2007-08 BM1: Session 2

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 era, Modernism, Postmodernism).

Typical Features:

• Middle Ages: Feudal Society, Christian dominance, restricted literacy, manuscripts, no united nation, wars of roses etc., Danish invasions, Norman invasion; medieval literature: either religious (legends of saints, prayer and mystical books...) or courtly (Chaucer, Arthurian literature)
• 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

• 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.
• Enlightenment (1660-1790): rationality, age of reason, sciences, philosophy, civil liberties, religious and political tolerance.
• Sensibility (1720-1780): emotions (stereotypical), reacts to the deficits of enlightenment, sociability
• 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.

Second Thoughts

• different histories of literature offer different periodisations
• there is a continuous debate of how to properly understand and define the different periods
• the debate is marked by a problematic circularity: the period's definition predetermines the proper exploration of materials belonging into the period
• periods can refer to periods of time (e.g. enlightenment 1660-1790) and to styles and ideas (age of reason) at the same time;
• the style or idea we identify with a period becomes the central object to be explained at the cost of all other things one could explore when dealing with the same era
• our systems of periodisation are supported by notions like the contemporaneity of succeeding periods (Kosellek's: "Ungleichzeitigkeit des Gleichzeitigen") - an idea which creates histories of succeeding movements often at odds with the strict chronology of events (Locke's enlightenment does actually precede Handel's baroque music...)
• periods produce histories of interacting agents - the interaction we speak of is rarely a sketch of historical confrontations
• they give instant final answers: you wonder why something has the qualities it has got - its typical of that period

More complex or differentiated perspectives

• Most of the periods which we know, have been created in hindsight. Some indications for the history of periodisation is roughly as follows:

• before 1500: a sense of unbroken continuity with Roman empire and society (no sense of cultural difference), search for legitimation by succession to the Roman empire
• 1500-1650: introduction of a three phased model: ancient - medieval - modern; exclusion of medieval period, modern period tries to revive ancient models
• 1650-1750: battle of the ancients and the moderns: sense of difference between the modern and the ancient world.
• 1750- : discovery of Middle Ages as national past; modernity as the phase of intensified period-formation

• Periods are a complex battleground

• used to produce histories in contexts of scholarly and ideological confrontations,
• used by movements to either identify and position themselves or others as historical agents.

Consequences

we need to know about periods and their features we need to ask about when they were "invented" and what purpose their invention could serve

What do we do when we come across periods

• reflect on what purpose they serve in a given context
• you may create your own periods!
• you may prefer to identify and discuss historical developments
• you may wonder

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 agents, 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.