Who can imagine life without novels? They have served not merely as diversions but as companions for so much of our lives, offering hours of pleasure and, at their best, insights few of us can ever quantify. But the simple joy of reading novels sometimes obscures our awareness of the deeper roles they play in our lives: honing our intellect, quenching our emotional thirsts, and shaping our sense of ourselves and of the world we live in. And this may be especially obvious in the case of the English novel, as you'll see in this engaging series of 24 lectures from an award-winning teacher. Under Professor Spurgin's guidance, you'll learn how the period that gave rise to the novel in England corresponded with a convulsive social transformation - one that produced the world's first modern, capitalist economy. Along the way, traditional social values often appeared to be outdated, as did traditional narrative forms. You'll see how the great English novelists were eager to create something new and different, breaking from traditions in which stories were usually centered on aristocrats and nobles to focus instead on the thoughts and feelings of ordinary people and taking pains to capture the rhythms of everyday life. At the same time, they also reacted to a number of larger developments: industrialization and urbanization, democratization and globalization. By placing more than two centuries of great English novelists in the context of British history and showing how their lives intersected with the creation of their art, these lectures offer a fascinating look at a form of enduring popularity and importance whose influence has been felt everywhere novels are read.
The English Novel
Novels have served not merely as diversions but as companions for so much of our lives, offering hours of pleasure and, at their best, insights few of us can ever quantify.
01: Definitions and Distinctions
This lecture offers an overview of the course and presents some of the defining features of the novel, helping us to understand how it differed from the literary forms that preceded it.
02: The “Englishness” of the English Novel
After further refining our understanding of the novel by exploring its preoccupation with the relationships between individuals and their larger social world, we consider some of the most distinctive features of the English novel tradition.
03: Historical Context of Early English Fiction
This lecture places the earliest English novels into a wider historical context as they begin to emerge in the middle of the 18th century, a period of convulsive social change.
04: The Rise of the Novel—Richardson and Fielding
To appreciate the historical forces at work in the earliest English novels, we consider the striking contrasts between authors Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding, the first representing the rising middle class, the second appearing almost aristocratic, confident, and secure in his own social position.
05: After 1750—Sterne, Burney, and Radcliffe
By 1750 it was clear that a new literary form had begun to take shape in England, distinguished by its use of realistic situations and settings. Those shared characteristics, though, need not suggest a uniform approach, as the writers covered in this lecture show.
06: Scott and the Historical Novel
We examine the work of the historical novel's greatest practitioner, whose career elevates the status of the novel form in England, where it had often been regarded as disreputable and dangerous.
07: Austen and the Comedic Tradition
The first of two lectures on one of the most popular of all English novelists focuses on the sociological dimensions of Jane Austen's work, noting her responses to larger historical forces and commenting on her use of comedic endings.
08: Austen and the History of Consciousness
Though Austen has been praised for many things, her greatest achievement, and her most important contribution to the development of the novel, may be her innovative treatment of human consciousness.
09: Dickens—Early Works
This lecture focuses on the early part of Charles Dickens's career, when he was regarded not as a novelist but rather as a writer of miscellanies and serials, including urban sketches that offered early signs of his obsession with London.
10: Novelists of the 1840s—Thackeray
In this lecture we focus on Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," the first great multiplot novel of the Victorian Age, which, in its use of converging and diverging storylines, lays the foundation for many later works, including those of Dickens.
11: Novelists of the 1840s—The Brontës
Appearing in 1847, the same year as "Vanity Fair," "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë and "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë take the English novel in new directions, echoing the revolutionary sentiments of the 1840s and challenging the limitations of earlier love stories.
12: Dickens—Later Works
Beginning with "Dombey and Sons," his first mature work, we explore Dickens's development as a novelist who explores many of the deepest mysteries of life and completes the most impressive body of work in the history of English fiction.
13: After 1870—Review and Preview
We review the first half of the course and preview the second half's focus on the emergence of Modernist fiction, including the appearance of tragic and open endings, a greater frankness about sex, and a greater seriousness about the novel form itself.
14: Eliot and the Multiplot Novel
In this first lecture on George Eliot (in real life a woman named Mary Ann Evans) we will see why her career marks a turning point in the history of English fiction.
15: Eliot and the Unfolding of Character
This lecture concludes our examination of Eliot's masterpiece, "Middlemarch," by discussing her approach to characterization, an approach that led Virginia Woolf to describe the work as "one of the few English novels written for grownup people."
16: Hardy and the Natural World
Like Eliot, Thomas Hardy is drawn to stories of disappointment and failure. Yet if Eliot considers the possibility of tragedy, Hardy embraces it, producing novels that end unhappily, often with the destruction of the main character, leaving us with no sense of poetic justice.
17: James and the Art of Fiction
Henry James is often credited with elevating the status of the novel in England, defending it by stressing its ability to expand our perceptions. This lecture traces this line of defense in "The Portrait of a Lady," James's first great novel, and "The Art of Fiction," his most famous critical essay.
18: Conrad and the “Scramble for Africa”
Like James, Joseph Conrad explored the moral complications of storytelling, inviting us to wonder if we can ever really succeed in sharing our stories with others. Conrad is also the first great novelist in the English tradition to take up the subject of European imperialism.
19: Ford and Forster—Transition to Modernism
E. M. Forster and Ford Madox Ford are transitional figures, bridging the gap between the 19th and 20th centuries. This lecture concentrates on their relationship to earlier traditions and their anticipation of later ones, examining Forster's "Howard's End" and "A Passage to India," and Ford's "The Good Soldier."
20: Lawrence and the “Bright Book of Life”
With the appearance of D. H. Lawrence, the transition to Modernism is complete. Lawrence uses his works to raise questions about everything from industrialization to homosexuality.
21: Joyce—Dublin and Dubliners
In the first of two lectures on James Joyce, we examine both his early stories and his first novel, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,", which builds on the foundations laid by Austen and James and paves the way for "Ulysses."
22: Joyce—Realism and Anti-Realism
We examine "Ulysses," the novel usually considered Joyce's greatest achievement, and see how its simultaneous affirmation and negation of Realism sets him apart from other novelists and makes him one of the most important figures in the history of the novel form.
23: Woolf and the Poetic Novel
With Lawrence and Joyce, Woolf stands among the greatest writers of the modern age, crafting an art of shifting surfaces and obscure depths. Yet even as her work exhibits startling originality, it also acknowledges her debts to earlier writers.
24: The Impact of the Novel
In reviewing the second half of the course and considering the reasons for concluding our study in the 1920s, we also note a number of more recent writers (among them Salman Rushdie, Pat Barker, Zadie Smith, and Ian McEwan) and take a final measure of the novel's impact on our world.
About
Dr. Timothy Spurgin is the Bonnie Glidden Buchanan Professor of English Literature and Associate Professor of English at Lawrence University, where he has taught for more than 15 years. He received his B.A. at Carleton College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Virginia. A respected and admired lecturer, Professor Spurgin teaches courses on Romanticism, contemporary critical theory, and the English novel, among other topics. He has also served two terms as director of Lawrence University's freshman program-recognized as one of the best in the nation. Professor Spurgin has received two coveted teaching awards from Lawrence University-the Outstanding Young Teacher Award and the Freshman Studies Teaching Prize-and he is a three-time recipient of the Babcock Award, given by university students to the individual who, through involvement and interaction with students, has made a positive impact on the campus community. Professor Spurgin's scholarly work has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Dickens Studies Annual, and Dickens Quarterly.
