Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) Introduction to Forms of Literature in English Novel Syllabus - Mumbai University 2026

Module 1: Elements of Novel and Genre Specifications

• Section A: Elements of Novel:
• 1 Novel (Definition), Plot, Setting,
• 2 Characters (Round and Flat V/S A. J. Greimas’ Actantial Model)
• 3 First Person and Third Person Narration VS Distance and Point of View in fiction (Editorial Omniscience, 'I' as a witness, 'I' as the protagonist by Norman Friedman), (Distance and Point of View by Wyne Booth)
• Section B: Types of Novels:
• 1 Epistolary Novel,
• 2 Picaresque Novel,
• 3 Gothic Fiction,
• 4 Allegorical Novel,
• 5 Stream of Consciousness

Module 2: Beginning of the Novel

• Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Or The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Stern

Module 3: Victorian Novel

• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• Or David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Module 4: Modern Novel

• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Or To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Text Books

• 1 Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. Edited by Robert DeMaria Jr., Penguin Classics, 2003.
• 2 Sterne, Laurence. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Edited by Ian Campbell Ross, Oxford University Press, 2009.
• 3 Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Edited by Margaret Smith, Oxford University Press, 2008.
• 4 Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield. Edited by Nina Burgis, Oxford University Press, 2008.
• 5 Orwell, George. Animal Farm. New American Library, 1996.
• 6 Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. Edited by Mark Hussey, Oxford University Press, 2006.

Reference Books

• 1 Bakhtin, M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (M. Holquist & C. Emerson, Trans.). University of Texas Press.
• 2 Bloom, Harold (Ed.). (2009) Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: Animal Farm. Chelsea House.
• 3 Booth, Wyne. (1967)."Distance and Point of View in Fiction". In: Stevick, Philip.(ed.). The theory of the Novel. New York: Free Press.
• 4 Eagleton, T. (2005). The English Novel: An Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell.
• 5 Forster, E. M. ( 1927). Aspects of the Novel. Harcourt.
• 6 Friedman, Norman. "Point of view in fiction-the development of a critical concept". In: Stevick, Philip. (ed.). The theory of the Novel. New York: Free Press, 1967.
• 7 Greimas, Algirdas Julien. “Actants, Actors, and Figures.” On Meaning: Selected Writings in Semiotic Theory. Translated by Paul J. Perron and Frank H. Collins, University of Minnesota Press, 1987, pp. 106–120. Theory and History of Literature, vol. 38.
• 8 Lukács, G. (1962). The Historical Novel. Merlin Press.
• 9 Lubbock, Percy. (1921). The Craft of Fiction. Jonathan Cape.
• 10 Mullan, John. (2006) How Novels Work. Oxford University Press.
• 11 Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. Pantheon Books.
• 12 Watt, I. (1957). The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding. University of California Press.
• 13 Woolf, Virginia. (1925). Modern Fiction. In The Common Reader, Hogarth Press