This course looks closely at the novel’s rise in eighteenth-century England as a dominant literary form, with particular emphasis on the novel’s capacity to uphold and subvert the period’s leading cultural values.  Ian Watt’s The Rise of the Novel and Michael McKeon’s The Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740 will provide important insight into the many epistemological and social crises of the age. Why, for example, was the English gentleman necessary for British nationalism?  How did the novel’s conflation of truth and virtue bridge naïve empiricism and extreme skepticism?  Did the period’s great satire reach beyond affectation, hypocrisy, and religiosity?  What were the literary advantages of the episodic and epistolary form?  Our novelists include Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, and Burney. 

NOVELS
Defoe. The Life and Surprising Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719)
Defoe. The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (1722)
Richardson. Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740)
Fielding. The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling (1749)
Sterne. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-1767)
Burney. Camilla (1796)

CRITICISM
McKeon. The Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740
Watt. The Rise of the Novel

BOOKS ON RESERVE
Bayne-Powell, Rosamond.  Eighteenth-Century London Life.  New York: Dutton, 1938.

Brown, Homer.  Institutions of the English Novel. 1997.

Davis, Lennard J. Factual Fictions: The Origins of the English Novel. 1983.

Forsyth, William.  The Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century, in Illustration of the Manners and Morals of the Age.  Port Washington: Kennikat, 1871.

Habermas, Jurgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society.  1962.  Trans. Thomas Burger.  Cambridge: M.I.T. P, 1998.

Hunter, J. Paul Hunter.  Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-Century English Fiction 1990.

Langford, Paul.  Englishness Identified: Manners and Character, 1650-1850.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.

McKeon, Michael. Origins of the English Novel, 1660-1740.

---. The Secret History of Domesticity: Public, Private, and the Division of Knowledge.

Piper, William Bowman.  Common Courtesy in Eighteenth-Century English Literature.  Newark: U of Delaware P, 1997.

Potkay, Adam.  The Fate of Eloquence in the Age of Hume.  Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994.

Richetti, John J. The Cambridge Companion to the Eighteenth-Century Novel.

---.  Columbia History of the British Novel, 1630-1730: An Anthology.

---.  Defoe’s Narratives: Situations and Structures.

---. The Life of Daniel Defoe.

---.  Popular Fiction Before Richardson: Narrative Patterns 1700-1739.

---. Popular Fiction by Woman, 1660-1730, an Anthology.

Tinker, Chauncey Brewster.  The Salon and English Letters: Chapters on the Interrelations of Literature and Society in the Age of Johnson.  New York: Gordian, 1967.

Tuberville, A. S.  English Men and Manners in the 18th Century.  New York: Oxford UP, 1926.

---., ed.  Johnson’s England: An Account of the Life and Manners of His Age, Vol. 1. London: Oxford UP, 1933.

Warner, William Beatty.  Licensing Entertainment: The Elevation of Novel Reading 1687-1750 (1998).

Watt, Ian.  The Rise of the Novel:  Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding.

WORK


Your coursework includes weekly moodle reflections, discussion trio, and final paper.

MOODLE
You are asked to post a thoughtful response (@ 250 words) to our weekly readings and class discussions on Moodle.  This is a great opportunity for you to establish a meaningful dialogue with your classmates since they will post there too. I'll look for clear, convincing reflections in a conversational tone.  Go beyond summarizing. Moodles due noon, day of class. Begin here: http://moodle.csun.edu/

DISCUSSION TRIO
Early in the semester, form groups of three devoted to a specfic day's theme (e.g., Enlightenment philosophy and the novel). Exchange email addresses with your groupmates and try to meet or correspond outside class (there should be opportunities to workshop presentations during class). When it is your trio's turn to lead a discussion, please do not lecture.

FINAL PAPER
Your final, twenty-page paper will present a new position on a theme discussed in class. You are asked to collect a substantial body of critical sources and to demonstrate your familiarity with our novels. You will have the opportunity to workshop your essay and give a five-minute "conference" presentation to the class.

GRADES
I grade holistically. Your final grade will come at the semester's end, once your work is assessed in its entirety. Please feel free to come by my office, email, or phone me if you have concerns at any time during the semester. NOTE: it is most important that you check your email throughout the semester.

ATTENDANCE
This class is a workshop of peers and attendance is absolutely necessary.  Please do not come late to class since repeated late arrivals will count as a full absence. 

NOTE: You cannot pass this course if you miss more than three classes, miss an assignment, or plagiarize.

ACADEMIC HONESTY
You must be scrupulously honest in documenting the work that you have drawn from others.  Like other institutions, CSUN maintains a strict academic honesty policy.  Plagiarism is illegal and dishonest.  All cases of academic dishonesty must be reported to the Dean, who may suspend or permanently dismiss you from CSUN.  You will receive a course grade of F if you plagiarize in our class.

Fall 2010 Syllabus

Please note that work is due on the date listed below and assignments are subject to change.  Not all readings and written assignments are represented.


8/24
Introductions
Artistocratism, neoclassicism, verisimilitude, and virtue!
Pope's Essay on Criticism (1711)

8/31
Robinson Crusoe
Watt. "Realism and the Novel Form," "The Reading Public and the Rise of the Novel"
McKeon. "Introduction," "The Destabilization of Generic Categories" [Sections 6-7],
"The Evidence of the Senses: Secularization and Epistemological Crisis"
Syllabus review
Choose discussion trios.

