Our seminar will explore in detail the intertextual relations among a series of major nineteenth-century novels we should all have read and re-read, but perhaps haven't turned to recently. Through examining a series of British novels from a non-domestic perspective, we shall locate the power and limitations of imperial England. In a series of paired comparisons with non-British novels, we will explore the scope of the fictional world beyond England's borders.

Works we shall read will include Jane Austen's EMMA (and perhaps PRIDE AND PREJUDICE) with Stendhal's THE RED AND THE BLACK (Theme: love, ambition, irony); Thackeray's VANITY FAIR with Tolstoy's WAR AND PEACH (Theme: war, peace, and Napoleon); Emily Bronte's WUTHERING HEIGHTS and Thomas Mann's BUDDENBROOKS (Theme: family sagas and evolution).

All non-English novels will be read in translation.