The Moral Universe of the Novel in Defoe, Dickens, and Joyce Part I

This class will assess the conditions for the new popularity of the novel. The course texts will be placed against the social-political background of the period, the rapid growth of the middle-class reader, and contemporary responses to these narratives. Our discussions will focus on interpretations of the novel (past and present) in relation to how narrative voice, point of view, descriptive scenes (the compelling story), character development, theme and rhetoric shape the social and moral universe of the novel. At the conclusion of the course, students will have an opportunity to discover, debate, and define what (if anything) these works mean to a post-modern audience. Novels discussed in Part I: Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders (1721) and Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (1837)