The European Novel from Richardson to Goethe

This course studies the rise of the novel in eighteenth-century England, France, and Germany, focusing on the development of epistolary fiction, but with side-glances at the picaresque and sentimental tradition. Texts to be read include Richardson's Pamela , Fielding's Shamela and Joseph Andrews , Rousseau's Julie , Laclos's Les liaisons dangereuses , perhaps Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's Paul et Virginie , perhaps Sade's Justine , and definitely Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther .