The Nineteenth-Century English Novel
English 231 - Spring,
1998
Jay Clayton, Vanderbilt University
Why the fascination today with nineteenth-century culture?
From Merchant/Ivory films to Masterpiece Theater, from Jane Austen as Hollywood's
hottest property to Charles Dickens Christmas celebrations, from A. S.
Byatt's neo-Victorian novels to underwear from Victoria's Secret--nostalgic
trips back to the prior century are a major growth industry in the 1990s.
In this course we will read six important nineteenth-century
novels against the backdrop of today's revival of "Victoriana." Films,
hypertext fictions, web-based research sites, and cultural studies articles
will be used to set the contemporary context for the literature of the
prior century. Today's popular misappropriations of the past have
much to teach us--both about the real nature of the nineteenth century
and about ourselves.