106-284/384 Sex and Sentiment in the Eighteenth-Century English Novel

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Subject Description:

This subject traces the development of the English novel from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century, focusing on its construction of masculinity and femininity through the discourses of 'sexuality' and 'sentimentality'. Social and economic, as well as generic, constituents of 'the rise of the novel' will be examined. Students who complete this subject should be familiar with current theories about the construction of subjectivity, sexuality and sentimentality in the novel genre and have developed their own critical readings of a range of eighteenth-century English novels.

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Prescribed Texts:

Course reader available from the department.

• J Austen, Sense and Sensibility, Penguin.
• A Behn, Oroonoko, Penguin.
• F Burney, Evelina, Penguin.
• J Cleland, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, World's Classics.
• D Defoe, Moll Flanders, World's Classics.
• H Fielding, Shamela
• E Inchbald, A Simple Story, World's Classics.
• S Richardson, Pamela, Penguin.
• L Sterne, A Sentimental Journey, World's Classics.
• H Walpole, The Castle of Otranto, World's Classics.