LFU:online

Institut für Amerikastudien Institut für Amerikastudien

Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Christian Quendler Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Christian Quendler, +43 512 507 4177

610019

Novel Beginnings in American Fiction

PS 2

wöch.

keine Angabe

keine Angabe

To become familiar with major American novels and the major literary movements of romanticism, realism, and modernism; to achieve a proficiency in the use of narratological tools and to develop interpretive skills in analytical reading and research (including the use of historical sources and first editions).

So much depends on the opening pages of a novel – a book cover may catch our attention, its title stir our interest and the opening chapter engross us in an imaginary world, or they may fail to establish a rapport with the reader altogether. The beginning of a novel often introduces the reader to important themes, gives an impression of the way the story is told, and sometimes also reveals the implied worldview and norms of the work. In fact, analyzing beginnings of novels together with the accessory information that attends them (such as illustrations, title pages, prefaces, etc.) and their cultural context can be an economic way of approaching the history of literary fiction. In this proseminar, we will attempt close readings of opening sections of canonical American novels in their literary and cultural context. The course is designed as an introduction to the development American fiction from the late eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century.

Close reading of opening pages and initial chapters of novels; oral presentations on the book as a whole, its author, and the historical and cultural contexts.

Active participation, oral presentation on a novel and/or its literary and cultural contexts; paper (10-15 pages)

Students must have passed the "Introduction to American Literature and Culture" to attend this course
Beginn: 8.3.2005