The Eighteenth-century British Novel:

Globalization and Adaptation

Leith Davis

Dr. Leith Davis

AQ 6111

Email: leith@sfu.ca

http://www.sfu.ca/personal/leith

Office hours: Tuesday 9:30-10:30 and by appointment

We are constantly told that we live in a globalized world in which the clothes we wear, the websites we visit, the music we listen to, the jobs we perform are all inextricably linked to goods and services outside our national boundaries. But globalization has been around for a long time, albeit in different forms. In this course, we will examine the connection between fiction and globalization in the long eighteenth century, focusing on three early novels (Oroonoko, Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver’s Travels) and asking the following questions: How did the newly developing form of the English novel reflect England’s increasing engagement in encounter and commerce in the wider world? How did the novel reflect and/or create eighteenth-century writers’ and readers’ sense both of Britain and of the world beyond the national boundaries? How did the actions of individual characters in eighteenth-century novels contribute to the creation of a “national character” and confirm or challenge Britain’s global aspirations? And how are both globalization and the rise of the novel linked with the development of modernity?

The course will also be concerned with the theme of adaptation. The three novels that we will read have had very interesting afterlives, bringing stories of global encounter and circulation down to the twenty-first century. How have these novels been adapted to other genres? How have they fared in the arenas of high and/or popular culture? We will be considering 18^th- and 20^th-century stage adaptations of Oroonoko as well as fictional and filmic adaptations of Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver’s Travels.

Students will learn about the history of the novel from the perspectives of globalization and adaptation while becoming familiar with the tools of literary analysis (close reading, use of secondary sources, comparison and contrast, argumentation) as they utilize these tools in a variety of informal and formal writing assignments.

Required Texts:

Students must purchase the editions indicated below, as they contain additional critical material that will be used.

Aphra Behn, Oronooko. (Norton Critical Edition; ISBN: 0 393 97014 0)

Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (Norton Critical Edition; ISBN:0 393 96452 3)

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (Norton Critical Edition; ISBN: 0 393 95724 1)

Recommended Handbook on Writing:

Jane Aaron and Murray McArthur, THE LITTLE BROWN COMPACT HANDBOOK, Third Canadian Edition, Longman (ISBN 0-321-23583-5)

See also the following websites:

University College (Toronto) Writing Workshop:

http://www.utoronto.ca/ucwriting/handouts.html

Purdue University’s Online Writing Guide:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/index2.html

Notes:

1. Students MUST finish the novels in the time indicated in the course syllabus.
2. Students are responsible for knowing SFU’s standards of academic honesty. Plagiarism on an assignment will result in a grade of “0.” See the Department of English’s website: http://www.sfu.ca/english/honesty.html
3. Late essays will be penalized at the rate of 1/3 grade per day.
4. Students are expected to attend class. Please notify me if you are unable to attend due to illness or emergency.

Course Requirements:

Assignment #1: (3 pp.): 15%

Assignment #2: (5 pp.): 25%

Assignment #3: Research paper (8 pp.): 30%

Group seminar presentation and individual write-up (3 pp.): 20%

Participation (including in-class and take-home writing assignments): 5%

Attendance: 5%

Syllabus:

Week 1: Sept. 5

Introduction to course

Week 2: Sept. 12

Oronooko (Students should have read to the end of the novel)

Library workshop: resources for 18^th-century topics; plagiarism

Week 3: Sept. 19

Oronooko cont’d.

Week 4: Sept. 26

Adaptations of Oronooko:

Excerpts from Thomas Southerne’s Oroonoko (in Norton Critical Edition of Oroonoko, 125-144)

'Biyi Bandele’s Aphra Behn's Oroonoko: in a new adaptation (handout)

Assignment #1 due

Week 5: Oct. 3

Robinson Crusoe (Students should have read to at least p. 99)

Week 6: Oct. 10

Robinson Crusoe (Students should have read to the end of the novel)

Week 7: Oct. 17

Robinson Crusoe cont’d.

