2007-08 BM1: Session 2

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


Received Notions on Periods in Literary History

  • Mittelalter, Renaissance, Barock, Aufklärung, Sturm und Drang, Klassik, Romantik, Vormärz/Biedermeier, Bürgerlicher Realismus? Naturalismus, Expressionismus...
  • Middle Ages, Early Modern Period (Renaissance, Civil War/Interregnum, Restoration, Augustan Age/Classicism, 18th Century, Age of Enlightenment, Age of Sensibility), Modern Period (Romanticism, Victoran Age, Modernism, Postmodernism)


Typical Features:

  • Middle Ages: Feudal Society, Christian dominance, restricted literacy, manuscripts, no united nation, wars of roses etc., Arthurian epics, danish invasions, norman invasion : medieval literature: either religious (legends of saints, prayer and mystical books...) or courtly (chaucer)
  • Renaissance (c.1500- c.1650): discovery of antiquity and roman / greek poetry, rejection of medieval period, discovery of the invidual (Renaissance man), humanism, boom in drama (Shakespeare embodies it all) religious conflict: English reformation to Civil War, which establishes a puritan republic (1649-1660).
  • Augustan Age/ Classicism: political stability and boom in poetry (Dryden, Pope as modern equivalents of Virgil, Horace or Ovid) French influence, 'art of poetry' poetics according to classicist rules, absolutist tendencies (england resists) dominance of form, rhetoric, poetic diction.

Second Thoughts

Robinson Crusoe: Augustan Age? Enlightenment? Sensibility?

More complex or differentiated perspectives

What do we do with...

Argument 1: Our historical periodisations are arbitrary

  • Our present histories of literature show different and competing periodisations, two conflicting positions towards periods should be reflected:
  • Periods exist with each era producing its characteristic literature. The great works of a period help us - consequently - to better understand the frame of mind of each age.
  • We produce ever changing periodisations to "prove" historical developments we want to claim as our cultural heritage. We base our notions of these developments on a canon of literary works which we select and interpret accordingly.
  • History and the past have played entirely different roles over the centuries. The discussion of historical and future developments are relatively new fields of the cultural debate.
  • If you do written work on the university level
  • Do not enrich your seminar papers with explanations of the period - which you feel your reader might need to understand the work in question (your reader can be expected to inform himself on such trivia).
  • You may critically discuss common or less common notions about periods (as to be found in Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia Britannica or in specific scientific works) - if you feel these notions distorted our view on materials you want to examine closer.

Different periodisations

A survey.

Patterns of periodisations

Periods follow traditions of how history is to be told and these arose in historical situations.

The existing patterns of periodisation are connected to different schools of thought and a matter of debate.

Periods - a matter of debate

Periods are used as protagonists, they act on each other within the histories we write and they do this to provide a certain development we try to prove. Our constructs of history are a matter of debate.

Two historical texts

What do we need to know about the period in which these titles were first published? Existing judgements - which do not really help us to understand these products.

William Salmon, The London Almanack for the Year of our Lord 1694 (1694)

A calender - a typical commercial product.

A close look on the calender's perspective on time, future, present and past.

A close look on the "Hieroglyphs" and their prognostics. What kind of questions is the author interested in? What interest does he (and his readers have in the future?

Samuel Madden, Memoirs of the Twentieth Century (1733)

The first novel with a futuristic setting.

Political satire rather than science fiction.

A striking lack of interest in the future?

Both texts share perspectives: some observations.

The production of history - whether past or future a 19th century affair

Pre-19th-century views of history

The definite beginning and the lack of developments

The lack of a future - due to a clear expectation of an end of history, characterised much more by the existing perspective on the past: a past of decisions and revolution rather than developments.

How to speak about periods productively

  1. Avoid historical introductions which you can only fill with commonplace knowledge.
  2. Quote sources like Wikipedia on periods only if you want to give a critical impression of circulating common perceptions (in contrast to more sophisticated concepts).
  3. Create historical contexts to settle specific questions (for instance to show why Salmon's predictions sounded plausible in 1694 and why he might have avoided reprints in succeeding editions of his almanack).
  4. Quote common and scholarly perspectives on historical periods to critically show how they influenced (or helped to avoid) readings of texts you are dealing with.