UNIT 1: Emergence of novel as a dominant literary genre in the eighteenth century
Joseph Andrews as a picaresque novel
Character delineation
UNIT 2: Henry Fielding
Joseph Andrews: its detailed reading and critical discussion
UNIT 3: Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice: its detailed reading and critical discussion
Themes of money and marriage
UNIT 4: Austen’s confined world
A feminist perspective
Character delineation
UNIT 5: Charles Dickens as a novelist
Hard Times :its reading and critical discussion
UNIT 6: Realism
Sordid socio-economic backdrop to the industrial revolution
Critique of social norms
Mockery of scientific progress
UNIT 7: George Eliot as a novelist
Reading and discussion of Adam Bede
George Eliot as a modern novelist
Art of Eliot’s characterization
Themes
Psychological insights into characters
UNIT 8: Thomas Hardy
The Return of the Native: its reading and detailed discussion
Pessimism in the novel
Characterization
Salient features of Hardy’s novels in general
The rise of the novel studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding. by 
The English novel a short critical history by 
