This course is designed to give students a familiarity with the development of the novel form in British literature.  We will begin with a precursor of the novel, Robinson Crusoe (a travelogue), and end with the two novels which mark the beginnings of the Modern movement and changed the form for the twentieth century, Howards End and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

One of the themes frequently explored by British writers is that of identity.  During the 200 years covered by this course, great changes were occurring in Britain, and we will be looking at how novelists took advantage of the new form, the novel, to examine new ideas about what it meant to be English, British, Irish, male, female, rich, and poor.  We will be looking at changes and similarities in theme, as well as in structure, as the form evolves.

Course Goals and Objectives:
Students completing English 470 should gain the following knowledge and skills (as defined by the Tennessee Teacher Licensure Standards):

    a knowledge of and an appreciation for the social, philosophical, aesthetic, and historical dimensions of literature.
    a greater understanding of the regional, colloquial, cultural, and national diversity in literature.
    a knowledge of a wide range of literature from many periods and various genres and relate that knowledge to class reading and class writing.
    a better ability to make connections among various literary selections and between literature and the other arts.
    a better ability to relate a wide range of print and visual texts, both classical and contemporary, to their lives.
    a better ability to communicate persuasively orally and in writing.
    a better ability to incorporate questioning techniques that emphasize critical thinking, such as inference, evaluation, comparison, contrast, analysis, synthesis, criticism, and appreciation.

Students taking the course for graduate credit will be expected to discuss texts at a more sophisticated level and will have slightly increased work loads.

I've created a general list of background reference books that I suggest you peruse during the semster. There also are several good on-line sources for background information.  I have tried to provide some possibilities with individual authors.  Some good general sites are:

    Jack Lynch's Literary Resources on the Web
The Modern Word
    Matsuoka's pages on Victorian Web Sites
  The Victorian Web
  The Victoria Research Web
    The Internet Public Library's Online Literary Criticism Collection

Assignments

Grading Scale