Its great exponents include Ariosto, Tasso, Cervantes, Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare. It was characterized by much narrative variety, multiple plots, open-ended structures, digression, coincidence, fantasy, wonder, and wish-fulfillment in its uniquely serendipitous version of the world, few social conventions or expectations can be taken for granted. Regular attendance is required for a passing final grade (a maximum of two absences will be allowed except for documented medical or similar emergencies).ĮNGL 305 Renaissance English Literature Elizabethan Romance: Prose Fiction, Narrative Poetry, and Dramaĭescription: One of the centrally fashionable literary genres of early modern Europe, romance was the most important precursor of the novel, though in many ways different. Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews and Shamela (Oxford)Įvaluation: Paper (50%), tests (40%), participation (10%). Madame de Lafayette, The Princess of Clèves (Norton)Įliza Haywood, Love in Excess (Broadview) Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quijote (Norton) The Letters of Abelard and Heloise (Hackett) Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur (Oxford) Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, The Romance of the Rose (Oxford) (The list of texts below is provisional, to be confirmed in September 2016.) Texts: The required reading for this course will include most or all of the following books, which will be available at The Word Bookstore (469 rue Milton, 51). Our work together will aim at a critical analysis of the textual ideologies articulated in this experimental process of historical combination. We will consider the novel as responding to a network of interrelated problems – of the self and its imaginative politics – at the representational crossroads of medieval epic, courtly romance, spiritual autobiography, picaresque satire, colonialist adventure, gallant intrigue, baroque casuistry, bourgeois conduct book, sentimental love story, moral treatise, psychological realism, and mock-heroic “comic epic in prose.” As the emerging literary “form of forms,” the early modern novel vibrantly juxtaposes and interweaves all these different generic strands. Our readings and discussion will refer to the European context of the evolution of this narrative form in England. Description: This course will canvas some of the “origins” of the English novel and trace its development (particularly as anti-romance satire and realism) up to the mid-eighteenth century.
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