Course Syllabus

Welcome to "The Rise of the Novel"

ENGL. E-140

Fall 2015

Please watch our introductory video!

Instructor: Leo Damrosch PhD, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature, Emeritus, Harvard University

Email: damrosch@fas.harvard.edu

TA: Kris Trujillo, PhD Candidate, Rhetoric, UC Berkeley

Email: kris.j.trujillo@post.harvard.edu

Course Meetings: Online lecture and online optional discussion section

Course Description: Literary narrative goes back to ancient times, but the novel as the term is used today, did not appear until the seventeenth century, and only in the eighteenth century did it establish itself as the dominant literary form of our culture. This course goes back to the canon: the novels that were long considered the best and most important, both for their achievement in developing the possibilities of narrative, and for their ability to give pleasure to readers. Issues to be considered include genre (what was new about novels? is the novel a genre?); features of omniscient, first person and epistolary narration; representation of character and subjective experience; the social function of fiction; the attractions of plot; the paradoxes of realism; moral didacticism and its subversion; differences between British and French fiction.

Novels include Mme. de Lafayette, The Princesse de Clèves (1678), Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719), Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (1726), Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, or, The History of a Young Lady (1747), Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling (1749), Choderlos de Laclos, Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1782), and Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813).

The recorded lectures are from the fall 2014 course.

Download a copy of the syllabus here.

Please do not hesitate to ask any questions by contacting Kris!

WEEKLY COURSE MATERIALS