English Romantic Novel, 1764-1847 (Pre-1800)

In this course we will examine novels written in England at the turn of the eighteenth century. Romantic in sensibility, these works are far from romantic in content, preoccupied with quite the opposite of amour: pride, revenge, incest, lascivious monks, transgressive scientists, and religious fanaticism. Each of these novels explores questions of identity, religion, sexuality, science, and landscape in innovative ways, experimenting with organizational and narrative strategies that challenge prevailing views of novelistic form. We will read three Gothic novels (The Castle of Otranto, The Mysteries of Udolpho, and The Monk) and one anti-Gothic work, ,Northanger Abbey, as well as Frankenstein, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, and Wuthering Heights.