The Victorian period is considered the pivotal age of the British novel. By the mid-nineteenth century the novel had become the most popular and dominant form of literary writing, attracting a wide reading public of all social classes. In this course we will read three influential works by Emily Brontכ, Charlotte Brontכ, and Charles Dickens from the late 1840s, and discuss the relation of each work, and of the novel as a literary form, to the socio-political and ideological concerns of the period. We will look at the fictional representations of class differences, gender roles, colonial expansion, capitalism, industrialization and urbanization, and examine their connection to narrative devices, to generic choices, and to the construction of character and setting.

Texts:
Emily Brontכ, Wuthering Heights
Charlotte Brontכ, Jane Eyre
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

Requirements:
A written report on each novel, one home-written paper, and a final exam.