LIT 118 — Dickens's Masterpiece: David Copperfield
Quarter: Summer
Instructor(s): Rebecca Richardson
Date(s): Jul 7—Aug 25
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Mondays
Class Meeting Time: 7:00—8:50 pm (PT)
Tuition: $465
Refund Deadline: Jul 9
Unit(s): 1
Enrollment Limit: 90
Status: Open
Quarter: Summer
Day: Mondays
Duration: 8 weeks
Time: 7:00—8:50 pm (PT)
Date(s): Jul 7—Aug 25
Unit(s): 1
Tuition: $465
Refund Deadline: Jul 9
Instructor(s): Rebecca Richardson
Enrollment Limit: 90
Recording Available: Yes
Status: Open
Dickens called David Copperfield his “favorite child,” and critics have long agreed, hailing it as his masterpiece. The most autobiographical of his novels, it is a coming-of-age story about ambition, family, and second chances. Like Dickens himself, David shows promise as a young child but is forced out of school to work in a factory. In one of literature’s most famous pilgrimages, he sets out—penniless and alone—to find his formidable aunt, a woman he knows only through his mother’s memory, launching a larger quest to become, like Dickens, a great author. Along the way, David meets some of Dickens’s most memorable characters: Betsey Trotwood, Uriah Heep, and Wilkins Micawber.
We will read Dickens's novel together while situating it in its biographical, historical, and cultural context and will consider how Dickens made the genre of the bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel, his own. Turning to Dickens's role as a social critic, we will examine how his depictions of Victorian work, education, family, empire, and gender roles (especially the “fallen woman”) speak to our contemporary debates. Finally, we will explore how contemporary adaptations—from the 2019 film starring Dev Patel to Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Demon Copperhead—have given David Copperfield new life.
We will read Dickens's novel together while situating it in its biographical, historical, and cultural context and will consider how Dickens made the genre of the bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel, his own. Turning to Dickens's role as a social critic, we will examine how his depictions of Victorian work, education, family, empire, and gender roles (especially the “fallen woman”) speak to our contemporary debates. Finally, we will explore how contemporary adaptations—from the 2019 film starring Dev Patel to Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Demon Copperhead—have given David Copperfield new life.
REBECCA RICHARDSON
Advanced Lecturer, Program in Writing and Rhetoric, Stanford
Rebecca Richardson received a PhD in Victorian literature from Stanford. She has published articles on a range of 19th-century authors—from Jane Austen to Charles Dickens—and her most recent work is a book titled Material Ambitions: Self-Help and Victorian Literature. Textbooks for this course:
(Recommended) Charles Dickens, erome H. Buckley(ed), David Copperfield (ISBN 978-0393958287 )