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The 'Long' Eighteenth Century (AE_HSLong18C)- Lecturer
- PD Dr. Simone Broders
- Details
- Hauptseminar
Online
2 cred.h, ECTS studies, Sprache Englisch
Zeit: Wed 12:15 - 13:45, C 301
- Prerequisites / Organisational information
- Modulzugehörigkeit:
BA English and American Studies: Hauptmodul A (301) Literature (Zulassungsvoraussetzung: Zwischenmodul II) - HA Lehramt Englisch an Gymnasien: Hauptmodul L-GYM Literature. (Zulassungsvoraussetzung: Zwischenmodul Literature) - HA (80 %) MA English Studies: Core Module: Literature (module 4051, exam 40511: Written assignment (15 pages, 80%) and handout (2-3 pages, 20%)) MA English Studies: Master Module II: Literature (module 8360, exam 83601: Written assignment (15 pages, 80%) and handout (2-3pages, 20%)) MA Literaturstudien - intermedial und interkulturell: Modul 4
- Contents
- "A great attraction of [eighteenth-century] literature is that it was written in a time when people thought literature and printed texts mattered and actually impacted the world and the people around them" (Paula Backscheider, "The Futures of Eighteenth-Century Studies").
This seminar is going to focus on the multiple ways English literature attempted to negotiate the rapid changes in eighteenth-century society: Enlightenment philosophers privileging both reason and the individual thus challenged traditional notions of ethics and morality; satirists fiercely attacked inequalities and foibles of the upper class, culminating in Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal to end poverty in Ireland by selling farmers' children as food to wealthy landowners; essayists publishing their intellectual meanderings in periodicals, such as the Tatler, the Spectator, or the Female Spectator, enabled a greater part of the population to increase their knowledge than ever before. The novel, today the most popular literary genre, was born in the eighteenth century, offering not only plots which were close to actual experience, but also expanding readership to those excluded from formal education: women.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the Romantics began to question the reduction of the individual to reason, emphasizing the emotional component of the human mind, to be expanded by the experience of nature. Oriental and Gothic tales responded to their readers' longing for exotic landscapes, serving as an escape route from urban life.
By engaging actively with a variety of eighteenth-century texts, you are going to be able to relate this fascinating literary period to those genres still popular today and to recognize the contribution of Enlightenment and Romantic thought to social and political structures in European democracies to the present.
- Recommended literature
- Goring, Paul. Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture. London: Continuum, 2008.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. Norton Critical Edition. Swift, Jonathan. A Modest Proposal. Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. (extract, will be provided) Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford World's Classics. Pope, Alexander. "The Rape of the Lock". The Oxford Poetry Library: Alexander Pope. Ed. Pat Rogers. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. 32-52. Lillo, George. The Fatal Curiosity. Download from Bodleian Library Colman, George. The Iron Chest. Download from Bodleian Libary Johnson, Samuel. Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. Oxford World's Classics. Beckford, William. Vathek. Ed. Thomas Keymer. Oxford World's Classics. If you already own a different edition, please make sure you use the English 1816 text based on the translation by Samuel Henley. Broders, Simone. Academic Skills. An Introduction for English and American Studies. UTB/Fink, 2020. ISBN 9783825253318.
Shorter texts and extracts will be provided on StudOn. - Additional information
- Maximale Teilnehmerzahl: 15
Registration is required for this lecture.
Registration starts on Wednesday, 1.9.2021, 09.00 and lasts till Wednesday, 1.9.2021, 10.00 über: mein Campus.
- Verwendung in folgenden UnivIS-Modulen
- Startsemester WS 2021/2022:
- Core Module Literature (Core Lit)
- Master Module II: Literature (Master II: Lit)
- Department: Chair of English Literature (Prof. Dr. Freiburg)
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