(1660-1700 / 1715-1760)
“Les Lumieres”, “Aufklärung”
reason
targets: religion, aristocracy
deism, religious tolerance
progress
empiricism
encyclopedia
rise of the bourgeoisie
“les philosophes”
Candide
(1759)
Satire
Satire is the literary art of
diminishing a subject by making it
ridiculous and evoking toward it
attitudes of amusement, contempt,
indignation or scorn
Two types of characters in fiction
“a flat character” = a type, two-(or one-)dimensional, built around a single idea or quality, presented in outline, without much individualizing detail; can be described in a single phrase or sentence
“a round character” = complex in temperament and motivation; three-dimensional; represented with subtle particularity; capable of surprising us; difficult to describe
(from M.H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary
Terms; following E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel)
“Bildungsroman”
- German term for “educational novel” or “novel
of formation”
- subject is the development of the protagonist’s
mind and character, as s/he passes from childhood through varied experiences—and
usually through a spiritual crisis—into maturity and the recognition of his/her
identity and role in the world.
- began with Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
(1795-96) and includes Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain and Somerset-Maugham’s
Of Human Bondage
(M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms)
“Picaresque Novel”
- Spanish “picaro” = rogue
- genre emerged in sixteenth-century Spain
- the protagonist is a rascal who lives by his
or her wits through a long succession of adventures; tries to “beat the system”—whichever
system s/he encounters
- picaresque fiction is realistic in manner,
episodic in structure, and usually satiric in aim
- examples include Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn
and Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders
“Utopia”
- term invented by Thomas More
- an intended confusion between Greek “eu-topos”
(a good place) and Greek “ou-topos” (“no place”)
- this implies that the good place is nowhere
to be found
- a long tradition of “utopian” literature
(1780 – 1830)
the individual
feeling, emotion, soul instead of reason and
the mind
idea of the self
French Revolution, 1789:
liberté, egalité, fraternité
simple life
nature (pure, uncorrupted)
the noble savage
Brothers Grimm: fairy tale collection
folksongs and folk poetry
focus on night rather than light
also darker emotions, passions, insanity
the metaphysical
originality, imagination, phantasy
newness
Rousseau
(1712 – 1778)
critique of social institutions
importance of nature and feeling
value of the inner life
Autobiography
written by the subject about him/herself
emphasis on developing self
often: mental crisis and recovery,
discovery of identity and vocation
St. Augustin, Confessions (14th cent.)
Wordsworth, The Prelude
Benjamin Franklin
…
question of reliability:
systematic development of a self-image?
creation of a mythology of self?
posing / acting?
self-glorification?
Memoir
emphasis on people known and events witnessed
Diary / Journal
day-to-day record of events
1749 - 1832
Frankfurt; Weimar; 2 years in Italy
interested in the classics
1774 The Sorrows of Young Werther
the all-around-genius:
writes, is a statesman, paints, does science,
…
is revered all over Europe
grand opus: Faust I and II
Faust
historical Faust: Doctor Johann Faustus:
about 1480 – 1540, magician and wandering scholar
“Volksbuch” – folk book about this figure:
Historia von D. Johann Fausten, by Johann Spies,
1587
Christopher Marlowe’s (1564 – 93) Faust:
The Tragicall Historie of Doctor Faustus
(staged 1594, publ. 1605)
Goethe: “Urfaust” (1772-75):
adds the story of Margarete (Gretchen)
Faust I (1797 – 1806)
Faust II (rest of his life, mostly 1825 – 1831)
many treatments after Goethe,
including operas
Thomas Mann: Doktor Faustus
Drama of the two opposing principles
Faust the seeker: the Faustian will, quest,
desire for experience
(for conquering? power? transcendence? spiritual
fulfilment?)
archetype of modern Western civilization
(progress)?
German soul (… guilt …Hitler)?
Mephisto: the spirit who negates (nihilism)
representer of chaos, subverter of order
and system
satire on academia, government, society
Gretchen’s story:
Romantic love (feelings as basis, not matchmaking)
social criticism of morality of the time
Question of responsibility:
Who is ultimately responsible?
