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Instructors: Sarah Faber
Event type:
Seminar/proseminar
Displayed in timetable as:
05.874.123
Hours per week:
2
Credits:
8,0
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 45
Registration group: BS/ELC 123
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Contents:
There is quite the Jane Austen revival in contemporary Western culture. Re-writings, new film adaptations, biographies, games, graphic prints, coasters, and general Austen-themed knickknacks are being produced at an astonishing rate, and her novels enjoy a renewed surge in popularity. On the other hand, though the wisdom of Jane Austen is plastered all over post-cards and notebooks, and large parts of the literary world now hail her as ‘the mother of chic lit’, there is also the predictable counter-movement of readers spurning Austen for what they perceive as tackiness, cliché, idealised domesticity and an overabundance of romance. Both views express a highly simplified understanding of Austen and fail to grasp the subtleties and facets of the writer’s works.
To arrive at a more nuanced understanding of Jane Austen’s body of work, we are going to consider their historical context, reception, and some of Austen’s literary contemporaries. What do we know about the kind of society she wrote in and about – its values, standards and unspoken rules? How are larger political contexts, social norms, current events and fashions reflected in the themes and style of Austen’s writing? How do we interpret the conflicting views of her works as full of very vocal social criticism and as centred on upper class domestic issues? Where do we find the lines between depiction, humour, and parody?
Required reading:
Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. 1811. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.
--- . Pride and Prejudice. 1813. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.
--- . Emma. 1815. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003.
Further materials will be made available via the course reader. Students should read Pride and Prejudice before the start of the semester.
I recommend buying the Oxford World's Classics editions of the novels, not just so that we are literally all on the same page, but also because these editions offer a reliable, annotated text, as well as further reading, and are quite affordable.
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