Special Topics: Dickens and Turgenev

Our objective in the course to achieve a better understanding of the work of Charles Dickens (1812-1883) and Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) through a comparative study of their writings in their biographical, cultural and historical contexts. Among possible topics to be considered:

-issues of class, the social positions of the two writers

-circumstances of publication and circulation of works

-censorship exercised directly by the state or indirectly by social pressures or self-censorship

-readership

-social views expressed in the works and their impact as gauged by reviews, news articles, letters

-authors' views of their social and cultural function and of their national identity

-views of authors and readers towards the rest of Europe

-translation issues and issues of national "identity"

Texts:

Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers (Oxford Illustrated Dickens)

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (Norton Critical Edition)

Charles Dickens, Hard Times (Norton Critical Edition)

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (New Oxford Illustrated Dickens)

Ivan Turgenev, The Essential Turgenev, ed. E. C. Allen. (Northwestern UP)

Class Schedule:

September 11	Introduction
September 18	The Pickwick Papers (1836-1837), Preface and Chapters I-IV, XII, XIII, XXII, XXXIV, LVI, LVII. A Sportsman's Sketches (1852), Essential Turgenev, 3-89.
September 25	"The Diary of a Superfluous Man" (1850), 104-151. David Copperfield (1849-1850), to end of Chapter 27 ("Tommy Traddles")
October 2	David Copperfield
October 9	No class- school holiday
October 16	Fall Break
October 23	A Month in the Country (1850) Hard Times (1854)
October 30	Hard Times
November 6	"A Correspondence" (1856) A Nest of Gentry (1859) "First Love" (1860)
November 13	"Hamlet and Don Quixote" (1860) Great Expectations (1861), to end of Chapter 33
November 20	Great Expectations
November 27	Fathers and Sons (1862)
December 4	Fathers and Sons Research Paper Due December 8
December 11	"A Living Relic" (1874), 89-101 "The Dream" (1877) "The Song of Triumphant Love" (1881)

Participants in the class will take turns leading discussions of particular works, hand in brief reading notes weekly and write a final research paper of 12-15 pages. Russian majors are encouraged to read Turgenev in Russian and may write their final research paper in Russian as well.

Members of the seminar are expected to arrive on time, attend all classes, keep up with assigned readings and hand papers in when they are due. Evaluation will be based on class participation and on written work.