Guía docente de Orígenes y Evolución de la Novela Inglesa desde el Siglo XVI al XVIII: Política, Traducción, y Discurso Periodístico (M19/56/2/7)

• This class will explore, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the relation between the origins of the English novel, translation, political discourse, and the emergence of journalism in the publishing world.
• We shall study the ways in which the early English translations of Spanish picaresque contributed to create a sort of realistic fiction which frequently overlapped with the sort of prose employed for the creation and dissemination of news (frequently of a sensationalist sort) as a new sort of marketable good for  mass consumption.
• We shall see how certain types of characters in the Spanish picaresque were transferred onto a certain type of English novel, whose language overlapped with the same sort of discourse employed by early financial and mercantile capitalism, alongside the sort of political imaginary that legitimized it.
• We shall see how this process led to the work of authors like Tobias Smollet (e.g. his novel Roderick Random, or his translation of Don Quijote), and Daniel Defoe (whose Moll Flanders generated an English variety of female pícara based in historical characters like Mary Frith, whose activities turned her into an early version of celebrity, and the protagonist of plays like The Roaring Girl).

• C1 level of English
• Previous knowledge of literary conventions 

• To understand the concepts of 'romance' and 'novel' in England from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century according to contemporary sources and definitions, and to reflect on critical approaches and definitions of these concepts in 20th and 21st-century scholarship
• To understand the social, economic, political, and literary phenomena that underlie and converge in the writing of prose fiction in England from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century, and the ways in which the genre of the novel responds to phenomena as varied as urban development, the growth in literacy, the expansion of the publishing industry, and the production and consumption of news as marketable commodities
• To understand how processes of translation from other languages into English fundamentally shaped English prose fiction and the development of the novel as a pan-European literary genre
• To understand the role of satire, the picaresque, criminal fiction, u/dys-topianism, and travel writing in the consolidation of the novel as a genre
• To understand the role of letter and news writing in the establishment of the novel as a genre
• To understand and question claims of truth in, particularly, first person narrations
• To understand different uses and types of first person narration in connection with the establishment of the novel as a genre

This course provides an interdisciplinary approach to the origins and evolution of the English novel from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries with a focus on its transnational and transgeneric nature. Modern prose fiction in English will be contextualised within the contemporary political and economic discourse, and discussed in relation to the dynamics of translation, the workings of the book market, and the emergence of early journalism and other genres, including (auto)biography, travelogues, drama, and the essay.

The origins and development of the English novel will be thus presented as an eminently interlinguistic and international phenomenon, one in which a variety of genres, from several emerging vernacular traditions, intertwine. Translations and adaptation into English of Iberian sentimental romances and romances of chivalry and picaresque works, often mediated by previous Italian and French translations and versions, underline the relevance of networks of translations and printers. The rise of the picaresque in England in turn will be approached in connection with the editorial success of rogue and criminal literature, often inseparable from (auto)biography writing, understood as a way to fictionalise the early modern self. It will be thus seen how the resulting new type of narrative prose aspired to portray in a verisimilar fashion complex social realities by means of a rhetoric that often overlapped with that of history and news writing. 

Course structure:  

• Unit 1: Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Romances and the Modern Novel  
• Unit 2: The Spanish Picaresque in England  
• Unit 3: The English Picaresque: Thomas Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller (1594)  
• Unit 4: Rogue Literature and Criminal Fiction 
• Unit 5: U/dys-topianism, Travel Writing, and the Rise of the Novel 
• Unit 6: News and Letter Writing and the Eighteenth-Century Novel 

Syllabus and set readings:

• Unit 1 - 16th and 17th-Century Romances and the Modern Novel (2 sessions) 

1. Session Title: "Romances of chivalry in Europe: translation and the origins of the novel". Reading assignments: selection of extracts from: Anthony Munday’s Amadis of Gaul (1590), and Thomas Shelton’s The History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-Errant, Don-Quixote of the Mancha (1612). 
2. Session Title: "Seventeenth-century definitions of romances and novels". Reading assignments: selection of extracts from Madeleine de Scudéry’s Ibrahim, or, The illustrious bassa (1652), Pierre-Daniel Huet’s A treatise of romances and their original (1672), and William Congreve - Incognita: or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd (1692).

