Module Identifier EN38220  
Module Title THE REALIST'S PROGRESS: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE VICTORIAN NOVEL  
Academic Year 2005/2006  
Co-ordinator Dr D Kevin Mills  
Semester Semester 2  
Other staff Dr D Kevin Mills  
Course delivery Seminars / Tutorials   10 x 2 hours discussion based seminars  
Assessment
Assessment TypeAssessment Length/DetailsProportion
Semester Assessment ESSAY 1: 2500 WORDS  50%
Semester Assessment ESSAY 2: 2500 WORDS  50%
Supplementary Assessment RESUBMIT FAILED ELEMENTS Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements. Where this involves re-submission of work, a new topic must be selected. 

Learning outcomes

On completion of this module, students should be able to:

1. demonstrate a detailed knowledge of a range of novels of the Victorian period;

2. articulate this knowledge in the form of reasoned critical analysis of particular texts;

3. locate the texts studied in appropriate literary, historical, and cultural contexts;

4. explain and engage with relevant aspects of recent scholarly and/or critical debates about the texts studied

Brief description

This is a new option for 2005/6.   It will focus on novels of the Victorian period, and will explore literary and cultural issues relevant to the time

Aims

This module will examine five novels from the Victorian period in terms of the development of literary realism, focusing on the ways in which this mode of representation changed in response to social and cultural forces. It will explore the relationship between myth and narrative, the bildungsroman tradition, the rise of the social problem novel, the relationship between philosophy and realism, and the ways in which the novel responded to the emergence of the new journalism towards the end of the Victorian period. It will also relate these developments to pre- and post-Victorian literature.

Content

1. Introduction: myth, narrative and the emergence of Victorian realist fiction.
2. Bildungsroman and the bourgeois subject: Charlotte Bronte'r Jane Eyre.
3. The social problem: Elizabeth Gaskell'r North and South I
4. The industrial novel: Elizabeth Gaskell'r North and South II
5. Philosophy of realism: George Eliot'r Middlemarch I
6. Realism and reflexivity: George Eliot'r Middlemarch II
7. Real time: Thomas Hardy'r Far >From the Madding Crowd I
8. Real space: Thomas Hardy'r Far From the Madding Crowd II
9. Journalism and the novel: George Gissing'r New Grub Street I
10. So, how realistic is realism?: George Gissing'r New Grub Street II

Module Skills

Reading Lists

Books
** Recommended Text
Bront e, Charlotte (2000.) Jane Eyre /Charlotte Bront e ; edited by Margaret Smith ; with an introduction and revised notes by Sally Shuttleworth. 0192839659
George Eliot (2003) Middlemarch, ed. Rosemary Ashton Penguin
Gaskell, Elizabeth (1998.) North and south /Elizabeth Gaskell ; edited by Angus Easson. 0192831941 (pbk) :
Gissing, George (1998.) New Grub Street /George Gissing ; edited with an introduction by John Goode. 0192829637 (pbk) :
** Supplementary Text
Sousa Correa, Delia da. (2000.) The nineteenth-century novel: realisms /Delia Da Sousa Correa. 0415238269(pbk.) :
Marshall, Gail (2002.) Victorian fiction /Gail Marshall. 0340763280
(1995.) The realist novel /edited by Dennis Walder. 0415135729
Wheeler, Michael (1985.) English fiction of the Victorian period 1830-1890 /Michael Wheeler. 0582492351
Regan, Stephan (Feb. 2001) The Nineteenth Century Novel:A Critical Reader
Guy, Josephine M (1996.) The Victorian social-problem novel :the market, the individual and communal life /Josephine M.Guy.
Flint, Kate. (c1987.) The Victorian novelist : social problems and social change /edited by Kate Flint. 0709910231
Gilmour, Robin. (1986.) The novel in the Victorian age :a modern introduction /Robin Gilmour. 0713164689
** Should Be Purchased
Hardy, Thomas (2002.) Far from the madding crowd /Thomas Hardy ; edited with notes by Suzanne B. Falck-Yi ; with a new introduction by Linda M. Shires. 019280149X(pbk.) :

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 6