ENGL 247

Fall 2021 Part of Term 1

Part of Term 1
Aug 23-Dec 8

The British Novel

SHOW FINAL EXAM SCHEDULE

Credit: 3 hours.

A study of some of the more noteworthy and influential writers of the last two hundred and fifty years. The course traces the development of the novel as a genre that both celebrated and critiqued Britain and British nationalism. Examines how the novel has been important culturally over time.

Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.

This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2022 for:

Humanities – Lit & Arts

Cultural Studies - Western

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ENGL 247 class schedule data for fall 2021
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	32304	Lecture-Discussion	Q	12:30PM -1:45PM	TR	English Building	Courtemanche, E	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/23/21-12/08/21 Degree Notes: Humanities - Lit & Arts, and Cultural Studies - Western course. Section Info: The British Novel - Is a truly free action possible, in a world structured by money, established power, and the inconvenient desires of others? If we could act with complete freedom, would we like the results, or end up isolated and self-centered? Since the Magna Carta, Britain has considered itself to be more free than most other countries of the world, and yet—perhaps because Britain is only a medium-sized island—its society is a network of dense social obligations. The British novel of the last three centuries forcefully addresses the resulting tensions between individual desire and community responsibility, using wit and satire to create a limited space of social freedom, and the marriage plot to fetishize a single moment of free choice in a materially determined world. This class will also examine what happens when British society interacts with the rest of the world through imperialism and trade, unsettling hierarchies and complicating personal moral choice. We will be reading such texts as Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, E. M. Forster’s Howards End, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, and Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia. There will be two papers, a midterm and final, and weekly written assignments; be prepared to read up to 200 pages a week.