Courses:

Course Info

• Course Number / Code:
• 21L.472 (Fall 2008) 
• Course Title:
• Major European Novels 
• Course Level:
• Undergraduate 
• Offered by :
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  Massachusetts, United States  
• Department:
• Literature 
• Course Instructor(s):
• Prof. Alvin Kibel 
• Course Introduction:
•  
• 
  
  21L.472 Major European Novels
  
  
  
  

  Fall 2008

  
  
  

  
  
  

  Course Highlights

  
  
  

  
  
  21L.472 Major European Novels
  
  
  
  

  Fall 2008

  
  
  

  

  Paul Cezanne, Seated Peasant, 1895-1900, oil on canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art. (Image courtesy of WebMuseum.)

  
  
  

  Course Description

  
  
  

  This subject traces the history of the European novel by studying texts that have been influential in connection with two interrelated ideas. (1) When serious fiction deals with matters of great consequence, it should not deal with the actions of persons of consequence—kings, princes, high elected officials and the like—but rather with the lives of apparently ordinary people and the everyday details of their social ambitions and desires. To use a phrase of Balzac's, serious fiction deals with "what happens everywhere". (2) This idea sometimes goes with another: that the most significant representations of the human condition are those dealing with persons who try to compel society to accept them as its destined agent, despite their absence of high birth or inheritance.