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ENGL 4710: Popular Genres: The Romance
Spring 2010

Dr. Paula R. Backscheider
9082 Haley Center
pkrb@auburn.edu
(334) 844-9091
Office Hours: Thursday, 2:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Required Texts:

  • All for Love by John Dryden (Players Press, Inc., 2003)
    ISBN: 978-0-88734-274-5
  • The Awakening by Kate Chopin (Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 2007).
    ISBN: 978-0-312-44647-5
  • Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Norton, 2000).
    ISBN: 978-0-393-97604-5
  • A Natural History of the Romance by Pamela Regis (University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc., 2007).
    ISBN: 978-0-8122-1522-9
  • The MacGregors, Daniel and Ian by Nora Roberts (Harlequin, 1999).
    ISBN: 978-0-373-48390-7
  • The Wedding Heiress by Pamela Ford (Harlequin, 2008).
    ISBN: 978-0-373-78266-6
  • Love Story by Erich Segal (Harper Collins, 2005).
    ISBN: 978-0-06-074809-8
  • House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (Norton, 1990).
    ISBN: 978-0-393-95901-7

Syllabus:

January 11: Introduction.

18: Martin Luther King Day

25: John Dryden, All for Love and Madame D’Aulnoy, The Isle of Happiness*

February 1: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

8: Austen continued; Pamela Regis, A Natural History of Romance, 75-84.

15: Nora Roberts, For Now, Forever and Pamela Ford, The Wedding Heiress

22: Continued discussion.

March 1: Test I. Robyn Donald, “Mean, Moody, and Magnificent: The Hero in Romance Literature”* in Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women, 81-84; Catherine Carter, “Poverty, Payment, Power: Kathleen Thompson Norris and Popular Romance,"* Studies in American Fiction 36 (2008):197-220; Catherine Belsey, “Reading Love Stories”* from Desire: Love Stories in Western Culture, 21-41.

8: Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid* and Kate Chopin, The Awakening

Papers due March 10 OR March 22.

SPRING BREAK

22: Test 2. Pamela Regis, A Natural History of the Romance Novel, pp. xi-16, 19-61, 107-23.

29: Tania Modleski, “Mass-Produced Fantasies for Women”* from Loving with a Vengeance, 1-25, and “My Life as a Romance Reader,”* Paradoxa 3 (1997): 15-28;
Lynn Coddington, “Wavering between Worlds: Feminist Influences in the Romance Genre,”* Paradoxa 3 (1997): 58-77; Catherine Proctor, “The Romance Genre Blues or Why We Don’t Get No Respect”* in Empowerment versus Oppression, 12-19.

April 5: Erich Segal, Love Story

12: Jane Barker, Love Intrigues* in Popular Fiction by Women, 1660-1730: An Anthology edited by Backscheider and Richetti; and Edith Wharton, House of Mirth

19: Wharton continued.

26: Group reports.

May 3: Group reports. Paper Due.

Final Exam: May, 7th 4-6:30p.m.

* On Blackboard

** On reserve at the library