PARADIGMS OF THE EURO NOVEL

In the wealth of plots, characters, settings, descriptive details and narrative strategies it has generated over the course of three centuries, the European novel has proved to be one of the most inventive and resilient forms of Western literature.  Nonetheless, certain paradigms have predominated from the beginning, two of which will form the center of this course:  1) the illusion of a "true," that is historically grounded story, and 2) the bourgeois family as an organizing narrative principle.  This course will analyze seven strikingly diverse European novels from Spain, England, France and Austria in order to show the continuity through variation of these two paradigms.   Students will read some of the major theorists of the novel (Auerbach, Watt, Bakhtin, Moretti), but the emphasis will be on developing a theory based on the novels themselves.  All readings and discussions in English, though reference will frequently be made to the particular linguistic and historical circumstances of the original texts.  Students will write weekly response papers to the literary and critical texts, do one in-class presentation, and write a final paper of 15 to 20 pages.