To familiarize students with the emergence of the novel as a new literary genre in English literature, the major novel types, and the defining characteristics of the eighteenth-century English novel, through an examination of selected works by Daniel Defoe.

The course begins by examining the emergence of the English novel as a new literary genre in the eighteenth century, highlighting the ways in which it differs from earlier literary forms. It then introduces the cultural, economic, and social factors that contributed to the development of the novel. The major subgenres of the novel are examined through selected texts, with particular emphasis on their relationship to the theoretical, philosophical, and social characteristics of the periods to which they belong.