak House, through ch. 25: “Mr Snagsby sees it all”

WEEK 11

T Nov. 17

• Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers, through vol. III, ch. 10: “Mrs Bold at Home”
• Charles Dickens, Bleak House, through ch. 29: “The Young Man”
• Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger, chapters 1, 2 & 6 [reserve]

Th Nov. 19

• Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers, all
• Charles Dickens, Bleak House, through ch. 32: “The Appointed Time”

WEEK 12

The Legal System (II)

T Nov. 24

• Charles Dickens, Bleak House, through ch. 46: “Stop him!”
• Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers (finish)
• Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," pp. 127- 86 [reserve]

Th Nov. 26

Thanksgiving

WEEK 13

T Dec. 1

• Charles Dickens, Bleak House, through ch. 59: “Esther’s Narrative”
• Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader, “Complete and Austere Institutions” and “Illegalities and Delinquencies,” pp. 214-33 [reserve]

Th Dec. 3

• Charles Dickens, Bleak House, all

WEEK 14

T Dec. 8th

• Charles Dickens, Bleak House (finish)

Mon Dec. 14th

• Final paper (12-15 pp.) due 5 p.m. to my faculty mailbox in Eliot