Literary theory helps us to think about various ways of exploring texts. Individual theories can provide specialized tools that enable us to do things with texts. To know how to use them is a bit like knowing how to use a variety of optical instruments. Imagine looking at an object through a magnifying glass and then through a microscope. The thing will remain the same, but each instrument will enable us to see aspects of it that would otherwise have been invisible. The image of the object under the microscope is totally different from what the naked eye sees – and yet both are “true”, revealing different aspects of the object. To think about literary theory is to think about basic questions of perspective and perception while enlarging one´s toolkit of approaches to literature.
The best way to understand tools is to use them. We are going to apply various theories to A.A. Milne´s stories about Winnie-The-Pooh and Lewis Carroll´s Alice´s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass – both of them weird and wonderful classics of children’s literature (of the kind that also appeals to adults), and both of them extremely sophisticated texts.
Please buy: A.A. Milne, Winnie-The-Pooh. With decorations by E.H. Shepard and A.A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner. With decorations by E.H. Shepard (both either in the Puffin or Methuen edition) and Lewis Carroll (ed. Martin Gardner), The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition: Alice`s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Penguin, ISBN: 9780393048476) A reader with additional material will be available from the usual place in Reckhammerweg.
Requirements: thorough preparation for each session, active participation, and, if applicable, written work/exam according to your particular Studienordnung. As always: think, enjoy (!), annotate, and look things up if necessary. |
