Hearing of literature and nature, one most likely thinks of the nature poetry of the Romantics. Naturally this too will form part of the course but the programme will cover several periods, from Romanticism through to the twentieth century. This course will examine how the presentation and function of nature in literary and other works of art changes over the centuries. How, for example, imagist poetry is different from the nature poetry of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. How Darwin’s theory or industrialism influenced human reading of nature and its literary assimilation, and which role early documentary film plays in this context. Nature will not be limited to landscape alone but will also include human nature and life as such. The course will start out looking at some theoretical approaches such as, for example, Burke’s Ideas of the Sublime (1757) and Zapf’s recent Literatur als kulturelle Ökologie (2002). The term ‘ecology’ in the subtitle above, following Zapf’s approach, intends to raise the question of considering literature and culture as a life-system.
The course reading will include poems by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley; excerpts of Victorian works by Dickens and/or Kipling and/or Stevenson and/or the Brontës; pieces from Classicism and Aestheticism; theoretical texts. A detailed list of the selected works is to follow.
reading list:
-- !!!You are expected to have read the following books before the first session of the seminar!!! --
Kipling, The Jungle Book (Oxford World's Classics)
Bulwer-Lytton, The Coming Race (Hesperus Classics)
Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Penguin Popular Classics, 3,- Euro)
Zapf, Literatur als kulturelle Ökologie (relevant pages are uploaded in the 'digitaler Semesterapparat' [StudIP] to the course)
Collins/Dickens, "The Frozen Deep" (in StudIP, doc. Brannon)
Burke, Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (relevant pages in the StudIP)
Eibl, Animal Poeta (in the StudIP, first doc. (pp.310-319)
Students who have not read all texts will be asked to leave. A short quiz with basic questions on the assigned reading has to be expected.
Rhythmus | Tag | Uhrzeit | Format / Ort | Zeitraum |
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Studiengang/-angebot | Gültigkeit | Variante | Untergliederung | Status | Sem. | LP | |
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Anglistik: British and American Studies / Bachelor | (Einschreibung bis SoSe 2011) | Kern- und Nebenfach | BaAngPM3; BaAngPM4 | - | - | 2/3 | |
Anglistik: British and American Studies / Master of Education | (Einschreibung bis SoSe 2014) | - | BaAngPM3; BaAngPM4 | - | - | 2/3 | |
Anglistik: British and American Studies (GHR) / Master of Education | (Einschreibung bis SoSe 2014) | - | BaAngPM3; BaAngPM4 | - | - | 2/3 | |
Literaturwissenschaft / Bachelor | (Einschreibung bis SoSe 2011) | Nebenfach | BaLitP8 | - | - | 2/4 |
Regular and active in-class participation, small assignments and a presentation for 2 credit points, plus 6-8 pp seminar paper for 3 credit points and a grade.
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