Why the Novel Happened

Readings in "early " novels of 18th-century England and in more recent explanations of the novel's rise to dominance as a popular modern genre. How have changing ideas of truth, virtue, gender, money, politics, history, or the human subject interacted with the practices of narrative fiction? Writers to be considered include Behn, Haywood, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Lewis, Watt, Lukacs, McKeon, and Bakhtin.