Universidade de São Paulo
Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas
Departamento de Letras Modernas
1º semestre de 2014
Leituras do Cânon I
Profa. Dra. Sandra Guardini T. Vasconcelos
1. Objectives: to give students a comprehensive view of the great tradition of
the English novel in its various trends. The course centres on canonical
novels of the 18th and 19th centuries, concentrating on their formal aspects
and socio-historical context.
Syllabus
1. 20/02 – Introductory class: “What is a novel?” (Terry Eagleton)
2. 27/02 – The rise of the novel and the growth of the reading public. Background
reading: “Realism and the Novel Form”; “The Reading Public and the Rise of the Novel”
(Ian Watt)
3. 06/03 – Generic Transformation and Social Change (Michael McKeon)
4. 13/03 – Realism and the individual: Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe. Critical text:
“Robinson Crusoe, Individualism, and the Novel” (Ian Watt)
5. 20/03 – The individual and autobiography: Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe. Critical
text: “Parables of the Younger Son (I): Defoe and the Naturalization of Desire” (Michael
McKeon)
6. 27/03 – Subjectivity and the novel form: Pamela, Samuel Richardson. Critical texts:
“Love and the Novel: Pamela” (Ian Watt); “Private Experience and the Novel” (Ian
Watt); “The Institutionalization of Conflict (I): Richardson and the Domestication of
Service” (Michael McKeon)
7. 03/04 – Fielding’s comic epic poem in prose: Tom Jones. Critical texts: “Fielding as
Novelist: Tom Jones” (Ian Watt); “The Institutionalization of Conflict (II): Fielding and
the Instrumentality of Belief” (Michael McKeon)
8. 10/04 – Comedy and self-reflexivity in Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne. Critical
text: “Sterne and the ‘New Species of Writing’” (Thomas Keymer)
9. 24/04 – The Gothic: turn of the century in a changing world (The Mysteries of
Udolpho, Mrs Radcliffe.) Background reading: Gothic (Fred Botting)
10. 08/05 – Individual and social mobility: Persuasion, Jane Austen. Background
reading: “Introduction” to The English Novels From Dickens to Lawrence (R. Williams).
Critical text: “Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion” (Case and Shaw)
11. 15/05 – Class alliance in Persuasion, Jane Austen. Critical text: “Regulated Hatred:
as Aspect of the Work of Jane Austen” (D. W. Harding)
12. 22/05 – Novel form in Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë. Background reading:
“Introduction” (Myths of Power, Terry Eagleton); “Charlotte and Emily Brontë”
(Raymond Williams)
13. 29/05 – Tensions and contradictions in Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë. Critical
text: “Wuthering Heights” (Case and Shaw)
14. 05/06 – Hard Times, Charles Dickens. Background reading: “Charles Dickens”
(Raymond Williams); “Charles Dickens” (Terry Eagleton)
15. 03/07 – Hard Times, Charles Dickens. Critical texts: “Hard Times and the Structure
of Industrialism” (Patricia E. Johnson); “The Literary Imagination in Public Life”
(Martha C. Nussbaum)
Set Reading (Novels)
1. Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
2. Extracts from Pamela (Samuel Richardson); Tom Jones (Henry Fielding);
Tristram Shandy (Laurence Sterne); The Mysteries of Udolpho (Mrs Radcliffe); The
Monk, Matthew Lewis; Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
3. Persuasion, Jane Austen
4. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
5. Hard Times, Charles Dickens
Background Reading
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
The English Novel, Terry Eagleton
Chapters 1 and 2 of The Rise of the Novel, Ian Watt
“Generic Transformation…” by Michael McKeon (see folder)
Dez lições sobre o romance inglês do século XVIII, Sandra Vasconcelos
Formação do Romance Inglês: ensaios teóricos, Sandra Vasconcelos
Introduction to The English Novel from Dickens to Lawrence, Raymond Williams
Chapters from The Country and the City, Raymond Williams
Cambridge Companions
Assessment
All students will have to do all the required reading, but they will be evaluated differently
according to their individual choice relating to the specific purpose why they are taking
this course. There will be two options for assessment: students intending to pursue their
literary studies at graduate level should go for the academic track, which will help train
them in doing research, dealing with theoretical and critical readings and writing
academic papers; those taking the course as background to other professional interests
should opt for the alternative track. In both cases, assessment will consist of two phases,
corresponding to the two modules in which the syllabus is organised, one covering the
18th century and the other the 19th.
Deadline for the first assessment: 8 May 2014
Deadline for the second assessment: 26 June 2014
Options for first assignment:
1) Academic track: mid-term paper; your paper must contain a central argument,
which should be sustained through extracts from the novels; it should also include
footnotes and bibliography (Check ABNT for norms); limit: 3.500 words (not to
be exceeded); format: Times New Roman 12, space 1,5. Use a cover page, with
your full name, n. USP, and period (morning or evening).
a) A comparative analysis of Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe, and Foe, by
Coetzee;
b) A comparative analysis of Pamela, by Richardson, and Shamela, by Fielding;
c) Tristram Shandy and Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas;
d) Northanger Abbey as parody of the Gothic novel;
2) Alternative track: any of the previous topics can be chosen and presented as a
blog or a short video; you can also propose other kinds of assessment.
Options for second assignment:
3) Academic track: second assignment
a) Point of view in Persuasion
b) Romance and Realism in Wuthering Heights
c) Social criticism in Hard Times
4) Alternative track: same as above (2)
Bibliographical References
Allen, Walter. The English Novel. London: Penguin, 1968.
Antonio Candido. Timidez do Romance. In: A Educação pela noite e outros ensaios. São
Paulo: Ática, 1987, p. 82-99.
Comparato, Fábio Konder. Ética. Direito, Moral e Religião no Mundo Moderno. São
Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2006.
Briggs, Asa. The Age of Improvement. London; New York: Longmans, Green, 1959.
-------. A Social History of England. Penguin, 1985.
-------. Victorian Cities. Penguin, 1990.
David, Deirdre (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel. Cambridge
University Press, 2001.
Davis, Lennard. Factual Fictions. The Origins of the English Novel. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1983.
Day, Geoffrey. From Fiction to the Novel. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987.
Eagleton, Terry. The English Novel. An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
-------. The Nature of Gothic. Figures of Dissent. London: Verso, 2005, p. 17-23.
Eagleton, Mary & Pierce, David. Attitudes to Class in the English Novel from Walter
Scott to David Storey. London: Thames and Hudson, 1979.
Flint, Kate (ed.). The Victorian Novelist. London: Croom Helm, 1997.
Ford, Boris (ed). The New Pelican Guide to English Literature. From Dryden to Johnson.
London: Penguin, 1991, vol. 4.
-------. Secular Scripture. A study of the structure of romance. Harvard University Press,
1978.
Grimsley, Ronald (ed.). The Age of Enlightenment (1715-1789). London: Penguin, 1979.
Hobsbawm, Eric. A Era das Revoluções. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1977.
-------. A Era do Capital, 1848-1875. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2002.
Horsman, Alan. The Victorian Novel. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.
Karl, Frederick R. A Reader's Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel. NY: The Noonday
Press, 1974.
-------. A Reader’s Guide to the Nineteenth-Century Novel. NY: The Noonday Press, s.d.
Kettle, Arnold. An Introduction to the English Novel. London: Hutchinson, 1972, vols. 12.
McKeon, Michael. The Origins of the English Novel (1600-1740). Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1991.
Montandon, Alain. Le Roman au XVIIIe Siècle en Europe. Paris : Presses Universitaires
de France, 1999.
Moretti, Franco. The Way of the World. The Bildungsroman in European Culture.
London: Verso, 1987.
Porter, Roy. English Society in the Eighteenth Century. London: Penguin, 1984.
Regan, Stephen. The Nineteenth-Century Novel: A Critical Reader. London:
Routledge/The Open University, 2001.
Richetti, John (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to the Eighteenth-Century Novel.
Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Richetti, John J. Popular Fiction before Richardson. Narrative Patterns, 1700-1739.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.
Rogers, Pat. The Eighteenth Century. London: Methuen, 1983.
Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Novel Beginnings. Experiments in eighteenth-century English
fiction. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006.
Stevenson, Lionel. The English Novel. A Panorama. London: Constable, 1960.
Stevick, Philip (ed.). The Theory of the Novel. NY: The Free Press/Macmillan, 1967.
Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800. London:
Weidenfeld L. Nicolson, 1977.
Vasconcelos, Sandra Guardini T. Dez lições sobre o romance inglês do século XVIII. São
Paulo: Boitempo, 2002.
-----. A Formação do Romance Inglês. Ensaios Teóricos. São Paulo: Hucitec/FAPESP,
2007.
Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel: Studies on Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. London:
Penguin, 1983.
Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City. London: The Hogarth Press, 1993.
Williams, Raymond. The English Novel from Dickens to Lawrence. London: The Hogarth
Press, 1970.