While based on eighteenth-century classics, the course program goes against the grain of traditional accounts of eighteenth-century literature in Britain. It seeks to bring into the predominantly discursive consideration of these texts the fresher perspective offered by book historical and bibliographical approaches as well as questions from neighboring disciplines such as the History of Science and Media Studies. In the critical tradition of J. P. Hunter, the emphasis will be placed on the inter-relatability of these sources with each other and with the historical conditions that engendered them. The notion of these texts as isolated representatives of a literary period is anachronistic and evidence to the strong influence of anthological selection processes from the nineteenth century onwards. An important aim of this seminar is to draw attention to the extraordinarily complex communication network in which these sources were embedded, lying cheek-by-jowl with “lesser” versions of themselves – chapbooks, anthologies, broadsheets, imitations etc. – behind which the different agents, producers and consumers of this reading nation obtain a much sharper relief. The following is a preliminary reading list:
Jonathan Swift. A Tale of a Tub (1704)
Daniel Defoe. Robinson Crusoe (1719)
Samuel Richardson. Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded (1740)
James Thomson. The Seasons (1726 – 30)
Tobias Smollett. The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748)
Laurence Sterne. The Life and Opinion of Tristram Shandy (1759 – 67)
For the MAP in this module, you have the choice between a 15-page term paper (Hausarbeit) and a 10-page take-home-exam. For more details see StO English Literatures 2014, pp. 16 – 17. |
