Research-oriented and designed for upper-division English majors. Intensive examination of critical approaches, literary theory, or a special topic in literary and cultural studies. Topics vary from semester to semester. Students should consult the department's "Announcement of Classes" for offerings well before the beginning of the semester.

Why did nineteenth-century authors write such long novels, and what did contemporary readers want from them? Why do we still read those novels today, if we do? Already by 1800 the poet William Wordsworth was complaining about dwindling attention spans (with modern readers reduced to "savage torpor,” incapable of "voluntary exertion"). But Moby-Dick runs over 800 pages in our edition, and Middlemarch is longer. To consider the affordances of the long novel, we will spend the entire semester comparing two works that—only twenty years apart (1851 and 1871-2)—could not differ more. One is American, the other British. One was written by a man, the other by a woman under a male pseudonym. One features an all-male cast of characters (along with some very large animals); the other ranges widely across social life and marriages. One crosses oceans; the other remains landlocked in an English village. Together, what do these two novels tell us about the aspirations of long-form literature? In addition to a short essay and several informal assignments, students will write a long paper on one of these two vast novels. While English 100 is a prerequisite for English 190, students who are exempt from this requirement (see https://english.berkeley.edu/undergraduate/the_major) will be able to enroll automatically.

Book List:

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or The Whale (Modern Library); George Eliot, Middlemarch (Norton)

Requisites

• English 100 is prerequisite to English 190.

Repeat Rules