ENG 353 DESIRE & DISAPPOINTMENT 19C UK

DESIRE & DISAPPOINTMENT IN VICTORIAN FICTION

An exploration of the ways Victorian fiction reckons with disappointment and failure, developing a counterpoint to the plots of satisfied desire more often addressed by critics. Reading criticism alongside works by Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, Dickens, Hardy, and others, students will consider what the thwarted desires of Victorian fiction teach about the novel as a genre and novel reading as a practice.