GRMN 535 - Goethe's Novels

Institution:

University of Pennsylvania

Subject:

Description:

MacLeod. Prerequisite(s): Upper-level course, assumes some familiarity with German literature and culture. With each of his major novels, Goethe intervened decisively and provocatively in the genre and wider culture. This seminar will analyze three of Goethe's novels spanning his career: the sensationial epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774, rev. 1787); the novel of adultery Elective Affinities (1809), and the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (1795/96). (We will also look ahead to his "archival" novel Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years [1829]). Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which these novels address questions of modernization - technology and secularization, to name only two -through the lens of individuals who understand themselves in relation to artistic media. We will also consider seminal scholarship on the novels (e.g. Benjamin, Lukacs) in addition to recent critical approaches.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Multiple

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.upenn.edu

Phone Number:

(215) 898-5000

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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