Syllabus

Course Description

 

 

Improvement of the awareness for the development of the novel form with study of major and lesser-known figures in relation to social change and publishing conditions. Authors include Dickens, Thackeray, Eliot, and Hardy, and the major Victorian prose writers in the areas of political, social, religious and aesthetic debate like Carlyle, Newman, Arnold, and the others.

 

 

Course Objectives

 

 

The course deals with the period in British history known as the Victorian Age, the time of Queen Victoria‘s reign (1836-1901), when industrialization was in full speed, when drastic changes took place to challenge the economic, social, cultural, and literary roots of the Empire. The Victorian experience is significant as the period has defined cultural parameters for societies experiencing similar phenomena of industrialization and change, and forming, in the process, the “civilization” as we know today. The main objectives of the course is to make students aware of the Victorian paradigm which has shaped our present world, and create the responsiveness necessary to combine the Victorian literature with the literatures of the following centuries.

 

 

Learning Outcomes

 

 

   Upon completion of the course, students will have:

· A broad knowledge of the literature of the period, and the distinguishing features of early, mid and late Victorian writing

· An understanding of the major social, political and cultural developments of the period, and an ability to place literary texts in the context of this wider social frame

· An ability to discuss literary transitions from the Romantic to the Victorian and Modern periods

· An understanding of the main aesthetic developments within the period across all genres, including, for example, the realist novel, the dramatic monologue, the elegy and narrative experimentation in poetry and prose

· An ability to engage with recent critical and theoretical writing in relation to the Victorian period

 

Course Outline

 

Week

Topic(s)

1

Introduction to the 19th century

 

2

Industrial Revolution and the Middle Classes

3

George Eliot-Middlemarch

4

Middlemarch

5

Middlemarch

6

Charles Dickens-Great Expectations

7

Great Expectations

8

Great Expectations

9

Thomas Hardy-The Return of the Native

10

The Return of the Native

11

 The Return of the Native

12

 Out-of-tradition Novel-Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

13

Wuthering Heights

14

Review and conclusion

Textbook(s)

 

Author(s)

Title

Publisher

Publication Year

ISBN

George Eliot

Middlemarch

Penguin

1994

0-14-062076-1

 Charles Dickens

 Great Expectations

 Penguin

 1996

 978-0-141-43956-3

Thomas Hardy

The Return of the Native

Seven Treasures

 2009

9781440420085

Emily Bronte

Wuthering Heights

Bantam Classics

 2003

0553212583

 

Reference Books

 

Author(s)

Title

Publisher

Publication Year

ISBN

 ErtuÄŸrul Koç

 The Victorians and the Novelists: from Dickens to Hardy

 Barış Kitabevi

 2010

 9 78944 137508