Difference between revisions of "2007-08 BM1: Session 12"

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Back to 2007-08 BM1 Introduction to the Critical and Scholarly Discussion of Literature, Part 1

• 2007-08 BM1 Introduction to the Critical and Scholarly Discussion of Literature

Expectations:

1: Construct correct bibliographical entries for the following items.

• The paperback edition of J. M. Coetzee’s Booker Prize Winning novel Disgrace published in the year 2000 by the New York publisher Vintage. (5)

• J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace, New York: Vintage, 2000.

[1 right sequence, 1 title in italics, 3 (6 x 0,5) complete data, 1 plausible punctuation]

• An article entitled Speech-Manuscript-Print, published in the year 1990 by the historian D. F. McKenzie, and to be found on pages 87 to 109 in volume 22 of The Library Chronicle of the University of Texas at Austin. (7)

• D. F. McKenzie, "Speech-Manuscript-Print", The Library Chronicle of the University of Texas at Austin 22 (1990): 87–109.

[1 right sequence, 1 article title in inverted commas, 1 Journal in italics, 3 (6 x 0,5) complete data, 1 plausible punctuation]

2: Knowledge about established notions on periods.

a) Indicate roughly the dates usually associated with three of the following five periods. (6)

• Renaissance: 1350/1500-1650
• Restoration: 1660-1700/1720
• Enlightenment: 1660/1680-1790
• Romantic Age: 1770-1830
• Victorian Age: 1832/1837-1900/1901

b) For three periods of your choice, name at least one typical feature conventionally associated with it. (6)

• Renaissance (c.1500 - c.1650): discovery of antiquity and roman/greek poetry, rejection of medieval period, discovery of the individual (Renaissance man), humanism, boom in drama (Shakespeare embodies it all), religious conflict: English reformation to Civil War, which establishes a puritan republic (1649-1660).
• Restoration (1660-1700): under the special protection of the court, libetinistic, witty
• Enlightenment (1660-1790): rationality, age of reason, sciences, philosophy, civil liberties, religious and political tolerance.
• Romanticism (1770-1830): reacts to the deficits of enlightenment, radicalises emotions (and expresses them individually), turn to nature, individuality, heroism (outsiderdom), fragment and infinity, escapisms: exotism, medieval / pagan past, initially politically radical, then a conservative turn, -- turn to popular forms, rejection of poetic diction,
• Victorian Era (1832-1900): period of British imperialism, duplicity of moral standards: an age of strict morals, suppression of sexuality, transgressive literature produced by an avantgarde of authors, aestheticism, strong class division reflected by literature: boom of commercial entertainments esp. melodrama.

c) For three periods of your choice, name one writer who wrote during this period. (3)

• Renaissance: William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser, John Fletcher, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Nashe, John Webster, John Donne
• Restoration: Willaim Wicherley, William Congreve, Apha Behn
• Enlightenment: Joseph Addisson, Richard Steele, Alexander Pope
• Romantic Age: Mary Shelley, William Wordsorth, Lord Byron
• Victorian Age: Charles Dickens, George Eliot

d) When were these periods 'invented'. Indicate roughly around what time scholars started constructing literary history as a succession of such periods. (3)

The present periodisation did basically beginn with the histories of literature produced in the 19th century

Es gibt halbe Punkte, wenn Folgefehler gemacht werden z.B.: Victorian age 14th century and Chaucer as poet.

3: Some aspects of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses can be described as 'postmodern'. Other aspects of the text can be described as 'postcolonial'. Give an example for either a postcolonial or a postmodern feature of the text.

4: In the context of Shakespeare studies what is

a) a Quarto edition? (5)

• An edition of a single play in quarto format (some of these were published during Shakespeare's lifetime - Shakespeare editors divide quartos into good, bad and doubtful quartos; only about half of Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions).

b) the Folio edition? (5)

• The edition of Shakespeare's collected plays published in 1623 in folio format.

5: Briefly characterise the status of Shakespeare

a) around 1600. (5)

• a prolific playwright and theatre entrepreneur, member of one of one of the theatre companies

b) in the nineteenth century. (5)

• The greatest English author if not the best author of all times, a genius; an author with insight into man's nature.

6: The meaning of the term 'poetry' has changed over the past few centuries. Name one contrast between the meaning of 'poetry' around 1700 and around 1900.

(10) points.

7: Formulate at least two different definitions of the term 'literature' and discuss what advantages and disadvantages each definition could have for the practice of literary studies.

(30 points)

Notenskala:

• 73 – 100: 1
• 61 – 72: 2
• 49 – 60: 3
• 37 – 48: 4
• 25 – 36: 5
• 0 – 24: 6