ENGL 4801y—The Rise of the Novel Prof. Siskin

Assignments: Spring 2004

January 21—WARNING: This course may bring on “intellectual and moral ruin”

Revising the Rising I: Literature and the Rise of the Novel

January 26—1803: The Case AGAINST the Novel—“A Mass of Crime and Misery”

Miller, A Brief Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century (Xerox)

January 28—1803: The Case FOR the Novel—“The Greatest Powers of the Mind”

Northanger Abbey, Austen

February 2

February 4— What We Thought The Novel Was I: The Great Tradition

Watt and Realism (TON 363-381)

McKeon and Dialectic (TON 382-399)

Preface to Moll Flanders, Defoe (Xerox)

February 9—The Rethinking I: Romance and the Woman Writer

Preface to Queen Zarah, Manley (Xerox)

Adventures of Rivella, Manley

February 11

February 16—What We Thought the Novel Was II: Modernity

Lukács and Drama (TON 219-248)

Bakhtin and Heteroglossia (TON 321-353)

February 18—The Rethinking II: History, Drama, and the Woman Writer

Oroonoko, Behn

February 23

February 25—The Equation: Fielding + Richardson = Austen

Discourse of Clarissa (Xerox)

Joseph Andrews, Fielding

March 1

March 3—The Recalculation

Armstrong and Domesticity (TON 467-475)

Millenium Hall, Scott

March 8

March 10

March 15—Break

March 17—Break

Revising the Rising II: Novelism and the Rise of Literature

March 22— Forms of Desire

Siskin and Periodicals (Xerox)

Siskin and Development (TON 566-586)

March 24—Writing as Desire

A Sentimental Journey, Sterne

March 29

March 31—Writing Dangerously

Preface to Constantia (1751) (Xerox)

` From The Rambler, Johnson (Xerox)

April 5—Gothicism and Desire: Romancing the Novel

Castle of Otranto, Walpole

Prefaces, Reeve (Xerox)

April 7

April 12—Novelism and Nation: The Advent of Print Culture

Anderson and Imagined Communities

Siskin and the Naturalization of Writing (Xerox)

from “On the Origin and Progress of Novel Writing,” Barbauld, (Xerox)

April 14

April 19—Novelism and Truth: The Advent of Literature

McKeon and the Division of Knowledge (TON 600-612)

The Adventures of Caleb Williams or Things as They Are, Godwin

April 21

April 26—The Fate of the Novel: Fiction and Information

Benjamin and Storytelling (TON 77-88)

Private Memoirs and Confessions, Hogg

The Da Vinci Code (Website), Brown

April 28

May 3

Texts available at Columbia Bookstore:

TON = Theory of the Novel, ed. McKeon (Johns Hopkins)

Austen, Northanger Abbey (Broadview)

Behn, Oroonoko (Bedford)

Fielding, Joseph Andrews, (Oxford)

Godwin, Caleb Williams (Broadview)

Hogg, Private Memoirs (Broadview)

Manley, Adventures of Rivella (Broadview)

Scott, Millenium Hall (Broadview)

Sterne, A Sentimental Journey (Penguin)

Walpole, Castle of Otranto (Broadview)

Xerox=copies to be handed out during course

Requirements (variations to be discussed):

· This course is about what we do together—you will not get credit for what you didn’t do; attendance is thus mandatory—unexcused absences will adversely affect your grade

· Short paper (2-4pp.) due by end of February

· Long paper (6-8 pp.) due at the end of the semester

· Group presentation—oral or electronic—and/or webpage on material from TON or topic of your choice (10-15 minute or equivalent)

· Please have texts read by the date that appears on the syllabus

· Your papers must be printed, double-spaced, paginated, titled, and stapled; plastic binders are not necessary. Please proofread your work; papers with obvious errors will be returned

· Class discussion is a very important part of this class and of your grade

· Please take advantage of my office hours for individual conferences

· Office: 606A Philosophy Phone: 212-854-4360 Office Hours: M 12:15-1 W12:15-1:30 and by appointment