Department of English

The seminar will study fictional heroes as they evolve through the 19th century.  What kind of culture needs heroes? How does our need for heroes change?  We shall begin with Hamlet, the Victorian's favorite tragedy, moving from Carlyle's On Heroes and Hero Worship through (among others) Thackeray's Vanity Fair, Dickens's Great Expectations, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, and Kipling's Jungle Books.  We may end the course with a twenty-first century heroic movie.