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Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847) (Victorian Classics) with Eleanor Bourg Nicholson
- Summary
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Sign up for this course and meet Jane Eyre who perseveres through adversity and oppression. Through it all, Jane is true to her Christian morals.
Instructor Access (Optional grading support) is available for this course. Please note: this is ONLY recommended if you wish to write the optional paper. All quizzes are internally graded in this course. Optional papers will be completed via this page (click here) for an Instructor Access fee of $75.

Instructor: Eleanor Bourg Nicholson
Course Description: When a “poor, obscure, plain and little” governess takes a position at Thornfield Hall, she little expects to be swept up by the passion and dark secrets of her enigmatic employer, Mr. Rochester. One of the most famous novels of the mid-Victorian period, Jane Eyre exemplifies the Bildungsroman (“coming-of-age”) genre, and, in fact, radically defined that genre in the English literary tradition. Providing a notable contrast to the secularizing influences of its period (not to mention those of our own, which determinedly misreads the novel), Brontë distinctively grounds her heroine and her novel in Christian moral understanding. The novel presents a host of themes: What is “The Novel”? What is the role of education (especially of women)? How are the natural world and the human person related? What is the role of Gothic atmosphere? What is the relationship between Reason and Feeling—especially in the light of the Fall? Our studies will also address the novel’s biographical and historical context, providing insight into the mid-Victorian Period. In this course, we will come to know Jane Eyre and the remarkable novel that bears her name, studying both over six classes.
Class one: Volume 1, Chapters 1-7.
Class two: Volume 1, Chapters 8-15.
Class three: Volume 2, Chapters 1-5.
Class four: Volume 2, Chapters 6-11.
Class five: Volume 3, Chapters 1-6.
Class six: Volume 3, Chapters 7-12.
Week 1: Commit to paper topic
Week 2: Brainstorming document turned in
Week 3: First Draft turned in
Week 4: Second Draft turned in
Week 5: Third Draft turned in
Week 6: Final Draft turned in
- Course name
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Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847) (Victorian Classics) with Eleanor Bourg Nicholson
- Instructor
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Eleanor Bourg Nicholson
- Semester
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Recorded
- Category
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Literature ➤ Early Modern/Victorian Literature
- Grade levels
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High School
- Start time
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February 22nd, 2024 at 12:00 AM ET
- Course type
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Recorded, free with subscription
- Relative due dates
- Enhanced quiz security
- Enhanced assignment security
The Nineteenth-Century Novel (Mansfield Park, Oliver Twist, & North and South)
Literary-Critical Paper: Independent Study (available for all of Mrs. Nicholson's courses, live or recorded)
Introduction to the Nineteenth-Century (Emma, David Copperfield, The Warden, & Barchester Towers) (Victorian Classics)
Christmas with Dickens (Victorian Classics)
Gothic Book Club
Jane Austen, Part One
Jane Austen, Part Two
The Brontë Sisters (Victorian Classics)
Sensation Genre Novels (Victorian Classics)
Middlemarch (Victorian Classics)
Our Mutual Friend (Victorian Classics)
Nicholas Nickleby (Victorian Classics)
Dracula: Ignatius Critical Editions (editor)
A Bloody Habit (Ignatius Press, 2017)
The Letters of Magdalen Montague (Chrism Press, 2021)
Brother Wolf (Chrism Press, 2021)
The Hound of the Lord (children’s biography of St. Dominic, Ignatius 2023)
Wake of Malice (Chrism Press, 2024)
- This material is only to be used for its intended purpose by active subscribers of Homeschool Connections or purchasers of the course. Any other use without explicit permission is in violation of the seventh commandment, and in violation of US and International copyright laws.
- You may print or download to your own storage extracts for your personal homeschool and non-commercial use only. Use for homeschool co-ops is permitted after contacting customer support and receiving written permission from Homeschool Connections.
- Upon completion of the course, you must delete all copies of course materials from any storage on which you saved permissible extracts.
Total classes
Duration
Prerequisites
Reading of Volume 1 of Jane Eyre before the first day of class
Suggested grade level
Suggested credit
Outline
Course Outline:
Materials
Recommended edition, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (Ignatius Critical Edition), ISBN 978-1586176990. The novel is also available for free online via Project Gutenberg.
Homework
Expect to spend 1-3 hours per class reading. Before each class, complete an identification quiz (12 questions, multiple choice, open book). Midway through and again at the end of the course, complete additional quizzes (short essay questions). There is an optional paper project which requires Instructor Access. This paper project can increase the suggested credit for the course to a full semester. An answer key is not provided for this course.
Optional Literary Essay Deadlines (Requiring Instructor Access):
Eleanor Bourg Nicholson
ebnicholson@protonmail.com
Mrs. Nicholson, our resident Victorian literature instructor, occasionally strays into fiction, including her epistolary novella, The Letters of Magdalen Montague (Kauffmann Publishing, 2011; Chrism Press, 2021), and her Gothic novels, A Bloody Habit (Ignatius Press, 2018) and Brother Wolf (Chrism Press, 2021). A former assistant executive editor for Dappled Things, she is an assistant editor for the Saint Austin Review (StAR), as well as the editor of several Ignatius Critical Editions of the classics and has collaborated with other editors to provide footnotes for numerous other works. Her work has appeared in the National Catholic Register and Touchstone, as well as with First Things and The Catholic Thing. By day, she and her husband, Dr. Sam Nicholson (Logic/Philosophy instructor), homeschool their six children. By night, Mrs. Nicholson reads the Victorians, writes Gothic novels, and cares for small children. Fun facts: Mrs. Nicholson has an extremely low tolerance for scary books and movies. She's still petrified of "The Speckled Band", and won't sleep in a room where the bed is under a vent. Also, one of Mrs. Nicholson's numerous sisters-in-law is middle school writing instructor Mrs. Bonnie Donlon. For more information, visit: eleanorbourgnicholson.com.
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