12:20p-1:10p MWF (30) 3 cr.

OPEN TO MAJORS ONLY. DECLARED MINORS OBTAIN AUTHORIZATION FROM BH 402.

A fast-paced survey of the variety and interrelations of literatures in English in the nineteenth century. Although we'll take a glance at Australia and the Caribbean, the main focus will be points of contact and divergence between the literary cultures of Britain and North America. The main themes: varieties of romanticism; uses of tradition, dreams of starting over; the triumph of the novel: realism vs. romance; literature of the city; the social psychology of new genres (the short story, the dramatic monologue); crises of faith; the power of "life writing"; "the woman question"; literary responses to slavery; the rise of mass culture; the fear of "decadence." The main authors: Wordsworth, Byron, Cooper, Emerson, Carlyle, Dickens, Poe, Hawthorne, R. Browning, C. Brontė, E. B. Browning, Dickinson, Tennyson, F. Douglass, Stowe, Twain, Whitman, Arnold, Pater, Wilde. Requirements include three 4-page papers, an hour exam, and a final, as well as frequent, brief written exercises designed to stimulate class discussion.