Course Description

English 324 is an advanced literature seminar covering topics in British literature between 1700 and 1900. This semester, the course will examine the literature and culture of Victorian Britain, focusing on issues related to industrialism, gender roles, faith, imperialism, and aesthetics.

Required Texts

• Altick, Richard D. Victorian People and Ideas: A Companion for the Modern Reader of Victorian Literature. New York: Norton, 1973.
• Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Ed. Richard J. Dunn. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 2001.
• Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. Eds. Jeff Nunokawa & Gage C. McWeeny. New York: Longman, 2004.
• Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Ed. Scott Elledge. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 1991.
• Henderson, Heather, & William Sharpe, eds. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 2nd ed. Vol. 2B ["The Victorian Age"]. New York: Longman, 2003. (w/ accompanying audio CD)

Recommended Texts

• Harmon, William, & Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 9th ed. New York: Prentice Hall, 2002. (A must-have for anyone considering a major or minor in English.)
• Pool, Daniel. What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist—The Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England. New York: Touchstone [Simon & Schuster], 1993. (An entertaining if not rigorously accurate look at nineteenth-century Britain.)

Instructional Methods

This will be a small, discussion-based course with occasional mini-lectures on key topics.