This class considers representative novels and short stories from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A chief concern will be what is meant by the notion of the “modern,” and how this historical question—presupposing a crisis of tradition—impacts the literary work’s form and content, its mode of narration, and its conception of character. What is the role of mimesis (realistic rendering of the human) in modern fiction, with its imperative of experiment? Authors to be studied include Chopin, James, Chekhov, Conrad, Lawrence, Joyce, Proust, Kafka, Mann, Forster, Woolf, and Faulkner. 21L.485 and 21L.285 when offered concurrently; students taking the 12-unit version (21L.485) complete additional assignments.
