How does one manage to tell an interesting story? How is it possible to keep the reader's attention or to fool him and play with his expectations? Why do some narrative strategies which were rather common in the 18th or 19th century novel hardly ever appear in contemporary fiction? This seminar tries to explore in how far the role of the narrator has changed from the 18th to the 21st century. We will look at excerpts of various novels from all literary periods between 1719 and 2009 and put them into their historical and cultural context. Among others, we are going to read extracts from novels written by Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Virginia Woolf. Be prepared to do a lot of reading. There will be three small Reading Tests (multiple choice) Students are asked to buy their own copy of Kate Atkinson, Human Croquet (preferably the Black Swan edition from 1998, available at amazon.de) |
