In this course we will study the literary art form of the novel, considering how it is defined, what its distinctive characteristics are, and what its history may be. Our focus will be on the expressions of the gothic genre, touching on epistolary novel, seduction tales, abbey fiction, satire, psychological realism, revenge story, and magical realism. We will also consider the nature of fiction and non-fiction genres as they intersect with the literary explorations of the novel form by these authors. The historical scope of our study ranges from the mid 1700s to the early 1900s. Since the novel form was largely created by women writers for women readers, we are reading novels written by women: Susannah Minifie Gunning, Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, and Virginia Woolf. Three of these four novels have never been out of print since the dates of their publications.
This timeline will show the span of time in this novel's six chapters narrative Orlando's very long life, beginning in the Elizabethan Age. The span of time that Virginia Woolf assigns to her protagonist Orlando's life is fundamental to her commentary on gender and genre.
![Lenare, studio portrait of Vita Sackville-West in the manner of Sir Peter Lely, 1927] | Orlando virginia woolf, Vita sackville west, Virginia woolf](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b5/b5/b9/b5b5b9f9af93c67d79c8198669e52702.jpg)
This is an ongoing collaborative and individual assignment in COVE Editions built upon the work we began in our first class discussions of the question, “What is a novel?” and in your subsequent exploratory research to suss out a more developed and complex understanding of what the novel is as a literary art form. Our timeline will begin in the mid- to later 1700s with Barford Abbey and all of the cultural context that informs her abbey fiction. We will extend our consideration of the form and development of the novel into the early mid- 1900s by the time we conclude our course.
