Fiction Literature Courses
Study online & in London

On this course we will study the development of Japanese literature in the first half of the 20th century through four great novels: Natsume Soseki’s Kokoro, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s Kappa, Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s The Makioka Sisters and Yasunari Kawabata’s Snow Country.

This course will introduce and discuss a selection of short stories by Katherine Mansfield. Noting, ‘the mind I love most must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind’, Mansfield’s approach to art is to embrace hidden depths, to seek untamed and unhindered aspects lurking in the shadows, writing with a wild surmise in an attempt to find new literary vistas. Similarly, describing herself as ‘an alien’, we will consider her self-asserted feeling of strangeness as an outsider, and how this might manifest itself in her fictional work.

This short in-person literature course will explore George Eliot’s novel, ‘Middlemarch’ (1871-2). Considered by many to be the greatest nineteenth century novel, we explore its narrative methods and characterisation, its rich engagement with the ideas and concerns of its age, and above all, its deep humanity that still resonates with us today.