• Unit 2 - The Spanish Picaresque in England (2 sessions - Visiting Prof. Alexander Samson)

1. Session Title: "The Spanish picaresque in England: translation and the origins of the novel (I)" 
2. Session Title: "The Spanish picaresque in England: translation and the origins of the novel (II)"  
3. Reading assignments: selection of extracts from: David Rowland of Anglesey (trans.), The Pleasant History of Lazarello de Tormes, a Spanyard (1576); James Mabbe (trans.), The Spanish Rogue or the Life of Guzman de Alfarache (1622) and The Spanish Bawd (1631); John Davies of Kidwelly (trans.), The Life and Adventures of Buscón the Witty Spaniard (1657).

• Unit 3 - The English Picaresque: Thomas Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller (1594) (2 sessions - Visiting Prof. Andrew Hadfield, University of Sussex)

1. Session Title: "Thomas Nashe and The English Picaresque"
2. Session Title: "The English Picaresque and the Early English Novel"  
3. Reading assignments: selection of extracts from: Thomas Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller (1594)

• Unit 4 - Rogue Literature and Criminal Fiction  (3 sessions)

1. Session Title: "Rogue Literature and the Picaresque: Richard Head's The English Rogue (1665)". Reading assignments: selection of extracts from: Richard Head, The English Rogue Described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, a Witty Extravagant. Being a Compleat History of the Most Eminent Cheats of Both Sexes (1665)
2. Session Title: "Rogue Literature and Criminal Fiction: Mary Carleton’s autobiography". Reading assignments: selection of extracts from: The Case of Madam Mary Carleton, Lately Stiled the German Princess, Truely Stated with an Historical Relation of her Birth, Education, and Fortunes (1663) 
3. Session Title: "Rogue Literature and Criminal Fiction: Francis Kirkman's autobiography and biography of Mary Carleton". Reading assignments: selection of extracts from: Francis Kirkman, The Unlucky Citizen Experimentally Described in the Various Misfortunes of an Unlucky Londoner (1673), and Francis Kirkman, The Counterfeit Lady Unveiled. Being a Full Account of the Birth, Life, Most Remarkable Actions, and Untimely Death of Mary Carleton, Known by the Name of the German Princess (1673).

• Unit 5 - U/dys-topianism, Travel Writing, and the Rise of the Novel (2 sessions)

1. Session Title: "U/dys-topianism, Travel Writing (I): Margaret Cavendish's The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World (1666)". Reading assignments: selection of extracts from: Margaret Cavendish, Observations upon Experimental Philosophy to which is Added The Description of a New Blazing World (1666)
2. Session Title: "U/dys-topianism, Travel Writing (II): Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726)". Reading assignments: selection of extracts from: Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719), and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

• Unit 6 -   News and Letter Writing and the Eighteenth-Century Novel (2 sessions)

1. Session Title: "Periodicals and the modern novel (I): Daniel Defoe". Reading assignments: selection of extracts from: Ben Jonson, The Staple of News (1626), Henry Fielding’s “On the Untruthfulness of News Writers” (1736), and Daniel Defoe’s The Storm (1704) and Robinson Crusoe (1719).  
2. Session Title: "Periodicals and the modern novel (I): Eliza Haywood". Reading assignments (primary sources): Selection of articles from The Spectator and The Female Spectator, and Anti-Pamela; or Feign'd Innocence Detected (1741).

