230295 Literary Theory (S) (WiSe 2005/2006)

Jonathan Culler, the author of two influential studies on structuralism and deconstruction, describes the engagement with literary theory thus in his recent Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction: "As a critique of common sense and exploration of alternative conceptions, theory involves a questioning of the most basic premises or assumptions of literary studies, the unsettling of anything that might have been taken for granted: What is meaning? What is an author? What is it to read? What is the 'I' or subject who writes, reads, or acts? How do texts relate to the circumstances in which they are produced?" The aim of this introductory seminar is to provide an overview of the answers given to these questions and of further questions that literature has raised over the centuries. We will start with the inaugural positions of antiquity (Plato, Aristotle), trace the evolvement of English views on literature, especially in the period of Romanticism, and will then concentrate on the rise of literary theory in the twentieth century from Russian formalism to the ethical turn, with special emphasis on the so-called cultural turn in literary studies. We will read both secondary material and original essays by key theorists, especially from the twentieth century. In a concluding section we will examine the application of various theoretical approaches to one literary text, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Texts:
A reader will be available in the first meeting.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. New York: Bedford & St. Martin's Press, 2000. (This is the edition we will use in class, especially the additional material.)

Required preparatory reading:
Hubert Zapf. Kurze Geschichte der anglo-amerikanischen Literaturtheorie. München: Fink, 1996.

Credits:
Regular attendance, participation in class (including group work), collection of response essays.