9/7
Robinson Crusoe
Watt. "'Robinson Crusoe,' Individualism and the Novel"
McKeon. "Histories of the Individual," "Parables of the Younger Son (I): Defoe and the Naturalization of Desire"
Discussion Trio 1

9/14
Moll Flanders
Watt. "Defoe as Novelist: 'Moll Flanders'"

9/21
Moll Flanders
McKeon. "The Destabilization of Social Categories"
Discussion Trio 2

9/28
Philosophical Interlude: Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau; Kant's What is Enlightenment? (1784)
Discussion Trio 3
Google Docs "How to" Projects Due

10/5
Pamela, or Virture Rewarded
Watt. "Love and the Novel: Pamela"
McKeon. "Stories of Virtue"

10/12
Pamela, or Virture Rewarded
Watt. "Private Experience and the Novel"
McKeon. "The Institutionalization of Conflict (I): Richardson and the Domestication of Service"
Discussion Trio 4
 
10/19
Art and Music Interlude: Hogarth, Gainsborough, Arne, and Handel
Discussion Trio 5

10/26
Tom Jones
Watt. "Fielding and the Epic Theory of the Novel"
McKeon. "Absolutism and Capitalist Ideology" [Sections 4-5]

11/2
Tom Jones
Watt. "Fielding as Novelist: 'Tom Jones'"
McKeon. "The Institutionalization of Conflict (II): Fielding and the Instrumentality of Belief"
Discussion Trio 6

11/9
Tristram Shandy
Watt. "Realism and the Later Tradition: A Note"

11/16
Tristram Shandy
Discussion Trio 7

11/23
Camilla
Sayre and Lowy. "Figures of Romantic Anti-Capitalism" [see Moodle for pdf]
Discussion Trio 8

11/30
McKeon. "Conclusion"
Workshop Final Essay

12/7
Final Essay "Conference" Presentations

12/10
Final Essay Due

Additional Texts

PRIMARY WORKS 
Addison, Joseph, and Richard Steele. Selections from the Tatler and the Spectator. 
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. 
Burney, Fanny.  Cecilia: Or, Memoirs of an Heiress. 
---.  Evelina; or, the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World. 
Defoe, Daniel.  Moll Flanders. 
---.  Robinson Crusoe. 
Fielding, Henry.  The Adventures of Joseph Andrews. 
---.  An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews.  
---.  A History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. 
Radcliffe, Anne.  The Mysteries of Udolpho. 
Richardson, Samuel.  Clarissa Harlowe. 
---.  Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded. 
Smollett, Tobias.  Humphry Clinker. 
Walpole, Horace.  The Castle of Otranto.

SECONDARY WORKS 
Armistead, J. M. The First English Novelists: Essays in Understanding.  Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1985. 
Beasley, Jerry C.  Novels of the 1740s.  Athens: U of Georgia P, 1982. 
Bloom, Harold, ed.  Eighteenth-Century British Fiction.  New York: Chelsea House, 1988. 
Brantlinger, Patrick.  Crusoe’s Footprints: Cultural Studies in Britain and America.  New York: Routledge, 1990. 
Burgess, Miranda J.  British Fiction and the Production of Social Order, 1740-1830.  Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. 
Forsyth, William.  The Novels and the Novelists of the Eighteenth Century.  Port Washington: Kennikat, 1871. 
Gardiner, Ellen.  Regulating Readers: Gender and Literary Criticism in the Eighteenth-Century Novel.  Newark: U of Delaware P, 1999. 
Gores, Steven J.  Psychosocial Spaces: Verbal and Visual Readings of British Culture1750-1820.  Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2000. 
Habermas, Jurgen.  The Structural Transformations of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society.  Trans. Thomas Burger.  Cambridge: MIT P, 1998. 
Langford, Paul.  Englishness Identified: Manners and Character, 1650-1850.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. 
McKeon, Michael.  The Origins of the English Novel: 1600-1740.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1987. 
Napier, Elizabeth R.  The Failure of Gothic: Problems of Disjunction in an Eighteenth-Century Literary Form.  Oxford: Clarendon, 1987. 
Richetti, John J.  Popular Fiction Before Richardson: Narrative Patterns 1700-1739.  Oxford: Clarendon, 1969. 
---.  “Popular Narrative in the Early Eighteenth Century: Formats and Formulas.”  Armistead.  3-39. 
Scheuermann, Mona.  Social Protest in the Eighteenth-Century Novel.  Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1985. 
Sedgwick, Eve. The Coherence of Gothic Conventions. London: Methuen, 1980. 
Spacks, Patricia Meyer.  Imagining a Self: Autobiography and Novel in Eighteenth-Century England.  Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1976. 
Spector, Robert Donald.  Essays on the Eighteenth-Century Novel.  Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1966. 
Stevick, Philip. “Smollett’s Picaresque Games.” Bloom. 217-30. 
Van Sant, Ann Jessie.  Eighteenth-Century Sensibility and the Novel: The Senses in Social Context.  Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993. 
Watt, Ian.  The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding.  Berkeley: U of California P, 1957. 
Watt, James.  Contesting the Gothic: Fiction, Genre and Cultural Conflict, 1764-1832. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. 
Zomchick, John P.  Family and the Law in Eighteenth-Century Fiction: The Public Conscience in the Private Sphere,  1660-1830. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993.