RUB »  Faculty of Philosophy » English department »  English Literature » English Literature

Summer Semester 2024

Lecture

Narrative Theory
Online recordings, with additional Zoom meetings (voluntary)

This lecture will provide a systematic introduction to narrative, the emphasis being on fictional narrative in prose, i.e. on novels and short stories. It will discuss such topics as plot, setting, free indirect thought (Erlebte Rede), flashback, point of view, unreliable narrator, etc. While it is my aim to give a systematic description of the various components of narrative, I will attempt not to indulge in terminological nitpicking. Instead, I will try to show that the terms offered by narrative theory can be used in the analysis and interpretation of texts; in other words, I will point out the meanings or effects created by particular narrative choices. The lecture will be based on David Lodge’s comic novel, The British Museum is Falling Down, and a selection of shorter narratives. Master students may take the lecture in connection with the seminar “Unreliable Narration”, but of course this is not a must. Students who wish to prepare for the lecture may read Franz Stanzel, Typische Formen des Romans, 10th ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1981) or chs. 1 and 6 in Wayne Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Chicago UP, 1983); for more advanced students, I recommend Gérard Genette, Die Erzählung, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: UTB, 1998). The lecture will be recorded and provided online, with some voluntary Zoom meetings for questions.

Required text: David Lodge. The British Museum is Falling Down. Penguin, 2011, ISBN: 9780099554226. Other texts can be downloaded from Moodle.

Assessment: oral or written exam (you can choose).


BA-Seminar

The Play within the Play: Shakespeare, Sheridan, Stoppard

In this course, we will analyse three plays: William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (c. 1595), Richard B. Sheridan’s The Critic (1779), and Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing (1982). All of these feature a play within the play. This means that in the framework of the play that we see, the characters rehearse, discuss, perform or see another play. The dramatists use this constellation to satirise the vanity of actors, to parody poetic conventions and to explore the nature of fiction, illusion and the imagination, “the stuff as dreams are made on”, as Shakespeare wrote in another play.

Required texts: William Shakespeare. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Edited by R. A. Foakes, Cambridge UP, 2003, ISBN: 9780521532471; Tom Stoppard. The Real Thing. Faber & Faber, 2014, ISBN: 9780571270125. Other texts will be provided in Moodle.

Assessment: short paper based on a seminar session (Übung, 3 CP); long paper based on independent research (seminar, 4 CP).


MA/M.Ed.-Seminars

Unreliable Narration

In this course, we will analyse a topic that has been much debated in recent years: the unreliable narrator, variously defined as a narrator who does not speak or act in accordance with the norms of the work (Wayne Booth) or as a strategy of reading self-contradictory texts (Ansgar Nünning). We will look at the theoretical debates and analyse a range of examples from English and American Literature, including short stories by E. A. Poe, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and E. M. Forster as well as Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day.

Required texts: Kazuo Ishiguro. The Remains of the Day. Faber & Faber, 1999, ISBN: 9780571200733; Henry James. The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories. Edited by T. J. Lustig, Oxford UP, 2008, ISBN: 9780199536177.

Assessment: written assignments throughout the semester (Übung, 3 CP); written assignments throughout the semester plus short paper (seminar, 5 CP).


Robert Louis Stevenson: Essays and Fiction

This course is connected to an international conference entitled “Intertextual Stevenson”, which the teacher and his colleague Lena Linne are organizing. It will take place at the Beckmanns Hof just south of the Bochum campus from 27 to 29 June 2024. Students are expected to attend at least one of the panels at this event (a panel is a themed section comprising two or three talks). In the course, we will read and analyse a representative selection from Stevenson’s fiction and his essays, with a focus on texts that are discussed at the conference. The precise choice of texts will be made after the deadline for this course description, but the classic Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde will definitely be included.

Required texts: will be communicated at a later point.

Assessment: written assignment connected with one of the talks at the conference (Übung, 3 CP); written assignment connected with one of the talks at the conference plus short paper (seminar, 5 CP).



Research Seminar

Presentation of Projects

This is a seminar for graduates and advanced students who are working on PhD, Master or BA theses. Participants will take turns presenting their work in progress. Students who wish to take part should contact the teacher.

Assessment: will be arranged individually.


Links