How do texts create illusions of reality, and what kinds of techniques are involved in making something feel real to the reader? What kinds of reality does realism show? We will explore answers to these questions through readings of a range of literary works from the nineteenth- and twentieth-century realist tradition, from Jane Austen’s Emma and Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, as well as through analysis of photography and early film. Our assumption will be that the literary texts and visual media we look at contain within them theories of realism and representation for us to uncover. The written assignments for this course will ask you todevelop some of the analytic skills used by literary scholars, namely: close textual analysis of a literary text; arguing an interpretation; and summarizing and evaluating works of literary criticism and theory. (Fiction, 1830-1940)