Topics in Victorian Literature I

This course will offer an introduction to the history and literature of nineteenth-century gastronomy, the art of fine dining.  Treating the long nineteenth century as a grand literary banquet, we will whet our appetites on gastronomic treatises by writers such as Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de la Reynière, William Kitchiner, Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, and Thomas Walker, and nibble our way through tasty essays, fiction, and poems penned by both epicurean and abstemious writers such as Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Lewis Carroll, Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Seacole, George Eliot, and Sarah Grand.  Along the way, we will snack on Victorian cookbooks and stir up issues such as vegetarianism, famine, the emergence of the restaurant, women cooks, tippling, temperance, and the importance of tea.