18th-Century Novel

Catalog description

This survey of the novel addresses key questions about the novel's "rise" in the eighteenth century on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as attending to the cultural conditions that attended this new literary from. How did the concurrent "rise" of the middle classes and the emergence of an increasingly female reading public affect the form and preoccupations of early novels? What role did institutions like literary reviews, libraries, and the church play in the novel's early reception? While readings will vary from course to course, students should expect to read such authors as Austen, Behn, Brockden Brown, Burney, Defoe, Fielding, Richardson, Rowlandson, Rowson, Scott, and Smollett. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings.