LFU:online

Institut für Anglistik Institut für Anglistik

Ass.-Prof. Susanne Pichler Ass.-Prof. Susanne Pichler

609149

British and/or Postcolonial Literature: Madness, Hysteria and Anxiety in Victorian Literature

PS 2

5

wöch.

semestral

Englisch

The aim of this course is to introduce students to 19th century Victorian England, and to familiarize them with psychoanalytic categories such as madness, hysteria and anxiety. These concepts, discussed in the context of Victorian (double standard in) sexuality, will then be applied to selected Victorian texts by both male and female writers.

In the 19th and early 20th century, madness, anxiety and hysteria became associated with the feminine. Women suffering from it exhibited symptoms ranging from faintness, muscle spasm, nervousness, madness, and anxiety to insomnia. In this course we will try to find out first, why so many Victorian women ‘suffered’ from hysteria, secondly, how ‘mad’, ‘hysterical’ and ‘anxious’ Victorian characters are (re)presented in Victorian literature, and thirdly, whether or not male and female Victorian writers’ representations of ‘mad’ figures differ.

lecture input, discussion groups, presentations

active participation in class, reading assignments, term paper

Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre, 1847. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley, 1849. George Eliot. The Lifted Veil, 1859. Robert Louis Stevenson. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, 1886.

Anmeldevoraussetzung/en: positive Beurteilung der Pflichtmodule 3 und 16 Entspricht im Diplomstudium (343): PS 2 English Literature Entspricht im Lehramtsstudium (344): PS 2 English Literature
Beginn: 09. März 2010