EGL 227 - (265) Governess Tales

Course Units: 1

(Not offered in 2015-16) Offered once every four years. Social upheaval and unrest in the early decades of Victoria’s reign (1830s and 1840s) gave way to greater national confidence and stability in the 1850s and 1860s. We will consider England’s internal concerns of class mobility, industrialization, professions for women, and working class conditions, as well as international questions of empire and nationalism. Our special focus will be “Governess Tales,” specifically three published virtually simultaneously in 1847-8: Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, W. M. Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, and Anne Bronte’s Agnes Grey. Precursors (Emma) and parodies (Behind a Mask, Turn of the Screw) may round out the syllabus. Common Curriculum CC: HUL