2007 HS Autobiography and Fiction in the Eighteenth Century

Course Description

This seminar will look at a spectrum of writings in the ‘autobiographical mode’ from the early to the late eighteenth century. We will read four texts which have in common that they presuppose a public interest in the account which the (real or fictitious) writer gives of his or her own life, but which otherwise differ vastly from each other. We will look at the stories which these texts they tell about their autobiographical subjects, at the type of public interest they anticipate, at the genre characteristics they use or play with, and at the truth claims and signs of fictionality they display.

The four texts are: [Delarivier Manley,] The Adventures of Rivella (1714), [Daniel Defoe,] The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (1722), [Laurence Sterne,] The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (1759—67), Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789). All primary texts are available in ECCO (Eighteenth Century Collections Online) in the original versions (links will be provided in Stud.IP). For Equiano’s Interesting Narrative, please purchase the Norton Critical Edition. Tristram Shandy is available from Penguin Classics and Oxford World's Classics.

Requirements: 1. Regular attendance and active participation (you may miss up to two meetings, whatever the reasons). 2. An oral contribution in the form of an ‘invitation to discussion’ (you formulate questions or statements concerning a particular text and topic, and invite the seminar to discuss them). 3. A term paper (generally dealing with one or several of the issues raised in your oral contribution; length ca. 20 pages; deadline October 1, 2007). The course may also be used as part of the BA Abschlussmodul or as preparation for the written exam in the Staatsexamen or Magister course of studies.