ENGLISH PROSE NARRATIVE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

ENGLISH PROSE NARRATIVE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Module Level:

Module Tutor:

M. Pugmire

Module Credit Value:

10 Credit Points.

Recommended Prior Learning:

Study of the Level I ‘Introduction to Narrative’ module

Aims

The module aims to introduce the student, within the severe limitation imposed by module size, to the development of English prose narrative in the eighteenth century, and especially to the development of the realistic novel, and the associated problems concerning the tensions between realism in presentation and the desire to offer meaningful analysis of the world.

Indicative Content

The means to the above end will be a study of the full text of a limited number of eighteenth century prose narratives, tracing something of the development of the novel, and in particular of the realistic novel, and introducing the student to non-novel narratives in the form of Gulliver’s Travels and Rasselas.

Specific Texts:

Swift.		Gulliver’s Travel.
Defoe.		Moll Flanders
Fielding.	Joseph Andrews
Richardson.	Pamela
Johnson.	Rassela.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the course, the student should be able to:

Describe the varying narrative methods of the works studied, and demonstrate an understanding of their strengths and limitations.
Discuss the special achievement of Swift in Gulliver’s Travels.
Analyse and define some of the differences and similarities between the methods of realism adopted by Defoe, Fielding and Richardson.
Demonstrate an understanding of the rationale and the methodological effects of the generalist impulse as evinced by Fielding and Johnson.

Teaching and Learning Strategies

Formal lectures will introduce key concepts and the social and literary background.
Group work will be used to analyse key features of the texts, especially methodological features, based upon individual preparation using work-sheet material to facilitate analysis of selected passages. Seminars will be used to consider complete texts.

Assessment Strategies :

Either a 4,000 word assignment, involving comparative textual analysis of passages from texts studied, or a piece (complete or a fragment) of prose narrative by the student of at least 2000 words, accompanied by a commentary explaining the rationale of the choices in narrative method made, and an evaluation of the success with which that method is deployed, plus a 2 hr examination, involving one answer upon an individual text and one comparing/contrasting at least 2 texts.

Bibliography

Required Reading

Erickson, R.A, Mother Midnight, (Cambridge, 1987)

Rogers, P, Defoe, The Critical Heritage, (Routledge, 1972)

Paulson, R, Henry Fielding, The Critical Heritage, (Routledge, 1969)

Ross, A, Swift: Gulliver’s Travels: Studies in English Literature, (Arnold, 1968)

Watt, I.P, The Rise of the Novel, (Penguin, 1963)

Harris, J, Samuel Richardson, (Cambridge, 1987)

Recommended Reading

Bellamy, L, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992)

Brissenden, R.F, Virtue in Distress, (Macmillan, 1974)

Donaghue, D, Jonathan Swift: A Critical Introduction, (Cambridge, 1969)

Donaldson, I, The World Upside Down: Satire from Jonson to Fielding, (OUP, 1970)

Furbank, P.N. & Owens, W.R, The Canonisation of Daniel Defoe, (Yale, 1988)

Rawson, C.J, Gulliver and the Gentle Reader, (Routledge, 1973)

Woodman, T.M, A Preface to Samuel Johnson, (Longman, 1994)

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