EN1107: INVENTING THE NOVEL (Autumn 2010)
Tutors: Professory Judith Hawley and Dr Sophie Gilmartin
This is a full unit, running in term 1.
All Single Honours and Joint Honours students take this course.
The course introduces students to the study of the novel. Nowadays probably the most
commonly read literary form, the novel, had a complex and often controversial
development. This course will begin with a recent novel and then trace developments
in narrative fiction from the late seventeenth century to the 1830's, focusing on such
issues as genre, story-telling, the role of the narrator, formal structure, ideology and
types of characterisation.
We will study the following novels. Try to read as many as possible in advance.
J. M. Coetzee, Foe (Penguin)
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, ed. John Richetti (Penguin)
Aphra Behn, ‘Oroonoko’, in Oroonoko, The Rover and Other Works, ed. Janet Todd
(Penguin)
Samuel Richardson, Pamela, or, Virtue Rewarded, ed. Thomas Keymer (Oxford
World's Classics,
Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews and Shamela, ed. Judith Hawley (Penguin)
Ann Radcliffe, The Italian ed. Robert Miles (Penguin Classics)
Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility ed. Ros Ballaster (Penguin Classics)
Jane Austen, Persuasion ed. Gillian Beer (Penguin Classics)
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: ed. J Paul Hunter (Norton Critical Edition)
James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner ed. John
Carey (Oxford World's Classics)
Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, ed. Philip Horne (Penguin Classics)
You will need to buy your own copies of the above books. The year of publication is
not as important as the editor and publishing company in the case of these titles.
Wordsworth’s Classics and other cheap editions are not generally adequate for
university study.
Coursework: 2 essays 1,000-1,500 words each.
Assessment: 3-hour exam (100%)