Part II: macrocosm
Faust the politician, creator of new worlds
Examples of Faustian projects today?
industrial revolution
urbanization, city vs. country
material progress,
rise of the middle class: bourgeoisie,
liberalism, free enterprise
but also development of the working class,
the proletariat (poverty, dependancy)
Marx and Engels: socialism (equality)
science and technology:
steam power
photography
architecture
railways
advances in medicine and hygiene
Realism
antithesis to romanticism
focus on “truth” rather than the fantastic,
on “what is” (the real)
rather than “what should be” (the ideal)
the novel, rather than poetry
the novelist as sociologist
focus on contemporary society, not past
expansion of literary themes:
now includes the low, the disgusting, the
trivial
describes the lives of “ordinary people,
common folks”
idea of objectivity in narration
(author shows rather than tells)
but: problem of selection, representation
“objective” documentation vs. art
Flaubert
(1821 – 1880)
the quintessential realist
advocate of objectivity
but also: “Madame Bovary, c’est moi!”
many elements of Romanticism
son of a Rouen surgeon
nervous disorder / epilepsy
life in Croisset, near Rouen
trips to Paris, Greece, Syria, Egypt
1857 Madame Bovary
more than 5 years of hard work,
constant rewrites
Flaubert the stylist
“l’art pour l’art” – art for art’s sake
search for “le mot juste”
(the right word)
use of exact detail in descriptions
on the human condition
psychology
(love, illusions, shattered dreams, fantasy,
mediocrity, boredom, lying, infidelity, …)
scandal, trial because of
“offense to public and religious morality
and to good morals”
acquitted
spectrum of symbolism:
universal to individual
Cattle vs. horses
sexual symbolism
religious symbolism
food symbolism
the window
images of movement
the Blind Man
...
Rainer Maria Rilke
1875 - 1926
born in Prague
military school
Lou Andreas-Salomé
early fame
Russia, Tolstoy, religiosity
painter and wife Clara
Westhoff
Rodin in Paris: seeing,
objects
“Dinggedichte”
(thing poems)
Traveling throughout
Europe
Castle Duino: Duino Elegies
WW1, 1914-18: in Germany
Muzot, Switzerland
dies of leukemia
The Twentieth Century
Modernism / Postmodernism
Modernism
idea of the “modern”:
the new, breaking with tradition, experiment
reaction to 19th century scientific and technological
progress:
refocus on the individual, introspection
(“Neo-Romanticism”)
Freud: psychoanalysis
Einstein’s theory of relativity
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle
First World War 1914-18
World Economic Crisis
Second World War 1939-45
Holocaust
fundamental shift in the arts:
visual art: from realism to abstract art,
“art for art’s sake”
music: atonal music
literature: focus on language itself,
experimental poetry (symbolism, surrealism)
development of linguistic theory
stream-of-consciousmess technique
Thomas Mann
1875 – 1955
merchant father, artistic mother
North/Nordic vs. South/Latin dualism
poor student, dislikes business world
turns to writing
Buddenbrooks, 1901
bourgeois vs. artist dualism
(many artist figures)
marries Katia Pringsheim, 1905
(6 children)
“Death in Venice,” 1912
The Magic Mountain, 1924
Nobel Prize for Literature, 1929
1930-45: speeches and radio talks against
the Nazis
exile in Switzerland, USA
1952 return to Europe
1955 death
prolific writer of novels and stories (“novellas”)
scandal in 1975:
publication of some of his diaries
confirmation of his homosexuality
the Mann family:
many writers
many suicides
Thomas Mann’s writing:
incredibly rich language, accurate detail
complex characters, settings,
philosophical and political discussions
"Death in Venice"
topics for discussion:
the motif of traveling
the figure of the traveler
Gustav Aschenbach as a character
as an artist figure
the complex of love / eros
his homosexual desire
(and how he represses and then pursues it)
the idea of beauty and art discussed in the narrative
life vs. death
the idea of disease and epidemic in this
context
the symbolism in the text (the “leitmotif”)
the Greek mythology woven into the text
(read the footnotes)
Principles
“Verfremdung” = defamiliarization, alienation
Aristotelian Theatre Epic Theatre
entangles the spectator
distances the spectator
evokes feelings in spectator
demands decisions from spectator
experience it
develop world view, study
the conditions
spectator is immersed
spectator is faced with something
is suggestive
is argumentative
universal, unchanged humans
humans who are changeable and
able to change
want to know to end
want to know the process
play grows, develops
montage of independent scenes
linear plot
plot goes in curves, circles, …
evolutionary necessity in the plot
jumps, turns, breaks
emotion
intellect, rational thinking
build and maintain the illusion
destroy the illusion
“Verfremdungseffekte” = alienation effects:
direct address to the spectators
banners with captions or projected text
commentary: by narrator or through songs
open stage, visible machinery, no curtain
different method of acting:
no identification with character, but move
in and out
of role, “show” the character, not “be” the
character;
actor has distance to role, may step out
of the role
possible use of masks
different role of music:
not illustrating, but commenting, contradicting
episodic structure, scenes, not acts
can have short, subsidiary skits in between
scenes
interpolated songs
distant setting/place/culture; exotic, non-realistic
or “anywhere”
distant/historic time; broken chronology