Primary sources

• [Pierre-Daniel Huet, Anonymous translation]. A Treatise of Romances and their Original by Monsieur Huet. London: R. Battersby, 1672.
• Carleton, Mary. The Case of Madam Mary Carleton, Lately Stiled the German Princess, Truely Stated with an Historical Relation of her Birth, Education, and Fortunes. London: printed for Sam: Speed, 1663.
• Cavendish, Margaret. Observations upon Experimental Philosophy to which is Added The Description of a New Blazing World. London: A. Maxwell, 1666.
• Cogan, Henry, trans. Ibrahim, or, The Illustrious Bassa an Excellent New Romance. London: Humphrey Moseley, William Bentley, and Thomas Heath, 1652.  
• Congreve, William. Incognita: or, Love and Duty Reconcil'd is Discussed. London: Peter Buck, 1692.
• Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe: An Authoritarive Text, Context, Criticism, edited by Michael Shinagel. New York; London Norton, 1994.
• Defoe, Daniel. The Storm: Or, a Collection of the most Remarkable Casualties and Disasters which Happen’d in the Late Dreadful Tempest, both by Sea and Land. London: G. Sawbridge, and sold by J. Nutt, 1704.
• Fielding, Henry. New Essays by Henry Fielding: His Contributions to the Craftsman (1734-1739) and Other Early Journalism, ed. Martin C.Battestin. Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia, 1989. 
• Haywood, Eliza. Anti-Pamela, or, Feign'd Innocence Detected. Edited by Catherine Ingrassia. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2004. 
• Head, Richard. The English Rogue Described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, a Witty Extravagant. Being a Compleat History of the Most Eminent Cheats of Both Sexes. London: Henry Marsh, 1665.
• Jonson, Ben. The Staple of News, ed. Anthony Parr. Manchester, UK; New York: Manchester University Press, 1988.
• Kidwelly, John Davies. The Life and Adventures of Buscón the Witty Spaniard. London: J.M., 1657.
• Kirkman, Francis. The Counterfeit Lady Unveiled. Being a Full Account of the Birth, Life, Most Remarkable Actions, and Untimely Death of Mary Carleton, Known by the Name of the German Princess. London: Peter Parker, 1673.
• Kirkman, Francis. The Unlucky Citizen Experimentally Described in the Various Misfortunes of an Unlucky Londoner. London: Anne Johnson, 1673.
• Mabbe, James, trans. The rogue, or, The life of Guzman de Alfarache vvritten in Spanish. London: R.B., 1634.
• Mabbe, James. The rogue; or, The life of Guzman de Alfarache, ed. James Fitzmaurice-Kelly. London: Constable and Co. Ltd., New York, A.A. Knopf, 1924. 
• Mabbe, James. The Spanish Bawd, ed. José María Pérez Fernández. London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2013.
• Munday, Anthony. Amadis de Gaule, ed. by Helen Moore. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004.
• Nashe, Thomas. The vnfortunate traueller. Or, The life of Iacke Wilton. London: T. Scarlet, 1594.
• Rowland, D. trans. The pleasaunt historie of Lazarillo de Tormes, ed. J. E. V. Crofts. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1924.
• Shelton, Thomas, trans. The history of the valorous and vvittie knight-errant, Don-Quixote of the Mancha Translated out of the Spanish. London: William Stansby, 1612.
• Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels: Based on the 1726 Text: Contexts, Criticism, edited by Albert J. Rivero. New York : W. W. Norton and Company, 2002.

