The seminar addresses the works of William Wordsworth within the broader context of Romanticism. Looking at selected poetry, some prose essays as well as his verse autobiography The Prelude, we shall study Wordsworth’s engagement with poetics, his conception of poetic memory and subjectivity, as well as the politics of his literature. Related key issues will be Wordsworth’s concern with the natural environment against the backdrop of the socio-economics of the English countryside, of contemporary travelling and tourism as well as landscape painting. Finally, the seminar will also attempt to situate Wordsworth within the circle of his contemporaries and to study the process of his canonization through his first biographers. Required Works (please obtain your own copies):1. William Wordsworth, The Major Works, ed. Stephen Gill (OUP)2. William Wordsworth, The Prelude, 1799, 1805, 1850, ed. Jonathan Wordsworth, et al. (Norton)3. A moodle platform with additional material will be available as of mid October. The Lektürekurs aims at studying in depth and discussing critical approaches to Wordsworth and Romancticism from New Criticism to New Historicism and Eco-Criticism. A moodle platform, providing the required reading material, will be available as of mid October.
