Rise of the Novel: Exploring History’s Greatest Early Works

Overview

Course No. 2417
Professor Leo Damrosch traces the evolution of the novel from its origins to Victorian masterpieces:

• 24 lectures covering 300 years of literary development
• Analysis of foundational works from Cervantes to George Eliot
• Examination of different novelistic styles: picaresque, epistolary, satirical
• Cultural contexts that shaped narrative fiction

Discover how early novels established storytelling conventions that still influence writers today.

Video Lessons

Foundations of the Novel

1. Rediscovering the Novel (32 min)
   Defining characteristics of the novel form
2. Roman Predecessors (28 min)
   Satyricon and The Golden Ass

3-4. Don Quixote (62 min total)
Cervantes’ picaresque masterpiece

5. La Princesse de Clèves (30 min)
   France’s first psychological novel

18th Century Innovations

6. Robinson Crusoe (31 min)
   Defoe’s realistic adventure
7. Gulliver’s Travels (31 min)
   Swift’s satirical fantasy
8. Manon Lescaut (30 min)
   Passionate French tragedy

9-12. English Classics (125 min total)
Joseph Andrews, Clarissa, Tom Jones

13-16. Experimental Forms (119 min total)
Candide, Humphry Clinker, Tristram Shandy

Romantic Era Masterpieces

17. Julie (31 min)
    Rousseau’s romantic epistolary novel
18. Les Liaisons dangereuses (30 min)
    Laclos’ amoral French classic

19-20. Jane Austen (60 min total)
Pride and Prejudice & Emma

21. Werther (31 min)
    Goethe’s German romantic novel
22. Frankenstein (32 min)
    Shelley’s gothic horror

Victorian Heights

23. The Red and the Black (31 min)
    Stendhal’s French masterpiece
24. Middlemarch (32 min)
    Eliot’s pinnacle of English fiction