ENGL 221-01, Novel of Manners, Spring 2008

Abstract

This course is a study of the development of the novel of manners over a century, as reflected in the work of those writers most identified with the genre: Jane Austen, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. We move from the heroine-centeredc ourtshipp lots of Austen'sf iction, set in RegencyE ngland, through Edith Wharton, Henry Adams and Henry James's adaptations of the genre in the late nineteenthc entury and the openingd ecades of the twentieth century. We will pair two political 'novels of reconciliation' set in the postcivil war Reconstructione ra written by Adams and James. We will also read Veblen'sc lassice conomics tudy of the leisure classa s the lens through which we will interpret the novels of Edith Wharton, set in America's Gilded Age, 2 the era of conspicuous consumption. The course treats four major writers, one English and three Americans and considers the strong influence English novels of the nineteenth century had on these cosmopolitan writers. The novels in this course, largely traditional in structure, and spanning comedy, melodrama, tragedy, and satire focus on the implications of the assumption Lawrence Selden makes in The House of Mirth: that marriage is the heroine's vocation. This course may be taken for credit toward a minor in women's studies or as part of a minor or major in English. It counts as an F4 in terms of foundation credits.