ENGL306

Writing-Intensive

(Happiness, Human Life, and the 19th Century Novel.) What constitutes human happiness? Biologists may offer their answers by asking why zebras don't get ulcers; psychologists by studying the psychological responses of lottery winners. But long before such scientific inquiries, nineteenth-century novelists sought to solve the problem of human happiness in their own way, pursuing a very old philosophical topic through nuanced narratives and gripping descriptions of fictional human lives: Emma's as she tries to engineer the happiness of her good friend, Pip's as he ventures into the high life of London, Dorothea's as she apes the life of an old-time saint, and Anna's as she tries to live out the romances she has absorbed from novels. In this course, we'll read some of the best novels of the nineteenth century, justly famous because they shed so much light on the good life. We'll ask how these novelists defined a life of full flourishing (eudaemonia), what brings human beings closer to or farther away from happiness, how these questions get embedded within nineteenth-century cultural concerns, and what the novel as a genre of imaginative literature can uniquely contribute to our understanding of the good life. Novelists will include Austen, Dickens, Eliot, and Tolstoy (who both influenced and was influenced by his British peers). Novels may also be paired with contemporary or classic nonfictional readings on the nature of human happiness. Prerequisite: Any 200-level English course or permission of instructor.