Week 8: Oct. 24

Adaptations of Robinson Crusoe:

• Woodes Rogers, “Account of Alexander Selkirk’s Solitary Life on Juan Fernandez Island” (in Norton Critical Edition of Robinson Crusoe, 230-35)
• Robinson Crusoe (1954)
• Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964)
• Classics Illustrated Robinson Crusoe
• Robinson Crusoe (1996)

Week 9: Oct. 31

No class. Work on essay.

Assignment #2 due by email Nov. 1 at 9:00 a.m.

Week 10: Nov. 7

Gulliver’s Travels (Students should have finished at least Parts 1 and 2)

Week 11: Nov. 14

Gulliver’s Travels (Students should have read to the end of the novel)

Week 12: Nov. 21

Gulliver’s Travels cont’d. and Laura Brown, “Reading Race and Gender in Gulliver’s Travels” (Norton Critical Edition, pp. 357-71)

Week 13: Nov. 28

Adaptations of Gulliver’s Travels:

• Gulliver’s Travels for children
• Gulliver’s Travels (1939)
• Gulliver’s Travels (1997)

Assignment #3 due

Seminar Presentations: Novel Adaptations

Objective: The purpose of this assignment is to explore the various ways in which the eighteenth-century novels that we read have been incorporated into our cultural fabric as myths of global encounter. What is it about the stories of Oroonoko, Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver’s Travels that has appealed to readers/audiences in the past and that continues to appeal to us today? How have particular aspects of the novels been erased, emphasized or changed in the course of adaptation?

Note: please come to see me sometime before your seminar presentation to discuss your ideas.

Assignment: Students will work in small groups. Each group is responsible for presenting material to the class. The group presentations should be approximately 30 minutes and should cover the following questions (bear in mind that some of these questions are more relevant to your adaptation than others):

• What is the genre of the adaptation that you are considering? What kinds of changes might adapting a novel to this genre normally require?
• To what kind of audience is this adaptation aimed? Is this a work aimed at popular or elite populations?
• Discuss and analyze any changes in plot that occur in this adaptation. What consequences for the theme(s) of the book do these changes have?
• Discuss and analyze any changes in characters and/or setting. What consequences for the theme(s) of the book do these changes have?
• What happens to the narrative voice of the novel in this adaptation? From whose point of view is the story told? How does this affect the relationship between the reader/audience/consumer and the narrator?
• Does the adaptation include any direct references to the fact that it is an adaptation? Does it refer to the original source at all? If so, how? What kind of relationship does the adaptation suggest between itself and the original -- is it a “transposition” (a direct rendition), a commentary (“a re-emphasis or re-structure”) or an “analogy” (a considerable departure from the original) (Giddings et. al., 11)
• How does your adaptation represent ideas of globalization and encounter?

In addition, each individual student is required to submit a 3-page paper exploring one aspect of the adaptation which you find particularly interesting. Discuss how this change reinforces or changes an important theme in the novel. This essay should be handed in one week after the seminar presentation.

Students will choose or be assigned one of the following:

• Thomas Southerne’s Oroonoko
• 'Biyi Bandele’s Aphra Behn's Oroonoko: in a new adaptation

• Classics Illustrated Robinson Crusoe
• Robinson Crusoe (1954)
• Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964)
• Robinson Crusoe (1996)
• Gulliver’s Travels for children
• Gulliver’s Travels (1939)
• Gulliver’s Travels (1999)

You may find the following books and articles useful for general discussions on adaptation (especially film). They are on reserve in the library:

Robert Giddings, Keith Selby and Chris Wensley, Screening the Novel: The Theory and Practice of Literary Dramatization

Robert Mayer, Eighteenth-Century Fiction on Film (contains chapters on Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver’s Travels)

Robert Stam, Literature Through Film: Realism, Magic and the Art of Adaptation (includes a chapter on Robinson Crusoe)

Robert Stam and Alessandra Raengo Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation