ENGL 232 - The Novel

FDR: HL
Planned Offering: Fall, Winter
Credits: 3

Prerequisite: Completion of FW requirement. An introductory study of the novel written in English. The course may focus on major representative texts or upon a subgenre or thematic approach. In all cases, the course introduces students to fundamental issues in the history and theory of modern narrative.

Winter 2017, ENGL 232-01: The Novel: Frantic and Sickly, Idle and Extravagant: The Gothic Novel from 1764 to 1979 (3). Though long considered “trash,” “low-brow,” or genre fiction, the gothic novel has enjoyed enduring popularity, from the 18th century to the present day. What is more, the gothic novel encompasses a wider variety of novelistic genres than its reputation generally allows; indeed, the history of the gothic is intimately connected to the history of the novel itself. Beginning with Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto (1764) and ending with Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber (1979), this course surveys the history of the gothic and, in so doing, charts the evolution of the novel as a form. We read Ann Radcliffe’s Sicilian Romance, Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, Wilkie Collins’s the Woman in White, and Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray, among others. In addition to considering the basic elements of the novel as a genre, we also challenge the distinction between “literary” and “low-brow” and examine our continued fascination with the gothic mode. (HL) Walle.