Edith Wharton and Her Circle

Catalog description

A study of fiction by American realist Edith Wharton in the context of her peers, including writers she read and those she inspired. While Wharton serves as a focal point, the course also examines the works and ideas of such influential figures as Balzac, Flaubert, Maupassant, Chekhov, James, Crane, Dreiser, and Freeman, as well as adaptations of Whartonian themes by such novelists as Larsen, Bushnell, von Ziegesar and Tóibín. Topics include the social construction of "whiteness," the art of social climbing, turn-of-the-century gender crises involving masculinity and the New Woman, and the social and cultural transformations wrought by the modern city.