ENGL 265 - Selected Author

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

(Same as GNCS 265) Topic for 2024/25a: The Brontës. This class examines the major works of the three famous Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. In 1847, British society was enthralled by the publication of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Agnes Grey by the hitherto unknown trio of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. As soon as the novels came out, there was a great deal of speculation about who wrote them, the gender of the authors, and if they were actually written by one person. Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell were the male pen names of the Brontë sisters, who became one of the most famous literary families in literary history. From their own time onwards, there has been a tendency in scholars, critics, and readers alike to think about their novels as autobiographical byproducts of the sisters being governesses and living in the Yorkshire moors, and to lump all three together in a hydra-like, psychological genius authorial being, which has since been called “the Brontë myth.” This course thinks through the question of autobiography and the limits of this line of thought as well as the fraught issue of individualization and legacy for the sisters. We read Charlotte’s Jane Eyre and Villette, Emily’s Wuthering Heights, and Anne’s Agnes Grey and Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Across the novels we can trace both their similarities and differences and the ways they rewrote, adapted, and edited each other’s work. In particular, this set of novels demonstrates the large impact the Brontë sisters’ work had on the history and trajectory of the novel and the various strategies they used to mold, resist, and push the literary and social conventions of the Victorian era–especially in regards to gender, sexuality, class, disability, marriage, romance, race, religion, family, and labor. Christian Lewis.

This course satisfies the pre-1900 requirement for the English major.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS