English Literature 1B: The Novel and Narratology Dr Lyndsay Miller

1B Seminar Timetable and Reading List

In preparation for seminars, you should read the primary text alongwith the relevant
secondary criticism listed below. We will most often refer to essays in Bennett and Royle,
Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory, the complete text of which is available
on Moodle, under the section entitled What is a Novel?

Week 2: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

Bennett & Royle, ‘Readers and reading’ in Introduction to Literature, Criticism & Theory, pp.
9-17.

John Richetti, ‘Defoe as Narrative Innovator’ in the Cambridge Companion to Daniel Defoe,
pp. 121-138.

Week 3: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Bennett & Royle, ‘Mutant’ in Introduction to Literature, Criticism & Theory, pp. 223-32.

NB: Your seminar exercise is due by 4pm on Friday 25th January. Please submit it in the
boxes outside the school office. Remember to write your full name, as well as my name, on it.

Week 4: Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Sandra M. Gilbert, ‘Plain Jane’s Progress’. This essay is on Moodle under Additional
Resources/Brontë. It would become part of Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s book, The
Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-century Literary Imagination,
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000). This book is available in the University Library
and the corresponding chapter is ‘A Dialogue of Self and Soul: Plain Jane’s Progress’.

Week 5: Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

H. Porter Abbott, ‘Story, Plot and Narration’ in The Cambridge Companion to Narrative (on
moodle under Additional Resources/Useful websites)

‘Secrets’, Bennett & Royle, Introduction to Literature, Criticism & Theory, pp. 240-247

Week 6: READING WEEK (no seminar)

Week 7: Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Bennett & Royle, ‘Racial Difference’ in Introduction to Literature, Criticism & Theory, pp. 206-
13.

Week 8: Virginia Woolf, Orlando

Bennett & Royle, ‘Desire’ in Introduction to Literature, Criticism & Theory, pp. 178-186.

Bennett & Royle, ‘Queer’, Introduction to Literature, Criticism & Theory, pp. 187-96.

Week 9: Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49

Bennett and Royle, ‘The Postmodern’ in An Introduction to Literature, Criticism & Theory, pp.
248-257.

Week 10: Leila Aboulela, The Translator

Tamar Steineitz essay on The Translator (on Moodle under Additional Resources/Aboulela)
English Literature 1B: The Novel and Narratology Dr Lyndsay Miller

Week 11: Course review and exam preparation

Bennett & Royle, ‘The End’ in Introduction to Literature, Criticism & Theory, pp. 280-87.