|
Instructors: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Rainer Emig
Event type:
Seminar
Displayed in timetable as:
05.874.522
Credits:
8,0
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 30
Registration group: BS/ELC 522
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Requirements / organisational issues:
The Middle Ages have proved a fertile source of literary and cultural fictions, as can be seen in a plethora of films and novels dealing with the period. What very few people realise, however, is that the Middle Ages are themselves a construct of later cultural epochs. This seminar will look at “modern” fictions of the so-called Middle Ages, starting with a novel by the founding father of historical fiction in English, Sir Walter Scott. It will then look at a famous example of historical crime fiction, the first of the Cadfael novels by Ellis Peters. It will conclude with a contemporary post-modern text dealing with the medieval period, Karen Maitland’s Company of Liars. The literary analyses and debates will be framed by historical background sources and theoretical material on history as narrative construction.
Students should purchase the books specified below and read Ivanhoe before the start of the class.
Walter Scott, Ivanhoe (1819); recommended edition: Oxford World’s Classics (2010)
Ellis Peters [edith pargeter], A Morbid Taste for Bones (1977); Mysterious Press (1994)
Karen Maitland, Company of Liars (2008); Penguin (2009)
|
