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The English Novel cover art

The English Novel

By: Timothy Spurgin, The Great Courses
Narrated by: Timothy Spurgin
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Summary

Who can imagine life without novels? They have served not merely as diversions but as companions for so much of our lives, offering hours of pleasure and, at their best, insights few of us can ever quantify. But the simple joy of reading novels sometimes obscures our awareness of the deeper roles they play in our lives: honing our intellect, quenching our emotional thirsts, and shaping our sense of ourselves and of the world we live in. And this may be especially obvious in the case of the English novel, as you'll see in this engaging series of 24 lectures from an award-winning teacher.

Under Professor Spurgin's guidance, you'll learn how the period that gave rise to the novel in England corresponded with a convulsive social transformation - one that produced the world's first modern, capitalist economy. Along the way, traditional social values often appeared to be outdated, as did traditional narrative forms.

You'll see how the great English novelists were eager to create something new and different, breaking from traditions in which stories were usually centered on aristocrats and nobles to focus instead on the thoughts and feelings of ordinary people and taking pains to capture the rhythms of everyday life. At the same time, they also reacted to a number of larger developments: industrialization and urbanization, democratization and globalization.

By placing more than two centuries of great English novelists in the context of British history and showing how their lives intersected with the creation of their art, these lectures offer a fascinating look at a form of enduring popularity and importance whose influence has been felt everywhere novels are read.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2006 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2006 The Great Courses

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Excellent synopsis of the history of the novel

I am as far as one can be from reading or appreciating the technique of English language writing but this course truly made me interested in the subject. But I’m a convert! I loved listening about the background and history of each of the iconic writers in the last 150 years. It made me want to read each of these novels, analyse and understand them, and most importantly, try to write my own.(!) What a fantastic course.

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engaging and interesting

A really interesting introduction to the development of the English novel. Professor Spurgin is a great teacher; his insights are informative and insightful and the lectures are roughly 30-45mins in length so are highly digestible and never feel like they drag on. This is a good companion course to The Art of Reading (also taught by Prof. Spurgin). I am sorry to have finished it!

Would highly recommend to anybody who has an interest in English literature.

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  • 03-10-20

Fresh insights

I have read many classic English novels, but have not studied them, and so this course opened my eyes to the conventions and development of the English novel, and many other things that I had never thought about. It was especially interesting when he was talking about books I had read, but it has whetted my appetite for trying authors I haven't yet read. I found the lecturer's style engaging; each lecture is 30 minutes long which felt like the right length.

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