Kursinformation

The social novel, also called the 'Condition-of-England' novel, was a literary form that emerged as a response to the social changes brought about by industrialisation and urbanisation as well as the rapid expansion of the British population. Having had its heyday in the mid-nineteenth century, the genre advocated for social responsibility on an individual as well as a national level and attempted to encourage the reading public to critically engage with social iniquities and injustices. The novels of the 1840s and 1850s, i.e. the early Victorian Age, are particularly interesting in this regard: they tend to be rather polemical in tone and usually engage in discourse about the state of the nation. In this sense, they function as instruments of social analysis.

Among the writers who were deeply motivated to arouse sympathy for the conditions of the emerging working class were Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell, whose novels explore the effects of classism and social inequality on individuals and communities. In this seminar, we will explore the genre of the social novel through the lens of two crucial Victorian texts: Dickens’ Oliver Twist and Gaskell’s North and South. Both novels address pressing issues of their contemporary society, ranging from poverty, child labour, and the inhuman conditions of the workhouse to the developments that shaped the industrial north of England and the relationship between social classes. Throughout the semester, we will look at the various ways in which Dickens and Gaskell represent social problems and class differences, and how the form and narrative techniques of the social novel allow both authors to question the hierarchies and attitudes that shaped life in Victorian England.