Gwybodaeth Modiwlau

The period from 1660 to 1800 is crucial for an understanding of the development of the novel as the dominant literary form in British culture. In this module, we will explore the different ways in which Restoration and eighteenth-century writers experimented with, manipulated and subverted narrative forms and expectations as well as pay attention to shifting generic and cultural influences on the novel form.
We will be reading a range of prose fictions from the period - from romances, rogue narratives and religious allegories to courtship novels, oriental narratives and sentimental fiction - as well as investigating debates concerning the theory of narrative, the social function of novels and the growing anxieties about the dangers involved in reading fiction, especially for female readers. In addition to a consideration of the historical dimension of genre, the module will address issues of gender, politics, orientalism, sexuality, social morality and cultural change throughout the period under investigation.
The module is divided into two sections and charts the varied approaches to fictional narrative from 1660-1740 and then from 1740-1800. Three to four texts from each section will be chosen to study in detail. The module will be taught in two hour weekly seminars, which will be introduced by seminar papers.

Texts to be selected from the following lists:

_1660-1740

Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World (1666)
Thomas Dangerfield, Don Tomazo (1680)
John Bunyan, The Life and Death of Mr Badman (1692)
William Congreve, Incognita (1692)
Aphra Behn, The Unfortunate Happy Lady (1698)

• [All the above in Paul Salzman (ed.), An Anthology of Seventeenth-Century Prose Fiction, Oxford, 1991)]

Madame de Lafayette, The Princess of Cleves (1678, trans 1679) [Oxford]
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) [Penguin]
Eliza Haywood, Love in Excess (1719-20) [Broadview Press]; The Injur'd Husband and Lasselia (1720s) [Kentucky]
Daniel Defoe, Roxana; or, The Fortunate Mistress (1724) [Everyman]

_1740-1800

Henry Fielding, Tom Jones (1749) [Penguin]
Eliza Haywood, The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751) [Broadview]
Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote (1752) [Oxford]
Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (1759-1767) [Penguin]
Selection from Oriental Tales ed. by Robert Mack (1760s-1780s) [Oxford]
Frances Sheridan, Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph (1761) [Oxford]
Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (1764) [Oxford]
Ann Radcliffe, A Sicilian Romance (1790) [Oxford]
Mary Hays, Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796) [Oxford]