Summer 2015 - WL 306 D100

Literary Romanticisms (4)

Class Number: 3651

Delivery Method: In Person

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    May 11 – Aug 10, 2015: Wed, 1:30–5:20 p.m.
    Burnaby

  • Instructor:

    John Whatley
    1 778 782-4354
  • Prerequisites:

    45 units.

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

A comparative approach to literary romanticisms and romantic texts. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

“…Eine Hauptschwierigkeit  beim Versuch, deutsche und english Romantik zu vergleichen, ergibt sich daraus, dass das wort,  “Romantik” (“romanticism”) mit verschiedener Sinngebung in den beiden Sprachen verwendet wird..”  Eudo, C. Mason, Deutsche und englishe Romantik  (A thorny problem arises when comparing English and German Romanticism; it lies in the word ‘romanticism’. It is used with deeply different meanings even within each language.)  

Romanticism is usually seen as a movement sweeping Europe just before, during and after the French Revolution.  Though it has different time lines in each country, the Romantic Movement was formed by writers of the stature of Goethe, Schiller, Novalis, the Shelleys, Madame de Staël, Rousseau, Hugo, Coleridge, Byron, and many others.   In literature, these make up the European romantic canon, and mapping their differences and similarities will be one focus of our course.  In the same period, a level of popular fiction arose that readily found a mass public. These works, especially in Germany and England, reveled in the uncanny and the supernatural. They stressed excessive emotion, villains and ingénues, revenge motifs and medieval settings—usually summed up in today’s criticism in the term “gothic”, “gothic romance”, märchen, or kunstmar in German.  The great romantic texts can be seen as a critical response to such popular novels and poems. But did the romantic writers refine, encompass or reject the popular gothic works and their characterizations?  What new romantic theory of self did this contestation entail?  What issues in culture arose from the struggle?  In order to explore these themes, we will study three novels, a collection fairy tales, an autobiography, much poetry, two plays, and some recent short fiction and theory.  You will need access to a computer and the internet; Canvas will be used in this course.

Grading

  • Presentation & Participation 25%
  • Essay 1 (6-8 pp.) 20%
  • Essay 2 (10-12 pp.) 30%
  • Project 25%

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

Carol Tully, Carol. Goethe, Tieck, Fouqué, Brentano: Romantic Fairy Tales     
Penguin Classics (Paperback)
10: 0140447326 
13: 978-0140447323

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions.
Oxford Paperbacks.      
ISBN-10: 0199540039
ISBN-13: 978-0199540037

Madame de Staël, Corinne, or Italy
Oxford Paperbacks
ISBN 9-780199-554607
ISBN: Madame de Staël, Cor

Wolfgang v. Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther.
Signet Classics    
ISBN-10 0451529626
ISBN-13 978-0451529626

Friederich Schiller. The Robbers & Wallenstein.
Penguin Classics
ISBN-10: 0140443681
ISBN-13: 978-0140443684

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Penguin Classics
ISBN 0-14-043362-7

Byron.   Byron’s Poetry and Prose
W. W. Norton & Company; 2nd Revised edition (August 2009)
ISBN 0393925609
ISBN 978-0393925609

John Whatley, Selected Texts from Literary Romanticisms & Their Theory
Custom Courseware, or online.

Registrar Notes:

SFU’s Academic Integrity web site http://students.sfu.ca/academicintegrity.html is filled with information on what is meant by academic dishonesty, where you can find resources to help with your studies and the consequences of cheating.  Check out the site for more information and videos that help explain the issues in plain English.

Each student is responsible for his or her conduct as it affects the University community.  Academic dishonesty, in whatever form, is ultimately destructive of the values of the University. Furthermore, it is unfair and discouraging to the majority of students who pursue their studies honestly. Scholarly integrity is required of all members of the University. http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/student/s10-01.html

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS