Literary realism and naturalism arise at the same moment, and in the same culture, that saw the rise of finance capital as a dominant mode of economic life in Europe, England and America. In this course, we'll try to correlate these two by looking at fictions that take the new, globalizing ambitions of finance capitalism seriously and, in so doing, attend to the emotional and imaginative consequences of such a massive new economic force and its ancillary institutions (the stock market, the corporation). Readings will include some poems and plays (e.g. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice and Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market) and a bit of history, economics, and criticism (e.g. Marx, Schumpeter; Marc Shell, Walter Michaels, Regenia Gagnier) but will mainly focus on novels of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Trollope's The Prime Minister, James's The Golden Bowl, Wharton's The House of Mirth, Dreiser's The Financier, Norris's The Pit; Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Pyncheon's The Crying of Lot 49. If time permits, we'll spend some time on contemporary fictions of the financial imaginary-Oliver Stone's Wall Street, for example. Requirements will be two papers, one short and one longer, and avid and earnest class participation. Prerequisites: a 100-level English course, except 150. Enrollment limit: 25 (expected: 20). Preference to English majors.
Post-1900

Hour: FREEDMAN