ENGL 419C - Edith Wharton and Her Milieu

Credits: (3)
Drawing from Wharton’s long career, which depicted mid-nineteenth century social life through the flapper era, this course reads Wharton’s work in relation to changing cultural contexts, including: transatlanticism, cultures of consumption, models of marriage, divorce, women’s rights, servant life, materialisms, the gothic, cultural memory, old age, passionate manhood, cross-generational relations, and aesthetic representations. Readings include gothic tales, well-known novels such as The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence, novellas, literary and cultural criticism.