Austen

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course introduces students to the novels of Jane Austen. We will examine her contributions to the development of the English novel, including her popularization of free indirect discourse, use of the marriage plot, and parody of the gothic mode. We will also read her novels with an eye toward the major social and political issues of late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain, including the Napoleonic wars, the abolition of the slave trade, and gender inequity in property laws and customs. But we will also consider her enduring popularity. Despite a lack of recognition during her lifetime, Austen’s novels have never gone out of print; in fact, Austenmania has only continued to increase. In addition to exploring the literary and historical contexts of Austen’s novels, we will also interrogate why their adaptations remain so popular and the multiple, and sometimes problematic, ways in which her image takes shape in our modern imagination.