|
Lehrende/r: Dr. Jochen Ecke; Dr. Patrick Gill; PhD Roslyn Joy Irving; Prof. Dr. Alfred Lutz
Veranstaltungsart:
Seminar
Anzeige im Stundenplan:
05.874.512
Unterrichtssprache:
Englisch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl:
- | 30
Anmeldegruppe: ELC 512
Prioritätsschema: Senatsrichtlinie
Zulassung gemäß Richtlinie über den Zugang zu teilnahmebeschränkten Lehrveranstaltungen vom 07. März 2007.
Nähere Informationen hierzu entnehmen Sie bitte www.info.jogustine.uni-mainz.de/senatsrichtlinie
Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:
The seminar is taught by our guest lecturer Prof. Alfred Lutz (MTS U Tennessee).
Anwesenheitspflicht:
Die für Ihren Studiengang relevante Information hierzu finden Sie in Ihrem Prüfungsordnungsanhang.
Inhalt:
In a moment of cheeky modesty, Wylie Sypher, editor of the equally delightful anthology Enlightened England: An Anthology of English Literature from Dryden to Blake (1947), pointed out that the "Eighteenth Century offers us perhaps the rarest and most engaging collection of personalities in English literature, and in all the arts." The period itself is just as modest as Sypher, so it lays claim to everything from 1660 to the 1780s, and it also claims writers like George Crabbe and Jane Austen, whose major works were published well into the 1810s. Enlightenment, Age of Reason, Age of Sensibility, Augustan Age, Baroque, Rococo, and Neoclassicism are all terms used to categorize this period or parts of it.
We are dealing with an age that witnessed the beginnings of the rise to world domination of the novel genre; the first world (-wide) war (1754/6-1763); the beginnings of children’s literature and new ideas of the meaning of childhood; the rise of the professional writer; the rise of the modern individual; the elaboration of separate disciplines (economics, for example, came into being in the second half of the eighteenth century); the transition from dynastic to companionate marriages; the beginnings of the industrial and agricultural revolutions; the rise of England (Britain since 1707) to the status of a world power; the beginnings of modern pornography; the "first sexual revolution," if Faramerz Dabhoiwala is to be believed; the first consumer revolution in the context of a global economy; the beginnings of a well-organized and intellectually sophisticated movement to end the slave trade and, eventually, slavery; the codification of "scientific" racism; and much, much more.
In the Preface to English Literature in Context (2008), editor Paul Poplawski argues that "[t]he academic study of literature usually takes for granted the idea that literature should function as a critical reflection on people and society in history, and on the ways in which people make historical sense of their lives, but it often glosses over the fact that literature (in both its material and symbolic aspects) is always itself actively part of the historical process and inextricably bound up with its surrounding historical contexts" (xv). Taking this statement as a kind of challenge, this course attempts to engage literature by studying how it both illuminates (and obscures) the historical context and is illuminated (and obscured) by it. Rather than trying to cover 100+ years of literature by inundating you with a mass of material, this course focuses on the close study of a relatively small number of texts chosen for the breadth and depth of their engagement with the world they inhabit.
Empfohlene Literatur:
Defoe, Daniel. Roxana. (Penguin. ISBN: 978-0140431490)
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. (Anchor. ISBN: 978-0307950901)
Compared to the novels of other major eighteenth-century writers—Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Burney—these novels have the advantage of being relatively short.
In addition to these texts, we’ll also study a few (relatively short) poems. The best anthology of eighteenth-century poetry is David Fairer and Christine Gerrard’s Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology. (Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1118824757. This information refers to the third edition. You may well be able to find cheap copies of the first and second editions online. (Both of those would be perfectly fine.) If you prefer not to buy this anthology, you’ll be able to access these poems via ECCO (Eighteenth-Century Collections Online):
Keep in mind, though, that eighteenth-century poetry is rather topical, so a modern edition with excellent footnotes, like the Fairer and Gerrard anthology, is a good investment.If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at Alfred.Lutz@mtsu.edu.
Zusätzliche Informationen:
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE
MONDAY, July 24: Course introduction. Lecture: Eighteenth-Century Literature in (Literary)
History.
TUESDAY, July 25: Daniel Defoe, Roxana. Mary Leapor, "Man the Monarch." Sarah Fyge
Egerton, "The Liberty" and "The Emulation."
WEDNESDAY, July 26: Alexander Pope, "Windsor-Forest." Joseph Warton, "The Enthusiast:
Or The Lover of Nature." Thomas Gray, "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College."
Anne Finch, "A Nocturnal Reverie."
THURSDAY, July 27: Alexander Pope, "To Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington: Of the Use of
Riches." Anne Ingram, "Castle Howard." Mary Leapor, "Crumble-Hall."
FRIDAY, July 28: Stephen Duck, "The Thresher’s Labour." Mary Collier, "The Woman’s
Labour." Oliver Goldsmith, "The Deserted Village."
SATURDAY, July 29: Austen, Pride and Prejudice.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at Alfred.Lutz@mtsu.edu.
|
