ENGL 3826 Sad Girl Lit from Austen to Rooney

With the proliferation of messy, self-absorbed heroines on BookTok feeds, it may come as a surprise that the 21st century did not invent the unfulfilled and aimless heroine. This class will look at the origins of contemporary " Sad Girl Lit" in the nineteenth century as a way to explore formal elements like plot, character, and interiority as well as cultural history, gender roles, and privilege before making connections to contemporary examples. Authors may include Jane Austen, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Virginia Woolf, Otessa Mosfegh, Sally Rooney, and others. Fulfills pre-1900.