The novel has undergone very many changes and transformations. In our seminar we will discuss some exemplary texts that have trailblazed how novels can be written, and who have in turn become typical of their age. We will begin our readings with the first novel in English, William Baldwin’s Beware the Cat (1561). A text that reads both very typically Tudor and strikingly postmodern, Baldwin’s novel was quite well known at its time but had to wait to the end of the 20th century to be re-discovered. Aphra Behn’s, Oroonoko (1688; long itself considered the first English novel) blends romance with the social realism of a “true history”, an autobiographical narrator with fictional plotlines. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) for the first time included documents (both fictional and historical) in a novel, and expanded science fiction into fantasy. Finally, extracts from Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas (2004), "An Orison of Sonmi-451" (two chapters) and "Sloosha's Crossin an'Everythin'After", will introduce both the genre of dystopia and a text that attempts to transcend the limitations of contemporary language (in turn re-defining modern and postmodern methods of fiction writing). Primary text knowledge will be tested in the course of the term. A scan of Baldwin’s novel will be made available via Stud-IP for download by September; you should have read the novel by the beginning of term.
Texts:
Baldwin, William. Beware the Cat. Eds. William Ringler and Michael Flachmann. San Marino: Huntington Library Press, 1988.
Behn, Aphra. Oroonoko: A True History. London: Penguin Little Black Classics, 2016.
Mitchell, David. Cloud Atlas. New York: Sceptre, 2005.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Ed. Maurice Hindle. London: Penguin Classics, 2003)
Further reading:
Schneider, Jost. Einführung in die Romananalyse. Darmstadt: WBG, 2010.
Frow, John. Genre. London: Routledge, 2006.
