Lehrveranstaltungsangebot im SS 2004 - Universität Erfurt

Universität Erfurt –Lehrveranstaltungsangebot Sommersemester 2004
1 07 2 008
Helmut Schwarztrauber
BA-Anglistik / Literaturwissenschaft
23.04.04 12:32:00
Female Realism – R. H. Davis, Ch. P. Gilman, S. O. Jewett, E. Wharton
206/764
Mi 14—16 LG 1 229
S WP O TZB auf 15
E
veranstaltungsbegl. Hausarbeit – selbstständige Hausarbeit
Anmeldung über Teilnehmerliste am Schwarzen Brett in M 1 600 in der ersten Woche vor
Veranstaltungsbeginn.
Still in the 19th century the contempt amongst American male fiction writers for their female
competitors was quite common, N. Hawthorne's curse of "the damned mob of scribbling
women" being only one of the most notorious verdicts. The conventional restriction of women's
personal interests to the boundaries of home, hearth, and husband found its literary expression
in rather trite and sentimental domestic sujets, whereas the great epic issues of the American
novel were claimed and left to be exclusively the domain of the MEN of letters. With the rise of
Realism after the Civil War, however, female authors began to reflect their own role conflicts in
connection with the social, economic, and cultural structure of society. Seen against this
background the seminar discusses examples of shorter works by R. H. Davis (1831-1910), Ch.
P. Gilman (1860-1935), S. O. Jewett (1849-1909), and E. Wharton (1862-1937) with regard to
the fictionalization of female role expectation, gender relationship, and artistic self-reflexion
within a dynamically changing and yet still male-dominated society during the last decades of
the 19th century.
Literatur:
Texts:
1. WOLFF, Cynthia Griffin, ed., FOUR STORIES BY AMERICAN WOMEN (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1990), ca. € 9.-
2. WHARTON, Edith, ETHAN FROME, ed. K. O. Lauer and C. G. Wolff (Norton Critical Edition:
New York & London, 1995), € 9.60
A fair number of texts will be ordered by the lecturer or provided as master copies.
A checklist of criticism for further reading and other handouts will be presented in the first
session of the course.