Universidade de São Paulo
Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas
Departamento de Letras Modernas
1º semestre de 2013
Leituras do Cânon I
Profa. Dra. Sandra Guardini T. Vasconcelos
Objectives: to give students a comprehensive view of the great tradition of the
English novel in its various trends. The course centres on canonical novels of the
18th and 19th centuries, concentrating on their formal aspects and socio-historical
context.
Syllabus
1. 28/02 – Introductory class: What is a novel? (Terry Eagleton)
2. 07/03 – The rise of the novel and the growth of the reading public (Ian Watt)
3. 14/03 – Generic Transformation and Social Change (Michael McKeon)
4. 21/03 – New tenets: realism and the individual: Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe
5. 04/04 – The individual and autobiography: Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe
6. 11/04 – Subjectivity and the novel form: Pamela (extracts), Samuel Richardson
7. 18/04 – Fielding’s comic epic poem in prose: Tom Jones (extracts)
8. 25/04 – Comedy and self-reflexivity in Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne
9. 02/05 – The Gothic: turn of the century in a changing world (The Mysteries of
Udolpho, Mrs Radcliffe)
10. 09/05 – Changes in English Society: new problems, new solutions (R. Williams)
11. 16/05 – The blundering heroine in Emma, Jane Austen
12. 23/05 – Social class in Emma, Jane Austen
13. 06/06 – Novel form in Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë.
14. 13/06 – Tensions and contradictions in Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
15. 20/06 – Lost Illusions in Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
16. 27/06 – The individual and bourgeois England: Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Set Reading (Novels)
1. Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe
2. Extracts from Pamela (Samuel Richardson); Tom Jones (Henry Fielding);
Tristram Shandy (Laurence Sterne); The Mysteries of Udolpho (Mrs Radcliffe)
3. Emma, Jane Austen
4. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
5. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Background Reading
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
The English Novel, Terry Eagleton
Chapters 1 and 2 of The Rise of the Novel, Ian Watt
“Generic Transformation…” by Michael McKeon (see folder)
Dez lições sobre o romance inglês do século XVIII, Sandra Vasconcelos
Formação do Romance Inglês: ensaios teóricos, Sandra Vasconcelos
Introduction to The English Novel from Dickens to Lawrence, Raymond Williams
Chapters from The Country and the City, Raymond Williams
Evaluation
1) Test about set and background reading, including all the topics discussed up to the
end of April. Questions will be answered at home. To be handed in on April 25.
2) Individual Paper: Austen, Brontë and Dickens, in their own personal ways, enact
in their novels very important changes that are taking place in English society.
Discuss how their individual works shape these changes from a literary standpoint
and what are the relevant topics and themes they foreground. Your paper must
contain a central argument, which should be sustained through extracts from the
novels. Limit: 10.000 characters (Times Roman 12, space 1,5) including any
bibliography, if used. Use endnotes rather than footnotes. Limit must not be
exceeded. Use a cover page, including full name, n. USP, and period (morning or
evening). Paper is compulsory and must be handed in at the set date (June 20).
Bibliographical References
Allen, Walter. The English Novel. London, Penguin, 1968.
Antonio Candido. Timidez do Romance. In: A Educação pela noite e outros ensaios. São
Paulo, Ática, 1987, p. 82-99.
Comparato, Fábio Konder. Ética. Direito, Moral e Religião no Mundo Moderno. São
Paulo, Companhia das Letras, 2006.
Briggs, Asa. The Age of Improvement. London; New York: Longmans, Green, 1959.
-------. A Social History of England. Penguin, 1985.
-------. Victorian Cities. Penguin, 1990.
David, Deirdre (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel. Cambridge
University Press, 2001.
Davis, Lennard. Factual Fictions. The Origins of the English Novel. New York,
Columbia University Press, 1983.
Day, Geoffrey. From Fiction to the Novel. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987.
Eagleton, Terry. The English Novel. An Introduction. Oxford, Blackwell, 2005.
-------. The Nature of Gothic. Figures of Dissent. London: Verso, 2005, p. 17-23.
Eagleton, Mary & Pierce, David. Attitudes to Class in the English Novel from Walter
Scott to David Storey. London, Thames and Hudson, 1979.
Flint, Kate (ed.). The Victorian Novelist. London, Croom Helm, 1997.
Ford, Boris (ed). The New Pelican Guide to English Literature. From Dryden to Johnson.
London, Penguin, 1991, vol. 4.
-------. Secular Scripture. A study of the structure of romance. Harvard University Press,
1978.
Grimsley, Ronald (ed.). The Age of Enlightenment (1715-1789). London, Penguin, 1979.
Hauser, Arnold. História Social da Literatura e da Arte. São Paulo, Ed. Mestre Jou,
1972, vol. II.
Hobsbawm, Eric. A Era das Revoluções. Rio de Janeiro, Paz e Terra, 1977.
-------. A Era do Capital, 1848-1875. Rio de Janeiro, Paz e Terra, 2002.
Horsman, Alan. The Victorian Novel. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1990.
Karl, Frederick R. A Reader's Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel. NY, The Noonday
Press, 1974.
-------. A Reader’s Guide to the Nineteenth-Century Novel. NY, The Noonday Press, s.d.
Kettle, Arnold. An Introduction to the English Novel. London, Hutchinson, 1972, vols. 12.
Lukács, Georg. A Teoria do Romance. Lisboa, Presença, s.d.
McKeon, Michael. The Origins of the English Novel (1600-1740). Baltimore, The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1991.
Montandon, Alain. Le Roman au XVIIIe Siècle en Europe. Paris, Presses Universitaires
de France, 1999.
Moretti, Franco. The Way of the World. The Bildungsroman in European Culture.
London, Verso, 1987.
Porter, Roy. English Society in the Eighteenth Century. London, Penguin, 1984.
Probyn, Clive. English Fiction of the Eighteenth Century 1700-1789. London, Longman,
1994.
Reeve, Clara. The Progress of Romance. Colchester, W. Keymer, 1785.
Regan, Stephen. The Nineteenth-Century Novel: A Critical Reader. London,
Routledge/The Open University, 2001.
Richetti, John (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to the Eighteenth-Century Novel.
Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Richetti, John J. Popular Fiction before Richardson. Narrative Patterns, 1700-1739.
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1969.
Rogers, Pat. The Eighteenth Century. London, Methuen, 1983.
Stevenson, Lionel. The English Novel. A Panorama. London, Constable, 1960.
Stevick, Philip (ed.). The Theory of the Novel. NY, The Free Press/Macmillan, 1967.
Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800. London,
Weidenfeld L. Nicolson, 1977.
Vasconcelos, Sandra Guardini T. Dez lições sobre o romance inglês do século XVIII. São
Paulo, Boitempo, 2002.
-----. A Formação do Romance Inglês. Ensaios Teóricos. São Paulo, Hucitec/FAPESP,
2007.
Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel: Studies on Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. London,
Penguin, 1983.
Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City. London, The Hogarth Press, 1993.
Williams, Raymond. The English Novel from Dickens to Lawrence. London, The Hogarth
Press, 1970.