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This seminar will give you an opportunity to get acquainted with the works of a major eighteenth-century author. His poems cover an impressive range of topics including how to write literary texts, a very odd case of hair fetishism, the characters of women, architecture and what to do with one’s money. He wrote absolutely ferocious satires; these include The Dunciad, a mock-heroic poem describing, among other things, the reign of the goddess of Dulness and the bizarre rituals practised by her followers. His poems were regarded as models of elegance and formal accomplishment, at the same time, they can be full of fierce humour and bizarre surprises.
Requirements: regular attendance, reading the assigned texts, active participation, and written work according to your particular Studienordnung. As always: read, think, enjoy (!!), annotate (!) and look things up if necessary. The first text to be discussed is The Rape of the Lock. Please buy the following edition: Alexander Pope (ed.: Pat Rogers), Major Works (Oxford World´s Classics, ISBN 978-0-19-953761-7). |
