The English Novel

by Timothy Spurgin

This course on the English novel traces the history of the form from its beginnings in the middle of the 18th century to what many describe as its culmination in the work of the early-20th century Modernists. Lectures examine the achievements of particular writers, among them Richardson, Austen, Dickens, the Brontes, Eliot, Hardy, Conrad, Joyce, and Woolf. Professor Spurgin highlights the distinctive features of the English novel, namely a preoccupation with courtship and marriage and a preference for comedic plot shapes. Throughout, the course reveals the ways the English novel continues to shape our understandings of society and psychology, the public world and the private self.

Paperback

Published January 1, 2006