The course will explore text
and context of British
literature during Queen
Victoria’s long reign.
While this class can hardly
do justice to the nineteenth
century novel, the dominant
literary expression of the
time, we will study some
representative works,
particularly in the fast
changing social reality from
which they emerged. The
sessions are organized into
three generic categories to
highlight the importance of
both nonfictional and
fictional prose in this
period. The success of this
course depends largely on
students’ collaboration in
synthesizing the knowledge
of text and context.