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Einrichtungen >> Fakultät Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften >>

Lehrveranstaltungen

 

Writing Lives - Literature and Biography

Dozent/in:
Beatrix Hesse
Angaben:
Seminar, ECTS: 8
Termine:
Fr, 12:00 - 14:00, U5/02.17
Einzeltermin am 16.1.2020, 20:00 - 22:00, U9/01.11
Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:
1. Module Allocation:
BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik:
Vertiefungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS)

BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik (bis einschließl. Studienbeginn zum WS 2008/09):
freie Erweiterung: Seminar 6 ECTS

LA GY:
Vertiefungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS)

MA English and American Studies:
Master Module English and American Literature: Seminar (8 ECTS)
Profile Module English and American Literature I-VI: Seminar (8, 6, 5 or 4 ECTS)
Consolidation Module English and American Literature I-IV: Seminar (8, 6, 5 or 4 ECTS)

Erweiterungsbereich English and American Studies:
Master Module or Profile Module I or III English and American Literature: Seminar (8 ECTS)

Erasmus and other visiting students:
Seminar (6 or 8 ECTS)

2. (De)Registration:
in FlexNow! (except for guest auditors): 01.09.2019, 10:00 - 01.12.2019, 23:59

guest auditors: please contact lecturer
Inhalt:
Novels describing the lives of writers are so numerous that they have received a generic label of their own, the Künstlerroman . It is, however, not the Künstlerroman itself that we are going to study in this course. Rather, we will discuss a number of literary texts from the late 19th to the late 20th centuries that focus on the attempts of literary biographers to capture the elusive lives of genius writers and thereby, possibly, the secret of literary creativity itself.

The first text we are going to read is Henry James s novella The Aspern Papers that created a kind of blueprint for the following works: A nameless first-person narrator makes the attempt to acquire the long lost letters of the fictional Romantic poet Jeffrey Aspern, presumably modelled on Percy Bysshe Shelley. The next text we will discuss is the short story Wireless by Rudyard Kipling, in which an equally nameless first-person narrator has the opportunity of witnessing the birth of the poem The Eve of St. Agnes by another Romantic poet, John Keats. Moving away from the influence of the Romantic poets, our third text, Vladimir Nabokov s novel The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, describes the attempt of yet another nameless narrator to retrace the life of his deceased half-brother, the novelist Sebastian Knight, who is arguably modelled on Nabokov himself. Structurally, the novel by Nabokov seems to some extent indebted to James s seminal novella. Finally, we are going to examine a play, Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, which returns to the field of Romantic poetry. In this drama, we witness two competing literary scholars who are trying to discover yet another lost letter, supposedly written by yet another Romantic poet, George Gordon Lord Byron. In terms of method, we will focus on close readings of selected passages since a seminar on biographical readings of modernist literature that I conducted last winter term has proved that this is a practice both useful and pleasurable. However, this approach requires that all students are thoroughly familiar with all of the texts, which, albeit not particularly long, make somewhat difficult reading. Students will also be required to deliver a brief presentation (no longer than 15 minutes) on a topic relating to one of the four texts, since one of the minor goals of this class is to introduce the participants to four major poets of the Romantic period. Finally, it is hoped that this seminar will encourage students to reflect on their professional self-image as literary scholars.
Empfohlene Literatur:
Students must read the following primary texts: The Aspern Papers by Henry James, Wireless by Rudyard Kipling, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov and Arcadia by Tom Stoppard. The text of Wireless will be made accessible in class, for the other texts, any edition can be used. Please note that you must have finished reading The Aspern Papers by the second session. A detailed term plan giving the dates by which you must have finished reading The Real Life of Sebastian Knight and Arcadia will be distributed in the first session. A selection of appropriate secondary texts will be presented on a reserve shelf in the library.



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