ENG 339 DELAYED GRATIFICATION

DELAYED GRATIFICATION An exploration of Victorian fiction via its signature publication method: serialized installments. What are the possibilities, rewards, and distinctive formal attributes associated with narratives that are consumed incrementally over a long period of time? Thinking through this question, students will stage their own serial encounters, taking in episodes of a sensation novel and a TV show over the course of many weeks. The course works to historicize reading as a practice, exploring the material and social contexts within which literature was consumed by 19th-century readers. Likely authors include Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Mike White.