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“Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” With these words Samuel Johnson paradigmatically articulates a distinctly 18th-century notion of London as the key site of social intercourse, of human experience — of life.
This seminar aims at studying literary representations of London and its lives against the backdrop of political, social, and cultural changes during the 18th century. Apart from literary representations of London topography, we shall study topics as varied as London’s coffee-house culture, sociability, commerce, satire and the professionalisation of literature (“Grub Street”), public spaces, theatre and actors, crime, illness etc.
Core reading (further texts to be announced):
- John Gay: Trivia: Or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London (1719) (OUP ed., ed. Clare Brant and Susan E. Whyman) – please obtain your own copy
- Daniel Defoe: A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) (Penguin Classics) – please obtain your own copy
- Boswell: London Journal (1762–63) (extracts; available on moodle)
- Frances Burney: Evelina(1774) – please obtain your own paperback copy.
The Lektürekurs is designed to offer scope for the discussion of relevant research literature (both theory and criticism). |
