MLU
Seminar: Aufbaumodul Anglistik Literatur II/III, Kulturwissenschaft IV - Details
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Veranstaltungsname Seminar: Aufbaumodul Anglistik Literatur II/III, Kulturwissenschaft IV
Untertitel The Modern Condition
Semester SS 2019
Aktuelle Anzahl der Teilnehmenden 19
Heimat-Einrichtung Englische Literatur und Kultur
Veranstaltungstyp Seminar in der Kategorie Offizielle Lehrveranstaltungen
Erster Termin Montag, 01.04.2019 08:15 - 09:45, Ort: Seminarraum 2 [AKStr.35] (Angl.)
Voraussetzungen Erfolgreich abgeschlossenes Basismodul Literaturwissenschaft
Lernorganisation Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. ed. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. Arden Revised Edition, 2016.
Shaw, Bernard. Plays Pleasant. ed. Dan Laurence. Penguin Classics, 2003.
Stoppard, Tom. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. London, Faber & Faber, 1973 et al.
Leistungsnachweis Referat und Hausarbeit (Ku-Wi 4)
Referat und eventuell Hausarbeit (AM II)
Referat und Hausarbeit (AM III)
Studiengänge (für) BA Anglistik und Amerikanistik 60, 90
IKEAS BA
SWS 2
ECTS-Punkte 5

Themen

Introduction, Shakespeare, Hamlet, Behn, Widow Ranter, Shaw, Arms and the Man, Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern;

Modulzuordnungen

Kommentar/Beschreibung

Dramatic representation on the stage changes the reality of the audience. Playwrights have therefore sought to represent topics and issues that did not only speak to the immediate need for audience entertainment but addressed larger concerns of their various times. One of the central concerns of the modern experience, since the Early Modernity of the Elizabethan stage, has been to unite an ever-expanding sense of the world with an ever-increasing isolation and doubt of the self and its place in it. The plays that we will consider in the coming term mirror this concern in various dramatic forms. We will start by reading Shakespeare's Hamlet (1602) which voices doubt, isolation and Modernity's permanent break with religious and philosophical traditions in ways that elucidate the moral impact of such dramatic changes on the self. What remains after the tragedy might simply be the power of friendship, of bearing witness and of narrative. In contrast, Aphra Behn's comedy "The Widow Ranter" (1689) addresses the presence of the British in Virginia at the time of the rebellion of Nathaniel Bacon, and satirically depicts the social rise of its unconventional heroine. And isolated outsider, she manages to make the best of colonial chaos and local hypocrisy in an affirmation of individuality. George B. Shaw's Romantic comedy Arms and the Man (1894) operates with a similar situation, in this case with the Bulgarian war of independence, to subvert clichés of the Romantic comedy while showing figures completely at loss with their own role in a modern reality. Eventually, they reach a confusing happy ending yet the play still maintains that the main features of the modern condition is chaos and insecurity. It is just that (typical of a comedy's optimism) chaos and insecurity may be liberating. Tom Stoppard's absurd comedy "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" (1966) considers in detail the fate of these two minor figures in Hamlet's tragedy who themselves experience a tragicomic death. To them, modernity is an ongoing puzzle and their own place in life remains an ultimate mystery.
Please be careful to obtain exactly the editions listed below for our course texts! Behn's play will be made available via Stud-IP. Tests on textual understanding are a part of this course. Requirements to obtain credit will depend on the module you are attending - we will discuss these requirements in the first session in class!