EGL 228 - (264) Novels of Education

Course Units: 1

(Not offered in 2015-16) Offered once every four years. The growth of a young person’s mind provided the subject for many great works of nineteenth century fiction. In this course we will examine how and why the novel of education (otherwise known as the Bildungsroman) evolved in British and Irish fiction over the course of the Victorian period. Why did they begin to appear when they did, and what cultural issues were the writers and their audiences interested in thinking through? How were novels of female education different from those of young men? What contradictions did they lay bare about the structure of British society? We will see that this dynamic literary form allowed the novelist to articulate new social roles and forms of identity in a changing, though highly rule-bound, society. Common Curriculum CC: HUL