Seminar: Anglistik Literaturwissenschaft:Literarische Gattungen und Gattungstheorien I und II, Vertiefungsmodul Anglistik Literatur I, Westeuropäische Literaturen - Details
Seminar: Anglistik Literaturwissenschaft:Literarische Gattungen und Gattungstheorien I und II, Vertiefungsmodul Anglistik Literatur I, Westeuropäische Literaturen - Details
Seminar: Anglistik Literaturwissenschaft:Literarische Gattungen und Gattungstheorien I und II, Vertiefungsmodul Anglistik Literatur I, Westeuropäische Literaturen
Untertitel
"The Age of ingenious and learned Ladies"?: The aesthetics and sociology of 18th century women's poetry
ANG.03928.01; ANG.03927.01: MA Angloamerikanische Literatur, Sprache und Kultur 120 LP, MA Englische Sprache und Literatur 45/75 LP;
ANG.03220.02; ANG.05292.02: LAG, LAS, LAF; MA ab WS 2015/16
ANG.04332.01; ANG.05584.01: MA ARW / Kulturen der Aufklärung
In the late 17th and 18th centuries, women were very much part of the literary scene. It is generally known that they were central to the rise and development of the genre of the novel, in their capacity of writers and readers. Their equally weighty contribution to poetry is something that literary history has been much slower to recognize and appreciate. Women poets come from all walks of life, and they take up a great variety of topics, from domestic concerns to the politics of the nation, from natural beauty to religious devotion, from women’s education to gender relations. They use a variety of established poetic forms, thus inscribing themselves into predominantly male traditions, and they develop new forms. They also reflect in their poetry on their situation as female writers. They are single or married, they operate in isolation as well as in influential networks, they seek and give patronage, they struggle on the verge of poverty or become bestsellers during their lifetime. In short: looking at women’s poetry gives us an insight into women’s participation in central aspects of 18th century life and letters at the beginning of the modern age.
We are going to read individual poems in each session and place them in the context of their authors and their times. The texts are made available to you in a reader via Stud.ip. In order to fill in the necessary cultural and literary background, you will also read secondary literature for each session. There will be tests and assignments on this during the semester. You will also give an oral presentation in class. The other requirements for credits will be explained in the first session.
Primary literature:
Poems collected in the Reader, available in Stud.ip
Secondary literature:
From: John Sitter (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth Century Poetry, Cambridge 2001:
Christine Gerard, “Political passions,” p. 37-62
Barbara M. Benedict, “Publishing and reading poetry,” p. 63-82
Claudia Thomas Kairoff, “Eighteenth-century women poets and readers,” p. 157-176
From: Isobel Armstrong (ed.), Women’s Poetry in the Enlightenment, London 1999:
Elizabeth Eger, “Fashioning a female canon: Eighteenth century women poets and the politics of the Anthology,” p. 201-215
Further articles will be made available for individual sessions.
