# Major English Novels

A woman reading a novel. (Image courtesy of anna_t's on flickr.)

### Instructor(s)

Ina Lipkowitz

### MIT Course Number

21L.471

### As Taught In

Spring 2009

### Level

Undergraduate

###

Some Description
Instructor(s) | Prof.
As Taught In | Spring 2002
Course Number | 2.24
Level | Undergraduate/Graduate
Features | Lecture Notes, Student Work

## Course Description

## Course Features

- Assignments: written (no examples)

## Course Description

In this class, you will read, think about, and (I hope) enjoy important examples of what has become one of the most popular literary genres today, if not the most popular: the novel. Some of the questions we will consider are: Why did so many novels appear in the eighteenth century? Why were they—and are they—called novels? Who wrote them? Who read them? Who narrates them? What are they likely to be about? Do they have distinctive characteristics? What is their relationship to the time and place in which they appeared? How have they changed over the years? And, most of all, why do we like to read them so much?

## Other Versions

## Other OCW Versions

OCW has published multiple versions of this subject.

- 21L.471 Major English Novels (Spring 2004)
- 21L.471 Major English Novels: Reading Romantic Fiction (Spring 2002)

Archived versions:

- 21L.471 Major English Novels (Spring 2007)

## Related Content

## Course Collections

See related courses in the following collections:

### Find Courses by Topic

- Literature > Fiction
- Literature > Criticism

Ina Lipkowitz. 21L.471 Major English Novels. Spring 2009. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.

For more information about using these materials and the Creative Commons license, see our Terms of Use.