Secondary sources

• Álvarez-Recio, Leticia. “Translations of Spanish Chivalry Works in the Jacobean Book Trade: Shelton’s Don Quixote in the Light of Anthony Munday's Publications”. 33.5 (2019), 691-711.
• Álvarez-Recio, Leticia. Iberian Chivalric Romance. Translations and Cultural Transmission in Early Modern England. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020.
• Bald, R. C. “Francis Kirkman, Bookseller and Author”. Modern Philology 41.1 (1943), 17-32.
• Beier, A.L. “On the Boundaries of New and Old Historicisms: Thomas Harman and the Literature of Roguery’, English Literary Renaissance, 33 (2003), 181–200.
• Cruz, Anne J. “Sonnes of the Rogue: Picaresque relations in England and Spain”. In Giancarlo Mariorino, ed. The Picaresque: Tradition and Displacement. Minneapolis, MN: U. of Minnesota Press, 1996, pp. 248-72.
• Davis, Lennard J. Factual Fictions: Origins of the English Novel. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
• Doody, Margaret. The True Story of the Novel. Rutgers UP, 1997.
• Forbes Gerhard, Sandra. Don Quixote and the Shelton Translation. Madrid: Ediciones José Purría Turantas, 1982.
• Fuchs, Barbara . Romance, The New Critical Idiom. London: Routlege, 2004.
• Fuchs, Barbara. Knowing Fictions: Picaresque Reading in the Early Modern Hispanic World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021.
• Fuchs, Barbara. The Poetics of Piracy. Emulating Spain in English Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.
• George, J. “Thomas Shelton, Translator, in 1612–1614”, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 35 (1958), 157–164.
• Greene, Jody. “Francis Kirkman’s Counterfeit Authority: Autobiography, Subjectivity, Print”. Publications of the Modern Language Association, 121.1 (2006), 17-32.
• Hamilton, Donna B. Anthony Munday and the Catholics, 1560-1633. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005.
• Hunter, J. Paul. Before Novels: Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth Century English Fiction. New York; London W.W. Norton, 1990.
• Kesson, Andy. John Lyly and Early Modern Authorship. Manchester: MUP, 2014.
• Kuhlisch, Tina. “The Ambivalent Rogue: Moll Flanders as Modern Pícara”, in Craig Dionne and Steve Mentz, eds. Rogues and Early Modern English Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004, pp. 337-360.
• Mayer, Robert. History and the Early English Novel: Matters of Fact from Bacon to Defoe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
• McKeon, Michael, ed. Theory of the Novel. A Historical Approach. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
• McKeon, Michael. The Origins of the English Novel. 1600 – 1740 (Baltimore & London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002).
• McKeon, Michael. The Secret History of Domesticity. Public, Private, and the Division of Knowledge. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.
• Mentz, Steve. Romance for Sale in Early Modern England: The Rise of Prose Fiction. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.
• Moore, Helen. “Admirable Inventions: Francis Kirkman and the Translation of Romance in the 1650s”. Seventeenth-Century Fiction: Text and Transmission, ed. Jacqueline Glomski and Isabelle Moreau. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 143-158.
• Newcomb, Lori Humphrew. Reading Popular Romance in Early Modern England. New York: Columbia UP, 2002.
• Pérez Fernández, José María, ed. The Spanish Bawd [1631]. James Mabbe’s translation of Fernando de Rojas’ La Celestina. London: MHRA, 2013.
• Pérez Fernández, José María. “Picaresque”. In Oxford Bibliographies in British and Irish Literature. Ed. Andrew Hadfield. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
• Pérez Fernández, José María. “Spanish Bawds and Quixotic Libraries. Adventures and Misadventures in Early English Hispanism and World Literature”. Comparative Literature, December 2016 (68:4), pp. 370-388.
• Pérez Fernández, José María. “The Domestication of Melibea: Recasting Spanish Characters for Early English Drama”. In Beyond Spain’s Borders: Women Players in Early Modern National Theaters. Ed. Anne J. Cruz and María Cristina Quintero. New York: Routledge, 2017, pp. 11-32.
• Pérez Fernández, José María. “Translation, sermo communis and the book trade”, in Translation and the Book Trade, ed. José María Pérez Fernández & Edward Wilson-Lee, New York & Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 40-60.
• Raymond, Joad and Noah Moxham, eds. News Networks in Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2016)
• Raymond, Joad. (ed.) The Oxford History of Popular Print Culture, vol. 1: Cheap Print in Britain and Ireland to 1660 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
• Raymond, Joad. “News Writing”, in Andrew Hadfield (ed.), The Oxford Handbook to English Prose, c.1500-1640 (Oxford University Press, 2013), 396-414.
• Raymond, Joad. The Invention of the Newspaper: English Newsbooks, 1641-1649 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996; paperback edition with new preface 2005).
• Relihan, Constance, ed. Framing Elizabethan Fictions: Contemporary Approaches to Early Modern Prose Narrative. Kent, OH: Kent State UP, 1996.
• Salzman, Paul. “Placing Tudor Fiction”, Yearbook of English Studies 38 (2008), 136 – 149.
• Salzman, Paul. English Prose Fiction, 1558 – 1700: A Critical History. OUP, 1986.
• Samson, Alexander. “Lazarillo de Tormes and the Picaresque in Early Modern England”. In The Oxford Handbook to English Prose 1500-1640, ed. by Andrew Hadfield. Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 121-136.
• Samson, Alexander. “Maybe Exemplary? James Mabbe’s Translation of the Exemplary Novells”. Republics of Letters, vol. 4:2, March 2015 < http://arcade.stanford.edu/rofl/maybe-exemplary-james-mabbes-translation-exemplarie-novells-1640>, accessed on 05/06/16
• Spadaccini, Nicholas. “Daniel Defoe and the Spanish Picaresque Tradition: The Case of Moll Flanders”. Ideologies and Literature: A Journal of Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Studies (Twin Cities, MN), (2:6), 1978, 10-26.
• Ungerer, Gustav, “Mary Frith, alias Moll Cutpurse, in Life and Literature”, Shakespeare Studies, 28 (2000), 42–84.
• Ungerer, Gustav. “English Criminal Biography and Guzmán de Alfarache’s Fall from Rogue to Highwayman, Pander and Astrologer”. Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 76 (1999), 189-197.
• Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Richardson, Fielding, Defoe. Chatto & Windus, 1957.

• Oxford English Dictionary: https://oed.com/
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: https://www.oxforddnb.com/ 
• Early English Books Online (EEBO): https://www.proquest.com/eebo/index 
• The British Newspaper Archive: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/  

• MD01 Lección magistral/expositiva 
• MD02 Sesiones de presentaciones, discusión y debate 
• MD03 Trabajo autónomo. 
• MD05 Realización de trabajos individuales 

Grading policy: 

• Attendance and participation (20%)
• In-class presentation (20%)
• One 6,000-7,000 word-essay (60%).

Grading policy: 

• Attendance and participation (20%)
• In-class presentation (20%)
• One 6,000-7,000 word-essay (60%)

Grading policy: 

One 10,000-word essay