The Rise of the Modern Novel  
While clearly not a literary “period,” the rise of the novel (as we know it) took place over the course of the 18^thcentury; though prose fiction had existed since ancient times, the modern novel—a serious form with mass, popular appeal—was born at some point in the early 1700s.  In this unit, we will trace its emergence and maturation, seeking to understand the reasons for its popularity while exploring and defining a number of its features and sub-genres.
Unit 2 Time Advisory   close

This unit should take you 36 hours to complete.
☐    Subunit 2.1: 12 hours
☐    Subunit 2.2: 18 hours
☐    Subunit 2.3: 6 hours
Unit 2 Learning Outcomes   show

Upon successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
• Explain how earlier literary forms contributed to the rise of the modern novel.
• Trace the changes in the literary market that led to the rise of the modern novel.
• Define the terms “terror,” “horror,” and “sublime.”
• Explain the importance of the “virgin in distress” theme in Lewis’s The Monk.
• Identify examples of the sublime in Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho.
• Describe the ways in which the Gothic novel is a type of imitation medievalism.
• Describe the relationship between the sentimental novel and the Gothic.
2.1 Early Versions of and Contexts for the Modern Novel  
2.1.1 Spanish Picaresque, the French Romance, and other Precursors to the Novel  
• Reading: Washington State University’s “The Early American Novel” and CUNY-Brooklyn: Dr. Lilia Melani’s essay on “The Novel”
2.1.2 The Merging of Fact and Fiction in Early 18th Century Writings  
• Reading: Excerpts from Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko and The Norton Anthology of English Literature’s "Slavery and the Slave Trade in Britain"
2.1.3 “Popular” Fiction: The Middle Class and the Novel  
• Reading: The Norton Anthology of English Literature’s “Summary of the Restoration and the 18th Century” ; Washington State University: The European Enlightenment’s “The Eighteenth Century”; CUNY-Brooklyn: Dr. Lilia Melani’s “Daniel Defoe,” “Henry Fielding,” and “Laurence Sterne.”
2.1.4 Representations of Everyday Life in the Novel  
• Reading: Excerpts from Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded and The Norton Anthology of English Literature’s “A Day in Eighteenth-Century London”
2.2 The Gothic Novel  
• Reading: The Saylor Foundation's "What Is “The Gothic?” Issues of Genre, Trope, and Form"
2.2.1 What is “The Gothic?” Issues of Genre, Trope, and Form  
• Reading: The Norton Anthology of English Literature’s “The Gothic: Overview”
2.2.2 Antiquarianism and the Gothic Novel  
• Reading: Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto as well as the The Norton Anthology of English Literature’s “Introduction to the Castle of Otranto”
2.2.3 Terror, Horror, and the Supernatural  
• Reading: CUNY-Brooklyn: Dr. Lilia Melani’s “Terror and Horror”; Anna Aikin and John Aikin’s “On Pleasure Derived from Objects of Terror”
2.2.4 The Sublime  
• Reading: Edmund Burke’s “A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful” ; VictorianWeb’s “Edmund Burke’s On the Sublime”
• Web Media: The Norton Anthology of English Literature’s Illustrations of the Sublime
2.2.5 Internal and External Landscapes: Psychology and Architectural Space in Gothic Fiction  
• Reading: Excerpt from Anne Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho; CUNY-Brooklyn: Dr. Lilia Melani’s “The Gothic Experience” and “Anne Radcliffe”
2.2.6 Sexuality and Gender in the Gothic Novel  
• Reading: Excerpts from Matthew Lewis’s The Monk; The Norton Anthology of English Literature’s “Matthew Gregory Lewis, from The Monk”; and University of Virginia’s website, “The Female Gothic”
2.3 Sentimentality and the Novel of Sensibility  
2.3.1 Sentimentality and Sensibility: Key Themes, Tropes, and Styles  
• Reading: Washington State University: Donna M. Campbell's “The Early American Novel”
2.3.2 A Reaction to Neoclassical/Enlightenment Austerity and Logic  
• Reading: The History Guide: Dr. Steven Kreis’s “The Age of Ideologies” (HTML) Lecture
2.3.3 Elements of Sentimentality in Richardson’s Pamela  
• Reading: Additional excerpts of Richardson’s Pamela and CUNY-Brooklyn: Dr. Lilia Melani’s “Samuel Richardson; Reputation of Clarissa”

Unit 3: Romanticism  
Like authors of the sentimental novel, Romantic poets and authors rebelled against what they considered the stifling intellectualism and rigid logic of the Enlightenment thinkers.  In this unit, we will examine various social and economic contexts that fostered Romanticism, while attempting to define the movement in terms of themes, styles, and tropes.
Unit 3 Time Advisory   close

This unit should take you 36 hours to complete.
☐    Subunit 3.1: 6 hours
☐    Subunit 3.2: 9 hours
☐    Subunit 3.3: 12 hours
☐    Subunit 3.4: 9 hours
Unit 3 Learning Outcomes   close

Upon successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
• Explain the evolution in thought between the Enlightenment and Romantic periods.
• Describe the influence of the French Revolution on Romantic poets, particularly Blake, Wordsworth, and Shelley.
• Outline the relationship between the Industrial Revolution and the Romantic interest in the natural world.
• Define the characteristics of the lyric poem.
• Compare and contrast the use of language in Enlightenment and Romantic poetry.
• Identify the key tropes in Wordsworth’s Lyrics Ballads.
• Explain the concept of the poet as “chosen son” in Wordsworth’s poetry.
3.1 Social and Economic Contexts  
3.1.1 The French Revolution and Concepts of Political and Social Reformation  
• Reading: The Norton Anthology of English Literature’s “Introduction” to The Romantic Period
• Reading: The History Guide: Dr. Steven Kreis’s “The Origins of the French Revolution” and “The Romantic Era” Lectures
3.1.2 Changes in Social Relations: The Industrial Revolution and the Emergence of the Bourgeoisie  
• Reading: The History Guide: Dr. Steven Kreis’s “The Origins of the Industrial Revolution in England” Lecture and Western New England College: Dr. Gerhard Rempel’s “The Industrial Revolution”
3.1.3 The Rise of Nationalism and the Renewed Interest in Native Folklore Traditions  
• Reading: Washington State University Dr. Paul Brians' “Romanticism” and as well as excerpt from The Norton Anthology of English Literature’s version of Richard Price’s “A Discourse on the Love of Our Country”
• Web Media: Web Gallery of Art’s version of John Martin’s “The Bard”
3.1.4 “The Spirit of the Age”: A Sense of Literary Renewal  
• Reading: Reading: The Norton Anthology of English Literature’s “Summary of the Romantic Era”
3.2 Romantic Poetics  
3.2.1 A New Understanding of Poetry: the Poem as a “Spontaneous Overflow of Powerful Feelings”  
• Reading: VictorianWeb’s "Emotionalist Moral Philosophy: Sympathy and the Moral Theory that Overthrew Kings" and Dr Lilia Melani's “Introduction to Romanticism”
3.2.2 The Role of the Romantic Poet in the Creation of Poetry  
• Reading: The Poetry Foundation’s “Introduction” to Thomas Love Peacock’s “The Four Ages of Poetry” and The Poetry Foundation’s version of Percy Shelley’s “A Defence of Poetry”
• Lecture: UCDavis: Dr. Timothy Morton’s “William Wordsworth: Radical Poetics”
3.2.3 The Lyric Poem Takes Center-Stage  
• Reading: The Norton Anthology of English Literature’s “Summary” of the Romantic Era as well as CUNY-Brooklyn’s “On Reading Lyric Poetry”
3.2.4 Poet as a “Chosen Son” or “Bard”  
• Reading: Excerpts from William Wordsworth’s “The Prelude”; The Poetry Foundation’s "Selections from of John Keats’ Letters"; Poets.org’s “Biography of John Keats”
3.2.5 The Centrality of Individual Experience  
• Reading: Excerpts from William Wordsworth’s “The Prelude” as well as Poets.org’s “Biography of William Wordsworth”
3.3 Romantic Poetic Conventions and Tropes  
3.3.1 Relationship between Man and Nature  
• Reading: William Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”; Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight” and “Dejection”; Percy Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”; John Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale”; The Norton Anthology of English Literature’s “Tintern Abbey, Tourism, and Romantic Landscape” and VictorianWeb’s “Wordsworth and Coleridge on Nature”
• Lecture: UCDavis: Dr. Timothy Morton’s “Percy Shelley: Remaining Nature” and “Ecological Coleridge: It Happens”
• Reading: The Saylor Foundation's "Elements of Sentimentality in Richardson’s Pamela"
• Reading: The Saylor Foundation's "Relationship Between Man and Nature"
3.3.2 Everyday Language and the Common Man  
• Reading: Wordsworth’s “The Preface to Lyrical Ballads” and various poems from Lyrical Ballads and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria
3.3.3 The Ballad and Questions of Form  
• Reading: Additional poems from Lyrical Ballads as well as the Poetry Foundation’s “Ballad”
3.3.4 The Figure of the Outcast in Romantic Poetry  
• Reading: Lyrical Ballads
3.3.5 Apocalypse in Romantic Poetry  
• Reading: William Blake’s “Prophetic Books”; Poets.org’s “Biography of William Blake”; and The Norton Anthology of English Literature’s “The French Revolution—Apocalyptic Expectations”
• Lecture: UCDavis: Dr. Timothy Morton’s “William Blake: What Is Coexistence”
3.4 Other Romantic-Era Literature  
3.4.1 The Familiar Essay / Review and the Rise of the Modern Periodical  
• Reading: The Norton Anthology of English Literature’s “Summary” of the Romantic Era and Project Gutenberg’s version of De Quincey’s “To the Reader” from his Confessions of An Opium Eater
3.4.2 Lamb, Hazlitt, and De Quincey: the Era’s Great Essayists and Their Rhetorical Strategies and Styles  
• Reading: Excerpts from The Norton Anthology of English Literature’s version of William Hazlitt’s Lectures on the English Poets
• Lecture: Georgetown University: Professor Duncan Wu’s “William Hazlitt: The First Modern Man”
3.4.3 Developments in Drama  
• Reading: The Norton Anthology of English Literature’s “Summary of the Romantic Era"; Bartleby's “Preface” to Percy Shelley’s The Cenci; and Rutgers’ version of Shelley’s “Preface” to Prometheus Unbound
3.4.4 The Persistence of the Novel: Key Titles and Their Impact  
• Lecture: UC-Davis: Dr. Timothy Morton’s “Frankenstein: Monsters Are Us” and “Jane Austen: Novels and Interiority”

UNIT TWO:  EXPLANATION OF GRADED ASSIGNMENTS

After working through the Unit Two course materials, you will need to do the following graded assignments

Unit Two: Discussion Question One (Participation Grade)

Answer the following question in at least fifty words:

Answer the following question in at least fifty words:

Answer in at least fifty words the following question:

Explain how earlier literary forms contributed to the rise of the modern novel.

Answer the following question in at least fifty words:

Answer the following question in at least fifty words:

Outline the relationship between the Industrial Revolution and the Romantic interest in the natural world.

Choose one of the following questions to answer in a one-page essay.  Follow MLA format.  You may focus on one reading selection to illustrate your ideas or you may compare several of the works you read to answer your chosen question.  This essay counts as a test grade.

1)    Describe the ways in which the Gothic novel is a type of imitation medievalism.

2)    Trace the changes in the literary market that led to the rise of the modern novel.

3)    Describe the relationship between the sentimental novel and the Gothic.

4)    Explain the evolution in thought between the Enlightenment and Romantic periods.

5)    Compare and contrast the use of language in Enlightenment and Romantic poetry.

On the discussion wall post a link to a video or article that is related directly to the readings for the unit and explain the significance on the discussion wall.