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

Module 1: Elements of Novel and Genre Specifications

• Section A: Elements of Novel:
• Novel (Definition), Plot, Setting
• Characters (Round and Flat V/S A. J. Greimas’ Actantial Model)
• 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:
• Epistolary Novel
• Picaresque Novel
• Gothic Fiction
• Allegorical Novel
• 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, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist, University of Texas Press, 1981.
• 2 Bloom, Harold, editor. Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: Animal Farm. Chelsea House, 2009.
• 3 Booth, Wayne C. “Distance and Point of View in Fiction.” The Theory of the Novel, edited by Philip Stevick, Free Press, 1967.
• 4 Eagleton, Terry. The English Novel: An Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell, 2005.
• 5 Forster, E. M. Aspects of the Novel. Harcourt, 1927.
• 6 Friedman, Norman. “Point of View in Fiction: The Development of a Critical Concept.” The Theory of the Novel, edited by Philip Stevick, 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. 106–20. Theory and History of Literature, vol. 38.
• 8 Lubbock, Percy. The Craft of Fiction. Jonathan Cape, 1921.
• 9 Lukács, Georg. The Historical Novel. Merlin Press, 1962.
• 10 Mullan, John. How Novels Work. Oxford UP, 2006.
• 11 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Pantheon Books, 1978.
• 12 Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding. University of California Press, 1957.
• 13 Woolf, Virginia. “Modern Fiction.” The Common Reader, Hogarth Press, 1925.