2023/2024
Romance to Novel: Transformations of English Prose Fiction, 1485 – 1800
Type:
Optional course (faculty)
Delivered by:
School of Philological Studies
When:
3 module
Open to:
students of one campus
Instructors:
Artem Serebrennikov
Language:
English
ECTS credits:
3
Contact hours:
36
Course Syllabus
Abstract
In English, there is a subtle difference, hard to convey in other languages, between the terms romance and novel, finally crystallized by the late 18th century. The first term implies an “archaic” prose narrative, built around amorous and heroic deeds performed in a legendary or idealized setting. The second implies that the narrative describes a recognizable everyday reality with some degree of realism, and is the standard designation of the genre in modern English.
The suggested course traces
* how the vision of the genre and function of narrative prose evolved from the late Middle Ages to the late Enlightenment;
* what different forms and styles are combined under the label of either romance or novel;
* what motives, images and traditions that originated in English-language prose in the Early Modern era endure up to this day.
The following texts are projected to be discussed during the course:
1. Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur
2. Philip Sidney, Arcadia
3. John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
4. Aphra Behn, Oroonoko
5. Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
6. Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
7. Henry Fielding, Tom Jones
8. Tobias Smollett, Roderick Random
9. Samuel Richardson, Clarissa
10. Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy
11. Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto
12. Clara Reeve, The Old English Baron
13. Ann Radcliffe, The Italian
14. Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey