Close readings of four of Jane Austen's novels (likely Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion) in the context of the Revolutionary and Regency Britain, British Empire, and literary trends of the Gothic, Romanticism, and Realism. Course narrative: Did you know there were debates on slavery, and fear of riots, in the novels of Jane Austen? Too often considered fairy tales about well-to-do marriages, Austen’s novels run the gamut from fake gothic castles to modern, middle-class tourist developments by the sea. In this course you will complete the satisfying task of reading (or re-reading!) all six of Austen’s completed novels during the semester. En route, we will also read and discuss a variety of insightful, influential, and (at times) controversial interpretive approaches to Austen’s novels. Your guide is a professor whose own area of first interest—British Romanticism—situates Austen’s life and texts in their contemporary literary and historical setting. This class will expand your sense of Austen’s own surprising engagement with historical issues as pressing as those we face today. These include debates over British response to the French Revolution, empire, slavery and the material culture of consumerism that developed many of its “modern” features during in her lifetime (1775-1817). Special attention will also be paid to what has been called Austen’s stylistic “revolution” in terms of narrative form, tone, and technique, and to the historical position of her writing in the historical “rise” of the novel in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Several brief narrative assignments and a longer analytical paper. Graded participation in the form of discussion, either on the course learning platform or Yellowdig.

Based on discussion online, short narrative writing assignments, and a longer paper.