230568 British Literature and Culture in Transition: 1890s to 1930s (S) (WiSe 2007/2008)

Between the 1890s and the 1930s, Britain saw major ideological, political, social and cultural changes. An almost bewildering variety of movements and counter-movements in the arts engaged with these changes, and contributed to changes in mentalities themselves: Decadence, Aestheticism, Symbolism and Naturalism in the late 19th century, Imagism and Modernism in the early 20th, to name only the most influential ones. The aim of this course is to introduce students to the central texts and poetics of these movements in literature and the other arts, to trace their developments and to analyse how they are embedded in, and interact with, their cultural contexts.

Please note that the reading load for this seminar will be high, for it intends to cover as many aspects of the ideological, artistic and literary debate in the period.

Texts:
A reader containing poems, short stories and poetological essays will be made available at the beginning of the semester. In addition, please buy your own copy of the following novels:

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
George Moore, Esther Waters (1894)
May Sinclair, Mary Olivier: A Life (1919)
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1927)

Preferred publishers for all of these texts are (depending, of course, on availability): Virago (Virago Modern Classics) and Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics series). You may have to search the used books sections of the online bookshops to obtain copies in these series. Avoid unedited versions without annotations in any case (even though they may be cheaper).